Elizabeth's Kenyan

After a long hiatus from the figure, I returned with renewed vengeance to the age-old practice last Saturday at the University of Utah (because they have a real art department with nude models - what a concept). It was my mainstay in college. How a person can get a BA in Visual Arts taking primarily only figure classes, I'll never know, but I didn't have any complaints (other than the creative stifling).

So after pages and pages of quick gesture drawings for AM class, it was nice to do a long pose (3 hours) and see how all that recent quick sketching would influence my longer passages. See the full image here. (WARNING: Image contains nudity for those faint of mind.)

The main thing I noticed was that my gesture skills were MUCH better than normal. Blocking in the figure took much less time and I was able to get the proportions down more accurately. I also looked for visual rhythms and places where I could emphasize weight. And also I was less slave to the model and made more artistic decisions, while remaining true to the likeness. And my mark making was more committed than usual - I wasn't afraid to go dark (no pun intended).

I titled it Elizabeth's Kenyan because it is as ambiguous as the expression on her face ("Is her name Elizabeth? Or is she owned by this Elizabeth character, as in the possessive form of the word?"). She had such distance in her eyes - like she had checked out while the artists "used" her body - like she was calmly possessed. Rather intriguing, I must say. I've never drawn anyone that held that still. Granted, it was a reclining pose (yawn). But models tend to shift no matter the pose - not her. She was a rock - a very feminine rock, but a rock nonetheless.

When the pose was being decided, her shoulders and hips were absolutely paralleI. I thought, "You've got to be kidding me..." It was shocking that here were all these artists, and this was all they could come up with. Maybe they were being shy, but then again maybe they had little concept of solid posing. I guess most of them were just happy they had a naked lady to look at. So I added my two cents and suggested that she turn her hips. Like a well-designed car, it was a shame to hide those curves.

The model liked my drawing so much that I offered to give her a copy. We tend to be our own worst critics, so hers was the highest compliment of the day...