"10... 9... 8...," he chanted while pacing the room. I drug my graphite across the page in a panic.
"7... 6... 5..."
It was the 10-second gesture drawing exercise in my figure drawing class. The model held a complicated pose for 10 seconds, then paused for a few to take the next position, and the countdown resumed. In those few seconds, I was supposed to lay down the entire human figure using only a few graceful lines, all while my instructor paced, chanted and breathed over my shoulder.
.....................................
I'm a strong believer in getting as much art education as early as possible for any aspiring artist. It's unbelievably crucial for artistic development to nail the most foundational skills. Though creativity might be sacrificed at times, the redundant and tedious drawing drills are some of the most valuable lessons a draughtsman can receive.
Of those foundations includes figure drawing from life. Sure, anyone who took grade school art classes can tell stories of the pile of crap in the middle of the room they had to draw. Still lives were as close to life drawing as many schools allowed. When confined to the four walls of an inferior art classroom (usually a former lab transformed into a studio), life drawing becomes more about memorizing how to draw that pair of old cowboy boots and vase of flowers. I don't even have to touch on the fact that figure drawing, meaning drawing naked people, is completely out of the question for public school students.
I remember drawing portraits of classmates. But instead of learning the subtleties of the human figure, I mastered the shadows and highlights of clothing. Not to say this was an unnecessary skill to learn, but it defeated the purpose of the exercise.
So, I sought instruction outside of the high school classroom. I can't express enough how lucky I am to have a mom who understood that I needed the figure drawing experience if I wanted to even consider art school. Not every mom would let their 16-year-old daughter sit in a private art studio drawing naked men. In a society that shuns nudity in most forms (except for the plastic kind found in porn and on stripper poles), this educational endeavor was severely frowned upon by many of our family friends. Even so, she let me go. Twice a week for three hours a lesson, I was the sole student at this studio just outside of town. As uncomfortable as it was in the beginning, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
So, what do you think about young teens being able to take advanced figure drawing classes? There are those who think it obscene to expose young eyes to mature nudity. But how else will they learn?
