Nude Sketching: A Beginner's Account

I am a beginner in nude sketching. This is my daunting account of my first experience in this endeavor.

I was late for class that day so I hurriedly climbed two flights of stairs to catch a seat in the gallery room jam-packed with wannabe artists. My mentor motioned me to the vacant seat in the front row down the gallery, so I obliged. When I reached my seat, I sat still for a while to catch my breath and prepare my drawing materials. I hardly noticed the glaring lights and the figure at the center of the gallery which appeared so negligible given the huge size of the room. I assumed the figure was the subject of the day's sketching lesson. As I raised my head to take a look at it, my jaw dropped.

Lo and behold! A live nude model was standing in all her naked glory. I thought it was a big leap from our previous "still life" session. I was quite tense so my charcoal pencils kept on dropping to the floor. My heart was thumping while trying to capture a proportional perspective of her nude figure. Since the seats were arranged in a circle, I got the rear view of her figure.

Generally speaking, I think it is easier to draw the rear view than the frontal view. The rear view has lesser details even if the quality of tone in the back muscles needs some extra work. Besides, I personally think the rear view leaves much to the aesthetic imagination, and is therefore, more interesting.

The nude model did pretty well in her stationary position, only taking a break for 10 minutes to stretch and walk around in her panties. Ah, the boys loved it while the girls were apathetic (or tried to be). The session lasted for almost an hour. At the end of the session, we gave the model a round of applause before she headed straight to the dressing room.

The next day, we had a male nude model for our subject but I think I did better in the female form. There's a great difference between drawing male and female nudes. In the female body, you draw a series of curves because the muscles are usually hidden by 80% fat. In the male body, there is a change of technique because the muscles are more defined.

I did not pursue nude sketching after these few sessions. I think it's one of the most difficult types of sketching to attempt. You can get away with drawing landscapes like trees, mountains and rivers because nobody knows how it looks in particular. But if you do a human figure incorrectly, everyone knows if there's something wrong with it, even those who know nothing about art. It's a similar case with portrait sketching which I also tried for some time using charcoal. I also discovered pastel painting which is my favorite medium because it is not so messy and wet as in watercolor or oil.

I am glad to have tried my hand at nude sketching. I know I still have a lot to improve on. The human body is an awesome art form that reflects our Creator's sublime ingenuity. Life drawing, particularly the nude form, is an artist's fitting gesture of appreciation and gratitude for this wonderful creation.

See more of Likha's works and read about them in My Fan, My Portrait Sketch and My Eyes, My Love Stories

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Simple Sketching Exercise To Free The Artist Within You

One of the biggest problem that's holding a lot of artists back is the tendency to over think a drawing project. I'm sure you've been there before. You stare at a picture forever not knowing where to begin and when you do finally start drawing, you agonize over every single stroke and curve. Erasing and re-drawing, erasing and re-drawing. The whole process becomes quite frustrating and your final art work is never as good as you'd like it to be.

This is the artistic equivalent of writer's block and the reason you (and so many other artists) suffer from it is simple: you are trying to draw AND edit yourself at the same time. Here's why this is such a bad idea: in order to draw you must engage the creative side of your brain but when you edit and critic yourself, you are engaging the analytical side of your brain. The two cannot both function at the same time. It is the equivalent of you trying to walk forward and backward simultaneously; the result is paralysis and you end up going no where.

Ok, so how do you break this all too common habit? One simple, yet devastatingly effective exercise is the "60-second sketch". The way it work is you pick out a picture of a figure that you want to draw and then draw it in 60 seconds. After 60 seconds, you HAVE to stop. Now obviously you're not going to be able to draw a very complete figure in 60 seconds, but that's the point. This exercise forces you to let go of any self-editing tendency and allow your creativity and energy to flow through. You stop obsessing about the details and begin to see the figure as a whole. This, by the way, is the key to adding life and emotion to your drawings. Do this exercise at least one time a day and you'll be well ahead of 95% of artist out there. (There's no excuse not to...it only takes 60 seconds!)

Here are some key points to remember when doing this exercise:

-Always keep your hands moving. If you slow down, you are only giving yourself a chance to slip back into an analytical frame of mind. (I like to act like I just drank a gallon of Red Bull and that my hand is possessed by some artistic demon)

-Make long broad strokes. This means you should be drawing not with just your wrist, but also your arm. It also helps to practice on a large piece of paper so that you have more freedom to move around.

-Warm up by doodling or drawing long vertical and horizontal lines across a piece of scratch paper. As simple as this sounds, it will wake up your hand and make the exercise much easier and enjoyable.

Now just because you are engaging your creative brain, does not mean that the analytical side is not important. That's not what I'm saying at all! You just shouldn't be trying to hone both skills at the same time. But true greatness can only come when you have both creativity and a solid technical knowledge of your craft. In fact, by strengthening your knowledge of anatomy and the human body, you'll find that you'll be able to product these 60-second sketches effortlessly and that they will come out much more detailed and realistic.

One great tool for building your knowledge of anatomy is my ebook "Shortcut Secrets of Figure Drawing". It has TONS of illustrations of every human body parts for you to reference. It covers every parts in the human body and show them in perspective, from different angles, both in still poses and in movement.

You can get a FREE chapter by going to http://www.secretsoffiguredrawing.com/optin and enter your email to get free instant access to this 20-page content-packed chapter.

I guarantee it will improve your figure drawing faster than anything out there...and it's completely free. You'll also receive other great articles and useful tips about figure drawing. Don't worry, there's no obligations and you can unsubscribe at anytime!

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