The Life Drawing

Blue Nude pastel 9" X 12"

Life drawing groups are a very interesting social phenomen and a very good way to improve your drawing skills. One day while purchasing some paint at the local art supply store, I saw a note on the bulletin board announcing the ongoing meeting of a local group at the nearby state college. I called the number, spoke with a very pleasant young man and ended up attending the drawing sessions frequently over the next two years.

From my presence at this group and several other groups both in Maine and New Mexico, I will attempt to shed some light on this unique and commonplace meeting of artists and the model. For the most part the artists are male, and the model female, but there are always a few women drawing and an occasional male model. When a male model arrives the men often complain, but the women seem welcome to the change. Women also seem to be a little bit more comfortable working with models of their own sex than do the men. However, the men usually quietly perservere knowing that next weeks' model will most likely - again be a woman.

There seems to be one or two males in each group who really excel at the art of drawing naked people. Of course, they attend every session and the time and effort put in really does show. In one such group in New Mexico the group leader was a muscle bound young man who had some of the best draftmanship I have seen; a combination I would not have thought possible. Still the groups are quiet affairs, where both artists and model show a high degree of concentration.

A certain comradrie develops between the drafters, as well as between the model and artisans. Some groups can last a long time, for I know of one group run by a woman that lasted twenty years. The bottom line is that your drawing skills will improve if you spend any amount of time with one of these groups. I usually tried to render the model as closely as possible to what I saw; but the above drawing, one of my favorites, is an example when I got ouside the parameter.