Daily Archives: March 19, 2017

Life Drawing

Posted by Kerry McFall, March 18, 2017

All drawing is really life drawing, right?  Landscapes are geography and biography and every kind of life.  Cityscapes are filled with the architecture that has resulted from someone’s life.  Funny how the nude human body is what most artists think of, though, when someone uses the term “life drawing”.

I’ve been doing some life drawing, or as I prefer to call it figure drawing, at our local Arts Center‘s Open Studio evenings.  It’s daunting, but I’m determined to keep at it.  Human flesh tones seem unforgiving.  Human shapes require accurate representation, at least if you’re going to satisfy the Resident Critic at my house.  There is no formal instruction, just a bit of informal critiquing among a handful of folks.  The models so far have been very cooperative, even fascinating, posing in a not-very-warm basement, bringing their own props, costumes, and sound tracks.  One even brought her very own live turkey!

I’m not very confident about posting nudes online, so I choose the ones that are mostly covered.  I suppose that’s a holdover from my mother’s prudish condemnation of anyone older than 6 months appearing anywhere anytime in their “birthday suit”.  I confess that I still feel just a bit naughty when I’m in a room with naked people.  Or it could just be a creeping suspicion that some mysterious censor somewhere is going to see my drawing of a nude and ban me forever from the Internet.  We’ll see, won’t we?