Touching Up An Awkward Breast (Life Drawing)

Member Name: hellyphant

Product:	Life Drawing
Date:	15/04/02 (3193 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: something to do in the evening other than watch TV, fun, satisfying, you get to meet very bizarre people

Disadvantages: can be frustrating, can also be quite expensive

Life drawing. Drawing life. No, not the bus you catch to go to work or the TV you watch in the evening. Life drawing is all about breasts and bottoms (ok, stop with the sniggering boys), legs and arms, faces and toes - all put together in the right order...to make a human being.

I've always been quite creative. I studied Art up to A level and spent every spare second locked away in my bedroom sketching and painting. I even drew on my bedroom walls - much to the disgust and anger of my mother! Then when it came to filling out my UCAS form, many anguished months were spent tossing coins. Heads English, Tails Art. In the end a very persuasive English teacher and a couple of A starred essays decided my future. I've often regretted my choice. When I first arrived at Uni I would walk through the Art Studios with the smell of paint and clay in the air and glare jealously at the scruffy Art students and the wonderful laid back life they seemed to lead.

I knew I had to carry on with my art in some way. I would have gone mad if I hadn't. So I set about finding some suitable classes. When I saw an advert in my local library for life drawing classes, although it was something I'd never done before, I felt like a new challenge was just what I needed. So I enrolled, went along to the first class and have never looked back. Dramatic as this may seem, my art classes were my life line during those first few lonely, depressing months at uni.

Colleges nowadays offer a huge variety of evening and daytime courses. So you shouldn't have any trouble finding a life drawing class to suit your individual needs. Obviously this is me the Londoner speaking - so I'm used to having the best choice of everything. But when I was a poor student living in Lancaster, I didn't have any problems finding what I wanted either. So even outside London (yes, I'm actually accepting that London isn't the centre of the universe!) around almost every

corner you'll find yourself bumping into a nude body and a class full of eager smudgy faced students.

Make a visit to your local library - they'll point you in the right direction - and you'll find numerous college prospectuses detailing the various life drawing classes in your area.

If you're especially lazy or have no idea where your local library is (shame on you!), there's always the trusty Internet. Mr Lazy's faithful friend. Do a search on www.google.co.uk and all the information you need will appear before your very eyes in mere seconds.

Sometimes life drawing classes are advertised in the newspapers or in shop windows. One life drawing class that I went to was actually advertised on a noticeboard in Hampstead Heath, next to notices about conservation and butterfly trails. So keep your eyes open - sometimes adverts placed in the most obscure and unusual places attract all kinds of bizarre and interesting people - and the classes tend to be far smaller than 'proper' college classes so you'll get more attention and help from the teacher. The classes often aren't held in the traditional art studio either. The ones I went to were taught in an old church in Highgate (a rather posh part of London for those who don't know the area). Although it was winter and very cold, the whole echoey atmosphere of the church, with easels set up around the pews was very surreal and put me in an even more artistic and creative frame of mind.

Do be careful though - don't assume that all adverts are genuine. Avoid scribbled handwritten notes offering classes at a private address, with a mobile number to call for further information. It's always better to be cautious about these things.

Prices vary. As with most things, you get a fairly large discount if you're a student, unemployed or an OAP. It will also depend on where you live. London is obviously going to be the most ex
pensi
ve - and if you enrol for a course at a renouned and very high profile college such as St Martins - then be prepared to delve deep deep deep into the depths of your wallet. (Remember the Pulp song 'Common People' - where the posh girl who studies at St Martin's college catches the common Mr Jarvis's eye?)

To give an example of prices, as a student in Lancaster I paid £45 for 10 weeks worth of lessons - 3 ½ hours every Wednesday afternoon - working out as £45 for 35 hours. Excellent value for money - and I've yet to find anywhere that can match it. Now in London and no longer a scrounging student, I dished out a disgusting £99 for a weekly 2 hour session, working out as £99 for 20 hours.

Some classes are more expensive because they provide you with all the necessary materials - paper, charcoal, paints etc. You'll need to do your research - and ultimately it is of course up to you. But I always feel that if you're really interested in life drawing then you?re going to want to practise at home in your own time, so in theory you'll need to buy your own materials anyway. College paints and paintbrushes tend to be pretty manky aswell - frayed bristles, dry lumpy paints - eugh! And then there's always the mad scrabbling rush as students fight to get to the paint cupboard first. I always seem to be last in this rush, maybe because I'm small and all the horrible Big people push me out the way. By the time I get to the cupboard, the selection of materials is usually limited to a stub of a pencil and a couple of broken pastels. Not a good way to start the lesson!.


