Beautiful Human Pretzel

Well, my run of not-great drawings continues, but I just had to post this one anyway. I did this sketch in about 60 seconds during the break- thus the model has her clothes on. The class is an advanced one and the models hold poses for up to half an hour, so Darinka took the opportunity to do some yoga to get the kinks out. I hope you can tell what you're looking at- her hands ran into the binding. Her shoulder blades and her knees are on the same plane. Wow. If you could see her face, you would be able to see just how much she's not struggling to hold the possition.

I've had this model in portrait drawing too, and she's always fun. Just wish I could do her justice.

Not Feeling Like an Adult Today

Creepy creepy creepy.

We have had a wide variety of excellent models in my life drawing class. In all my life drawing classes, actually. Today for the first time, we had one I just plain didn't like, and it's making me feel really juvenile, like I'm 13 again.

He told us all about how he'd been fired as a secondary school teacher (I think this is what he said, but he was speaking german with a strong french accent, so I'm not sure) because he had been very vocal about the overly harsh punishments for students caught smoking, so now he is working as a model. He kept shifting his feet as he said this. We've had some models that are a bit nervous or shy, but this was something else.

Then he told us about some artsy photographs he had posed for taken by Big Famous French-Speaking Artist (of whom I've never heard, but that doesn't mean much.) He offered to show us these pictures on his laptop (which he just happened to have with him) and my Excellent Art Teacher said ok (perhaps EAT has heard of BFF-SA.) So the pictures are dragging on and on and scary model keeps saying "oh, this is the last one" and EAT is starting to itch, I can tell, and making 'we should get drawing' noises and so on.

So when the guy has finally finished looking at a dozen plus naked picture of himself and taking us along for the ride, he takes the towel off to pose, and voila, his penis is purple and standing out parallel to the floor. Hey, I guess it can happen.

He assumed one difficult pose after another and always told us what he was doing. Javelin. 100 meter dash. Bow and arrow. I wouldn't have minded his playing olympic athelete if it made him happy, but he couldn't hold the positions.

In the middle of class we always have a 20 minute break (it's a 3.5 hour class), but he decided not to put any clothes back on. Because I am such a stinky drawer (love that word) and need the practice (and focus) I usually stay in the room. Not this time. There was one last person fetching her purse to nip down to the cafe, and he was sidling up to me. I'm sure it meant nothing. I'm sure it was totally innocent. I'm sure the fact that he has no eyebrows, that his face looks like it's been pealed, that he has no lips and that his elbow does this weird sort of moon crater-dimple-inverted nipple thing when he straightens his arm had nothing to do with it. But I left anyway.

So now my skin is still crawling *and* I'm feeling guilty about it. Honestly. I really don't know if it was me or him.

Blech. Anyway, the only thing that held still long enough for me to draw it was his right foot (above).

Some Drawings, At Last.

We had an excellent model a few weeks ago- about 100 years old, very interesting to draw, but alas I was doing really poor work that day and didn't do him justice at all.

This week I did a little better; still not great, but here it is. Again, the model was good, beautiful, Ruebensesque, and tough as old shoes. Really, I don't know how they hold those positions.

Here are two drawings from the same pose, one in pencil, one in charcoal.

Lost For Words

I don't have much to say at the moment. I am grumpy and trying to figure out what I need to do. Now that I'd decided once and for all to write and *only* write this autumn, my favourite and extremely excellent former teacher and sent me a letter, asking for a few more students to fill up his life drawing class which is in danger of being cancelled. So now that I've said I will only write, I have this to post:

I think it's the first time Middlekid has held still long enough for me to do a scribble.

Blogger Philosophy

Does a blogger who isn't blogging still exist? Perhaps I just rematerialise once in a while to write this blog.

So where have I been for the past month? Well the kids started school, and I started portrait drawing and an online writing class at Gotham, and on Thursday I start Italian.

Portrait drawing is hard. But The teacher is good. He actually thinks up exercises that will target specific skills and make us get better at drawing. This sounds obvious. It isn't. It is scary how many drawing classes are the same every day and do not move forwards. Every day you go in and draw, but they so clearly don't even expect you to improve. How depressing. Right, so if I draw anything more attractive than vomit, I'll post it. Hasn't happend yet, in spite of teacher's efforts.

Writing. I'm a little disappointed with the class. Once, I actually got a decent bit of feedback from my teacher, and she said 'I'm writing this because I'm stuck in a plane, don't expect this all the time.' Argh. I calculate I've paid about $43 per lesson. No way am I getting 43 dollars worth of feedback. Her participation in the discussions is pathetic. I would love to know how much time per week she is putting into the class. Also, tech support is nonexistant. I inquired twice about formatting, inquired also of the teacher. Never got an answer.