A couple of Thursdays ago I went to my first life drawing class at CSM.
I had not been to a human figure life drawing class in years. Sometimes I hang around my neighbourhood surrounded by the city noise drawing the urban landscape on my sketch pad.
When I draw human figure it’s mostly on public transport. This is a man on the tube.
I could not remember the last time I drew the human figure in a studio but probably not for a decade?
But let’s go back to last week’s gestural drawing session. I remember entering a class crowded with students. Everyone had already taken their places as I looked for the last available seat. The model was already posing and everyone was silently at work.
At first I was struck by the model’s facial features, there was something child-like about his physiognomy that I could not quite capture on paper. I was not meant to focus on details like the face since the purpose of this short posing exercise was to catch the subject’s basic form and the expression of movement.
I admit that I obsess over details sometimes. I recall thinking that the model had some of the longest limbs I’d ever seen and that his feet where just made to be drawn: so beautifully-shaped and sculptural!
Below are few two minutes poses I drew with the brush pen.
I was impressed by the lack of noise in the room. This made me realise what a loud person I am. At first I struggled with the silent environment. It might sound odd but the simple activity of sketching involves a lot of moving and fiddling around. The movement from the upper limbs and head extends to the whole torso and therefore drawing can be quite noisy for some people.