**Kevin the teenager with raging hormones**
"Wow...you mean I get to stare at a fit naked chick all evening?"

Life Drawing classes are not peep shows Kevin. ("What...what...well that?s just SO unfair??")Yes, the classes do involve staring at a naked body for several hours but the whole drawing process
and the w
ay you are taught to look at the body is completely asexual. You come to art classes as an art student not a boy (or girl) with raging hormones. There's many places in Soho to satisfy those kind of needs.

The first time you go to a life drawing class, it does admittedly feel a little strange and intrusive to just be sitting there staring at a stranger's body. I was very embarrassed in my first lesson. For the first half an hour, I was too embarrassed to look at the model at all. I just stared at my paper and made up what I imagined was in front of me. But that's not going to get you anywhere, and just defeats the whole purpose of the classes. Remember that you're not the naked one. Models are generally fairly confident about their bodies - they don't have any qualms about posing naked for a bunch of strange people so there's certainly no reason for you to feel embarrassed. And remember they're just there doing their job, and earning money just to sit there gazing into space.

After an hour or so you do actually forget that the model is a real person. The model becomes a body - the body simply becomes a shape, a form, and all you're looking at is the way light and shadow fall on certain areas, how your pencil curves around the hips and the many different colours and textures of human flesh. The person inside the body is now irrelevant.

And anyway Kevin - if you turned up to a life drawing class with a gang of your horny mates, you'd be kicked out pretty quick. Life Drawing classes are generally geared towards adults. 6th Form students are always welcome, but 16 is probably the youngest age they will allow.

So what exactly is a model? Say the word to someone and what immediately springs to mind - big names like Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell - with their perfect bodies gracing the pages of Cosmo or strutting their slim twix-like legs down the catwalk. Models in life drawing classes
are something
else - they are not always beautiful for a start (if they were they'd be making their money in other ways!) They are simply models in the sense that they are modelling their human form - fat or thin - for a group of eager art students.

I had a huge shock when I innocently went along to my first life drawing class. There I was, sitting on a wonky stool behind my easel along with all the other students, waiting for the model to make an appearance. When she finally turned up she was covered from head to toe in a black robe. She mounted a small platform in the centre of the art studio and let her robe slip to the floor. I gasped in utter shock. The woman was hideous. (Sorry to be blunt - but she was actually very proud of her own ugliness). She was short, stumpy and very overweight. Her stomach consisted of roll upon roll of sausage fat, her skin was saggy and shrivelled, and grey hairs seemed to sprout in places they really didn't belong. I couldn't believe I was going to be forced to look at this woman for 3 whole hours.

None of the other students seemed to be remotely bothered though. Most were really enthusiastic about this overweight woman and her sausages. All around me were mutters of "ooooh...how interesting?" and "wow, this is going to be such fun!."

It took me a while to realise I wasn't in a class full of complete loonies and that they were actually talking sense. Ugly overweight women are just fascinating to draw - the texture of that saggy shrivelled skin - and the creative possibilities of those sausages...!

A bony Kate Moss-like perfection just doesn't have the same appeal. Perfection is so dull to draw.

Oh, and although the models are usually of the female variety, you do get the odd nude male. I personally dislike drawing men almost as much as I dislike drawing perfect women. All shoulder blades and hairy chests. Sorry men, but women are just s
o much more interest
ing to draw. And far easier too!


***Rosalie the nervous granny***

"I find the human body fascinating and have always longed to learn how to draw it properly. Now I have time on my hands, I would love to go to classes. But will I be out of place - all those youngsters and their abstract art. I'm so new to this and I feel very nervous"

Rosalie isn't just some random Granny I made up in my head - she's mine - and her words and the scenario she found herself in a few years back is real. Once she'd built up the courage to go along to her first life drawing class, she realised she had nothing to worry about. A wide variety of people are interested in life drawing. It's not just A level students or trendy wannabes with dreadlocks and pierced noses.

Life drawing is for everyone: Grannys, Grandads, mothers, fathers, the unemployed, professional artists, complete beginners, or just someone like me - neither beginner nor professional - just someone with an interest and love of art.

However, if you enrol for a daytime class, you're more likely to be drawing with the older generation or the unemployed, as most other people will be tied up with dull things like work, school or college.

If you're a complete beginner and have never done any drawing before, there are specific beginner's courses in life drawing. They're a little more tricky to find than your bog standard class for all standards and abilities. But if you're really nervous then by all means enrol for one. Everyone will be at the same level as you and you should get plenty of attention and help from the teacher.

I?m always put off by beginner's classes myself - especially in life drawing - as the ones I have been to were just so incredibly dull. We started off learning about proportion and measurements and spent several hours practising different types of shading an
d making measurements wit
h a ruler. So frustrating when all I wanted to do was get my hands on the paints and the pastels and just do my own experimenting.

