D
rawing a figure is no different to drawing a tree, a
bowl of flowers or indeed anything - the secret with all
drawing is to understand what it is you are drawing.
I remember at art school the young women students had a
problem to draw a caterpillar tractor engine. We boys did
much better, our cylinders were all in line, the crankshafts ran
center bottom under the cylinder pots etc. We knew that as
boys - the young women did not.
For me as a beginner at art school, life drawing was the
core subject, I believe, because when you make an observed
drawing from life you must carefully observe, which develops
a process of analysis of a subject. An analysis that allows you
to draw what
your eye is seeing
truthfully. Why a
naked body? As
you know, artists
only draw young
nubile women?
Come on! ....
My mother was
shocked when I
returned from my
first life class at
age fifteen, “Can I
have a look,” she
said? She looked
a bit stunned that
her fifteen-year-
old son had been
drawing a lady
well past her own
age - whoops! - or
is there more to
drawing the nude?
As a tutor I
have found that
life drawing is
NOTHING TO DO WITH SEX -
EVERYTHING TO DO WITH ANALYSIS
with Douglas Chowns - figure drawing and the life class
I was very encouraged when a group of local Thursday painters reacted to a
comment about their landscapes lacking figures. “Why not”, I asked? “Oh! They
are too difficult”, they all agreed.the only subject where my students themselves knew when
they had got it wrong - they could see that their drawing was
just not right - and asked for help. This seldom happened
with other subjects as they could always justify why they
should reposition a tree, move a headland, leave out a boat
or even work out complicated stems in a flower arrangement.
Observed drawing takes care and concentration. A poorly
observed, not well-drawn study can still look alright. Not so
with life drawing. The nude, considered the most difficult,
teaches us to look hard and analyse what is going on with
light, flesh, muscles and bone, especially perspective and
foreshortening. The human body changes totally when
viewed from even the smallest different angle or viewpoint.
Our brains are so wired that we can identify every single
face we see as looking different. Yet rows of bare skulls on a
shelf all look much the same. Only when the flesh is added
do we see differences, no two faces are the same, and we
recognize each as being different. Our brains astoundingly
have this capacity and I believe it is this same area of the
brain that allows us to analyse when life drawing.
When drawing anything we must observe through
our eye, let our brain process the image and pass that
information down the arm into the fingers - to be accurately
turned into line and massed tones of light and shade. Its not
always easy, and it helps if one has been taught in a life class
‘how to see’. It is a deeper analysis than the process to copy
a ready-made image from a photograph, where you see the
final effect before you start. However, I believe we all have
this inbuilt ability. It is not some heaven sent skill, but true,
some do it more easily than others. We all made an amazing
uncomplicated start at age nine but were so often put off
when we had to learn to look. As adults, let yourself have
a go.
Uninformed vocal critics who attach the idea of sex with
life drawing have not helped. It always makes me cringe!
Why do they do that? Obviously they do because of the
nude model. If nudity equates with sex then maybe some
people have a personal problem. I once told a visiting friendArt School at age 15, my tutor drew under
my arm to show me what to look for. This
model was younger than my Mum!