4 in 1 Minute

Originally uploaded by love not fear

The last drawing class I took was in 10th grade. Hard to believe, I know, but I’ve just never really drawn much. I like to doodle, but drawing realistically has never been my forte. Part of it was simply not practicing, but I’ve always been pretty uninterested in creating realistic art.

Recently, though, I attended a life drawing session at the Missoula Art Museum. Every Wednesday night artists gather in the basement of the MAM and draw a nude model. I decided to give it a shot.

I arrived with a graphite pencil, a charcoal pencil, a brown “liquid paintbrush” pen and a Sharpie. I wanted to draw using a variety of media, maybe even mixing all types on one page to see what happened.

The session began with a series of 30 second gestures. The model would hold a pose for 30 seconds, the moderator would say change, and the model would strike another pose for 30 seconds.? While there was free paper available for us to use, I wanted to use the vellum paper I had brought with me, but I didn’t want to waste it. I decided it would be fun and interesting to draw each pose with a different utensil all on the same page. The above is the first drawing from the 30 second gesture series.

We moved on to five minute poses, and I actually tried to draw the model as realistically as I knew how. I couldn’t remember anything from my drawing class, though, and we never even drew figures, always still lifes. I began to become frustrated.

Still. I was encouraged to see that my drawings seemed to be getting better. Not by much, but definitely better.

By the time the 10 minute poses began, I was deep in frustration. I stopped drawing before the 10 minutes were over and wrote, Huge frustration at not being better at this. Want to run out of the room now. Go outside.

10 Minutes

Originally uploaded by love not fear

I’ll probably draw again, but not before practicing on my own for a while. The experience was a good one. Trying something new and being humbled by the drastic difference in what I expected I would be able to achieve and what I actually achieved.