Week 37 - learning life drawing

Perhaps I'm a bit of a contradiction.  Well, in fact I know I am in many ways, but what I'm referring to in this context is my creativity.  Today, I'm a creative through and through in both my work and my life; I love art, design, fashion, interiors, ideas......and everything else.  However, ask me to actually design anything and I fall at the first hurdle.  I might have interesting ideas and a good imagination but articulating them on paper has always been a struggle.  I've always been a very visual person but for me, I need to see things as they are for me to get the picture. i.e. someone has to present me with that picture rather than me create it myself.  Basically what I'm saying is, I can't draw from my imagination. It was the same at school in art class, I was useless and ironically felt so uncreative. 

Well, at least I'm trying now with all these silly classes and workshops.  This week I ventured to a life drawing class.  I've never been to one and thought it might be fun......to sit with several others staring  incessantly at a naked body.  I was secretly hoping it was going to be a man, not to sit and stare you understand; I knew right away that it was never going to be a sexual thing, in these situations it can often be clinical rather than sexy.  But the point is, I see the naked form in women all the time - we all do, naked women are everywhere.  But naked men are a little more elusive and I thought potentially more interesting to draw.   

My heart, therefore sank just a tiny bit when I arrived at the class and saw that the model was a woman.  Nevertheless I was intrigued and ready to draw the gorgeous, female form.   I grabbed a load of materials and sat down.

Each pose that the model chooses is split up into different allotments of time to both help warm up and draw in different styles.  So we started with a ten minute pose followed by five, two minute poses and then a fifteen minute pose.   I have to say that at first I was fairly nonplussed by the sight of the model.  She was a slim, average looking, fairly "normal" woman in her forties.  Nothing exceptional, nothing unusual, no defining features.  But, as I started drawing I became engrossed and fascinated.  Translating the image of a real life human body onto paper somehow, ironically brings all of the beauty, uniqueness and the sexiness of the person to life.  Its a very odd concept.

I'm not sure how well I did but this was my first attempt.  

I'd forgotten how bad I am at drawing hands and feet, its extremely difficult and as I started to see other people's drawings, I think a lot of people feel the same way and try to avoid drawing them accurately.  But then, thats the thing, you can use any style you want and who says that the visual representation has to be accurate? This is of course, one of the great joys about art in all its forms. 

After a quick break we moved onto another couple of quick poses and then two longer stints of 20 minutes.  After trying to break free of my realistic attempts with pencil, I tried a little abstract work with charcoal but quite frankly, I'm not even going to post those pictures here they were so awful.  So instead, here is my last attempt of the evening. (Ignore the hands and feet). 

I really enjoyed the evening and found the advice and comments from Mark, the teacher, very helpful.  Once we'd all finished, everyone was encouraged to show their works to one another.  Its amazing how different every single piece was and how someone views something so uniquely.  I took a few shots and you can see the spectrum of work below.  (Mine are last).

For £8.50 this class is a total bargain.  You get all the materials provided plus a pretty decent, home cooked meal as well.  Check out Adrian Dutton who runs the company and puts on the classes in East London every night of the week.  

In terms of my creative drawing abilities, I don't think I'm going to be wining awards any time soon.  But, I might go back to another few classes and then hopefully I might get to see how much I enjoy drawing a naked man....or not.

I left mine until last!