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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Distracted drawing

Forgot to mention that last weekend I went to a life drawing class organised by one of my colleagues at the art school. She'd mentioned in the email that she'd booked 'C' as the model. Having not hung around life modelling circles for a while, and needing to know what materials to pack, I wanted to know what C looked like (it's a name that can apply to both sexes). You know, if C was a short, round woman, I would have packed the soft lush black charcoal. If tall, male and boney, it would have been the 2B pencil.

Her email replied: 'C is a tall lean/ muscular dude.'

So I went along with pencils, hard charcoal, and a biro.

C *is* a tall, very muscular young dude, with a back, sack and crack job, I suspect, because he's pretty hairless. Very wide shoulders, narrow hips, a bit like Michelangelo's David, but with very straight dark hair that hangs lankly on either side of his face. Like most people who take up life modelling, he's determined to have a distinct personality: he only seems to wear white, with purple crocs, and his poses are extremely energetic, which is fantastic for the short poses, but a bit much for the longer poses because his limbs start to droop out of place.

It was a mildly intimidating morning, because the room was full of artists who either teach at the art school, used to be teachers, or went there as students and now have fab arts-industry jobs. C would freeze himself into a pose that always seemed to leave me with intense foreshortening, and all I could think about as I drew was that any minute now, Jahteh would burst through the door, grab C, throw him over her shoulder and run out the door again, taking him home to do her washing up and promising to buy him some new white clothes if he was a very good boy.

Postscript: I got a chance to scan a drawing. This relates to the comments thread if you check it out (although this is NOT my first drawing for the session. It's my second-last, and took 15 minutes. I don't like his upper shoulder/chest bit, but I'm quite pleased with this from the waist down.):

15-min model

Apologies for the line down his middle. It's an A3 drawing and the scanner is only A4.

8 comments:

genevieve said...

Oh blimey! Post Of The Week! Acutely observed AND humorous. Thanks, Duck.
What larfs.

JahTeh said...

New shoes at any rate!

I'm no good at life drawing at all or clay modelling or sculpture but I make a fantastic watcher.

Poppy Letterpress said...

Ha! I know exactly who you're talking about. I had him as my life model on my hen's day. He was most impressed that he was the only man attending the hens, too. Best life model I've ever had, very energetic, and not afraid to give some giggling girls some eyebrow-raising poses. :)

Ampersand Duck said...

Ah. Yes. I made the mistake of glancing at his, er, bits, when he first stood on the podium (they were so different in colour from the rest of his body that they couldn't help but catch the eye, and in a very fetching shade of purple all over), and he noticed. So of course, I got the first full eyeful of a pose.

So I know exactly what you're talking about, PL. Great idea for a creative hen's party, though!

lucy tartan said...

"Like most people who take up life modelling, he's determined to have a distinct personality"

so very true. When I took up life drawing again after fifteen years off I was very struck (if that's the word) by the models' near-universal total depilation, so unlike how it used to be.

LOL very much at the last paragraph.

fifi said...

hoooweee! magna doodle!

the drawing- love it!


"(they were so different in colour from the rest of his body that they couldn't help but catch the eye, and in a very fetching shade of purple all over"


how very intriguing.


My male model has a spectacular load of bits, but purple they are not. Very expressionist.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

haw - purple nadgers - must have a good blood supply. I wonder if his fingers and toes were white and cold?

great drawing Ducky - that pose for the upper torso, what a bitch, distorted and foreshortened. but you've nailed* the belly, groin and legs.


*ooh err.

JahTeh said...

Sweet pototoes, I knew there was something I left off the shopping list.