art education | Previously Unexplored

1 min

I think I’m finally getting the hang of figure painting. I am by no means an expert, but for the first time, this week, I was pleased with every sing pose I painted from 1 minutes to 20 minutes.

I started figures in January at The Art Students League. My teacher, Naomi Campbell, was hosting a watercolor workshop on models in surreal environments. I had never painted figures before, but I was curious. It was odd. It was exhausting. And I was hooked. Every Monday since I’ve taken the Q to Manhattan to learn and paint with Naomi. I take two back to back sessions of this class so I am painting from 4:50-6:50pm and 7-10:15pm. Each session moves does a series of 1 min, 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, and 20 min poses. Even with model breaks, five hours of painting is exhausting. Not every class goes as smoothly as this week did. Naomi is a kind teacher, but I wouldn’t call her gentle and my face frequently leaks with frustration.

1 min

2 min

5 min

10 min

20 min

I’ve learned many things in this class – proportions, body over clothing, lighting, brush positioning – but the thing I struggle with the most is the desire to make my sketches pretty. It’s common, but painting prettily gets in the way of painting things accurately.

Longer poses are excellent for practicing accuracy. If your model isn’t going to move for 20 minutes you have time to think and argue with yourself about where to place your brush. Less so when you only have 60 seconds to get paint on your brush, your brush on the page and somehow end up with an understandable figure on your page. 60 seconds to paint an entire person. No pressure. And after 60 seconds your model moves and you start all over again.

1 min

With practice comes progress and in the last few weeks I’ve managed to finally fit all the pieces together for the 1 minute poses. The second set of sketches are much smoother, but when I look at all of the sketches I can clearly see the model and how she was holding her body. Maybe you can, maybe you can’t, that’s fine, I can. It helps of course, that I was there. Whatever, I am pleased. Pleased and motivated to continue painting and learning. There has been much research done about the various art schools in the city and I am planning. But mostly painting.

Most of my sketches from class are below. I can’t find the notebook with the second session 1 min sketches which is SUUUUUUUPER annoying. I’ll keep digging.

Last week I took a workshop at the Artist Student League: The Surreal Environment and the Model. It was amazing. It was physically exhausting. It was brilliantly challenging and I really can’t wait to go back.

***

The workshop was at the ASL at 57th and 7th which is one of my favorite parts of Manhattan. It’s a mix of old brick and stone and a hint of not-entirely-boxy glass. It’s been a while since I’ve needed to be in Manhattan this early in the morning, and I wasn’t thrilled about my adjusted wake up time at first, but the view from the train on the way in was entirely worth it.

This workshop was intimidating for a number of reasons. I’m used to painting in a public setting. This workshop was a closed door class, dude to a nude model being used, but painting in front of other people is just…weird. This class also called for materials much larger than I usually use – the minimum size paper (11″x14″) was the largest size I’d ever used up until last week. The smallest notebook I used was 11″18″ and I’ve included a picture with a legal pad for size reference with the other books I used. The biggest challenge, though, was that I’d never done any sort of figure painting before. I’d taken a figure drawing class at the ASL in March of 2016, but it didn’t occur to me that there would be much a difference . I knew this would be a directional change for me – most of my stuff is space or castles, but until 10 minutes before the class I didn’t think “hey, maybe you should take an intro class first…”

The class was vaguely structured as 10 1-minute poses with a short water change break. 5 2-minute poses with a water change break. 2 5-minute poses with a medium break. 1 10-minute post with a water change break. 1 20-minute pose followed by a long break. 1 hour long pose with water and stretch breaks every 20 minutes. We had two models during the workshop – M. on Tuesday and Wednesday and T. on Thursday and Friday. Both models were EXCELLENT. M focused more on fluidity in her poses, while T was more powerful. They were both stunning and I hope to work with them again in the future.

The first day was mostly spent working on seeing things less literally and loosening up my painting style. I was reminded that the goal was not a pretty picture, but an understandable rendering of the movement of figure and the relationship between the figure and the setting. I also was nudged into using more paint, which lead to a blocky way of painting that I *really* enjoy. I just about fell over when I got home. I’d grabbed a water and a juice during the long break after an urging to keep hydrated and it helped, but I was still exhausted and sore after two hours in the bath.

The second day I felt that I actually got the hang of the human body as a figure. I was pushed to use bigger brushes and fewer brush strokes which helped me loosen up even more. The next challenge for me was to widen my perspective of the scene and not see a body first, inside of a scene. This may have involved a few tears of frustration on my end. Worth it, tears, though. My second attempt at the long pose ended up being one of my favorite pieces of the week. I also discovered how to get paint in ones ear.

The third day I started by buying bigger brushes. The three of them were $90. I may have also cried a little bit then. They took a little while to get used to, getting the correct paint to water ratio was painful and took both days, but were very worth it. I was pleased by the fluidity of my short poses, and the boldness of the long pose. By Thursday Eowyn had started to get used to the idea of me soaking *every* day for this amount of time, but she still had concerns.

The fourth day included both painting, reviews of our bodies of work, and a small celebration for our instructor’s birthday. I brought Will cookies, because Will cookies are the best. We did fewer poses, and I found myself frustrated with the longer pose, I focused too much on the power of T’s pose. It was frustrating to end on that note, but it was followed by an excellent review session – not just from the instructor but from the entire class. Getting home and photographing/organizing the work made me realize just how much painting I had done. That, and going through three different notebooks. On Friday, Eowyn also realized that if she wiggled into the opening of my robe a certain way, I’d carry her around with me. Bonus picture of the cat enjoying our heating pad cuddle time.