artfool nr 2/2011                     

 

                                                                                

 

 

                                                                                    

   

© All rights reserved. Artfool & Lena Adamina Waldau. Info: artfool@telia.com              

Often a sketching session starts with short poses when the model changes position every 30 seconds or every minute. This forces one to draw without thinking which makes the seen go straight from the eyes through the hands onto the paper.

 

Other methods are to draw with left hand if one is right handed, to draw with both hands at the same time, and to draw without looking at the paper.

 

In the shown three sketches (height: circ. 55 cm) I drew without looking at the paper and had a pastel in one hand and a big brush with acrylic colour in the other.

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Sketching from the nude

 

The goal when sketching from the nude is not a completed picture but to improve one’s capacity to see, to perceive relations. One aim is to grasp the construction of the human body, to understand were the centre of gravity is in a pose, where one form turns into another, where lines turns in new directions.

 

Sketching from the nude force one to see the actual human being and not to use prearranged ideas. Therefore it is a pity that most models are white middle aged women with big powerful bodies. They are excellent models, but not really representative for a majority of us human beings. One half of us are men. An appallingly big group is skinny.

 

Many of the models I have met have detected more likeness between the drawing and the drawer, than between herself and the drawing. They often comment on this. On the other hand one poor model got so shocked by everyone drawing her as a very round person that she broke her contract and stopped coming.