November 18, 20-minute drawings

What makes a good life drawing pose

Short poses November 13

Modelling for group life drawing sessions is not about taking your clothes off and becoming the inspiration for a beautiful work of art. Models are doing something really hard that takes stamina, strength and courage: allowing strangers to objectify them--stare at them--
to improve their drawing skills. It's not an easy way to make some money. It's not salacious, conventional beauty isn't really required.

Most people who attend group life drawing do not expect to produce works of art during the session. Some people come with that specific purpose, some are just that good. But most just like drawing. Some apply their drawing skills in other ways: at work as illustrators or animators, to build portfolios for school admission, or in more sustained art projects.

My primary goal while I'm drawing is accuracy. The first step is getting the proportions right. After that, I try to describe dimensionality, weight, compression, balance and tension. I want my drawing to be expressive, to convey the emotional state the model is portraying, because I've rendered it accurately, not necessarily creatively. That's when I think I've done a good drawing and that's what I want a viewer to react to. 

Life drawing is like archery, I'm trying to hit a bull's eye, and I usually don't. I do not use  words like inspiration and creation to describe what I'm doing. The drawings I do in life drawing sessions aren't works of art, they're exercises towards a goal.

A lot depends on the model. A pose can illustrate an emotional state (whether what I see is what the model intends to project or not) by being closed or open, erect or collapsed, twisted or bowed. I am bowled over by a model who can project something in a pose.  I am not usually aware of the impact of a short pose while I'm drawing it because I don't have time. If my drawing is good enough, the end result communicates what I might not have even seen.

I'm also highly appreciative of a model who understands what can be drawn in the time allotted. I go to short pose and long pose sessions. 

Short pose sessions start off with a number of  30-second or one-minute poses, then three-minute, five-minute, ten-minute and 15- or 20-minute poses depending on what the group or the session leader decides.

(While I'm on the subject, I would like to know what the value of 30-second poses is. Worse still, how does trying to draw a model moving from pose to pose without stopping improve my game? What am I supposed to be drawing?) 

Long pose sessions range from  45 minutes to  three or four hours, during which the model takes regular breaks and resumes the same pose. Many drawers work on the same drawing for the duration of the session. For this to work, the lighting has to remain consistent, and the model has to be aware of exactly where all his or her parts are during the pose, including the angle of shoulders and hips, tilt of the head, etc.  Tape  is used to mark the position of feet on the floor, and if seated, the position of hands or arms on the chair. The model also chooses a single distant point and periodically focuses on it to maintain head position. Some people sight the point down their noses.

 

My highly subjective guidelines for good modelling

 

Overall pose: compact versus extended

For a short pose (less than ten minutes), the best pose is a relatively compact one. It's easier to draw parts in relationship to each other, for example, the length of an arm as it crosses a chest, or the size of a hand held in front of a face. Compact poses often create enclosed or partially enclosed spaces. The shape of the space inside a crooked arm or between lower legs is easy to draw and provides a reference for drawing the body parts that form it.

In short poses, postures where all arms and legs extend away from the body are difficult to draw because it is difficult to keep proportions correct. Even harder when the drawer and model are only a few feet away from each other.

For long poses, extended, extreme postures are obviously hard to hold and if the pose is so long that there are coffee breaks, the model often has difficulty resuming it. From a fixed point of view, which is what the drawer has, a hand at the end of an arm stretched towards the viewer obscures parts of the arm and torso. A small change in the angle of the arm or the twist of the model's torso can completely change the pose.

I prefer poses that people normally assume: sitting, squatting, standing, crouching, leaning, the things people do in everyday activities.

 

A flail is a fail

Extreme acrobatic poses that don't have a clear line of action usually don't produce good drawings. I concede that a model might successfully portray someone falling from a skyscraper or being torn limb from limb, but those sorts of poses usually just look confused. Also refer to the section, compact versus extended, above.

 

Lying down on the job

Erect postures have tension and balance; both are usually missing in relaxed lying down poses. When I draw a sleeping person I feel like I'm making an inventory of loosely connected shapes. Once or twice in a session is enough. Maybe twice: show your back to one side of the room, then the other. We got it; a repeat is not necessary.

Drawing a lying down pose can be challenging. To draw a head in a horizontal position you really have to look at it. The conventions you use when drawing a face is upright won't automatically work; among other things the way light hits it is radically different.  It's even more difficult to draw an upside-down head. Once a session is more than enough.

 

Hands, face, hair

The position of the model's hands can be critical to a pose, as in a hand on a hip bracing the upper torso. It's always worth the time to draw them. For short poses, however, some hand positions are just too complicated. Case in point: hands with fingers interwoven. They take a lot of time to draw, and I find that simplification of both hands into a mass just doesn't' work very well.  Once per session is enough.

In short poses, there is rarely enough time to capture a face accurately.  Being able to see the model's face is helpful in conveying expression; conveying the tilt of the head accurately is more than half the battle. Hair tied back beats big hair.
 
Hiding hands and face removes emotional cues. I once attended a session where the model, unasked, put a bag over her face and boxing gloves on. It was weird. Dr Sketchy sessions are a bit like that, but you know in advance that you are going to be drawing a costume and that the model intends to influence what you draw.

 

Feet

I want to see the points at which the figure makes contact with the floor. It lets me show how the figure balances, how the weight is conveyed down the figure to the ground. Hiding feet or bum behind objects removes a great deal of information.

 

In short

Most short poses in a session should be based on normal activities, not what you do at the Cirque. You can save those for longer poses where I have a chance of doing them justice. 

Lying down for every pose of 10 minutes or longer is boring. Maybe you should take a nap before you come to work. 

Tie your beautiful hair up. (Wisps can be very nice.) 

Don't hide your feet. They anchor your pose.
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Weekly life drawing harvest

Short poses at Antonio's place. I'm still far behind where I was last year. These are my reminder to work harder.

Back to life drawing

First time at life drawing since June. 20 minute pose. (I've gotten too slow, I need to regain some lost ground.)