Life drawing, week 1

The life drawing component of the foundation course consists of six evening sessions. I expected to be a lifeless limp rag after the day of "crating" and book-presentation excitement, but once we got drawing, the energy came - I suspect the attitude and expertise of the teacher had a lot to do with this! Also, a spacious, quiet room. The life drawing session is meant to be a "safe place" for everyone.

First, an hour-long pose in which we could do anything we wanted. After that, we followed directions.

In the cold light of next day you're finally detached from your drawing and can see what "needs attention" -- that arm, especially!

My favourite part of the class was the moving around to the next easel, rubbing out what that person had done, and doing it "your way" on top of the vestiges of that drawing. We did that 3 times and got to claim the final one as "ours". This was about two things - not being precious about your own drawing (or your preconceptions), and about seeing the figure from different perspectives - not only physically as you moved round the room, but psychologically as you looked at and reworked the previous drawing.

On the floor are the "gesture drawings" which preceded this exercise.