**So what can I expect to do in a typical class then?**

The teacher will tell the model to sit/lie/stand in a particular way. And yes, sometimes the teacher is very cruel and makes the model stand in ridiculous poses - for example - with her head between her legs and her arms in the air. The teacher will then tell you how long the pose will be held for. Normally, lessons will start with a series of very short poses - some as short as 2 minutes. I found this time limit very constricting at first as I was used to spending hours and hours on each drawing I did. But I soon got used to it. The short poses encourage you to draw freely without worrying about minute detail or absolute perfection, which means that your hand will draw impulsively, from your heart rather than from your head.

As the lesson progresses, the poses are generally held for longer periods of time, and you are encouraged to use materials other than pencil. I would always make a dash for the paint cupboard, because I love colour and texture. The actual style of teaching will of course differ from class to class. I had one teacher who would walk round the room while we were all sketching away, and would stop by each person giving them tips and helping them out with any problems. Another teacher liked us all to turn our easels towards the centre of the room after every pose so that we could comment on each others work. God, I hated that.

Oh, and beware of the model her/himself taking a wander around the room at the end of the lesson. My pictures were often far from flattering (well, what are you sopposed to do with saggy flesh and rolls of sausages??) - and I always used to worry that the model would take offence. She never actually said anything to me, but I have to admit that she did sometimes look at my
work with a grimace on her fac
e. Although maybe that was just because she didn't think I was very good! Who knows...

A good teacher will always introduce you to the work of other artists. You might be shown slides, or given photocopied pictures or an art book to look at. I always find it very helpful to look at how other artists tackle the nude as it gives me ideas and inspiration. Modigliani is one of my personal favourites.


***Preparing for your first lesson***

I don't claim to be a great or experienced artist in any way, shape or form. But I have been to a great many life drawing classes over the last few years and I wish that someone had given me tips on how to prepare for my first life drawing class. It would have saved me turning up for my first lesson knowing absolutely nothing, and feeling even more nervous and shy than I normally do. I definitely would have found it very helpful to have got some practise in before classes began - but I had no idea where or how to start. So listen up you budding dooyooing artists out there, follow hellyphant's advice and send those nerves packing...

*MATERIALS*

As I pointed out earlier - if you want to practise at home - and you want to ensure the materials you use in class are of reasonable quality - you will need to buy your own. I'd advise you to go to a proper art shop rather than somewhere like WHSmiths as the selection and the help you'll get will be of a much better quality.

Just start with the basics:

* an A4 size sketch pad
* a selection of soft sketching pencils (between 2B and 8B - ask the shop assistant if you have no idea what I'm talking about!)
* a few sticks of charcoal
* a putty rubber

If, like me, you really want can't wait to get your hands on some colour, I'd advise you to start off with:

* a selection of acrylic paints
or
* a selection of past
els

Once you've got yo
ur materials sorted, you're ready to start practising. So get some old clothes on (Yes, you will get dirty!) and clear a space on the table...

*NOW WHAT?*

There are numerous ways to practise - you could sketch your mum/dad/sister/brother while they watch TV. Or you could take your sketchbook out to the park with you - and sketch the people you see there. It's best to start with very quick line drawings - it doesn't matter if they don't look very good. Just keep going - you'll get there in the end. I always found it helpful to draw sections of the body - for example - just heads - or just hands. Experiment with your different materials - see what looks good together. If it's the first time you've used paints, just take a few pages out of your sketchbook and practise mixing colours, layering one on top of the other or adding pastel or pencil to a painted area once it has dried. Don't be scared to experiment.

You may want to do some research into the various measurements and proportions of the human form. (Eugh - the very thought makes me groan in pain - all those ruler measurments and pencil scaffoldings)

The best advice I can give you, without writing another 1000 words here, is to go to your local library and find a book on life drawing. If it's a big library, there should be a fairly wide choice of art books. I've found some excellent ones. My personal recomendation is 'A Step by Step Guide To Drawing The Figure' by John Raynes, which is wonderful for beginners in life drawing and full of very helpful tips. You may actually wish to buy this book as it's something you'll want to refer back to again and again.


************ ~ > ~ > ~ > ~ > ~ ************

Some of the happiest times of my life have been spent standing behind an easel in an art studio. Drawing just gives me such a warm, tingly, satisfied feeling in
side. I would liken it to sex, but that&
#39;s never quite as satisfying, or chocolate, but that never lasts and too much makes you feel sick. I know that art isn't for everyone, but I would like to think that all you dooyooers out there, in your different ways, have something that gives you complete satisfaction and fulfilment.

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