Drawing from the right side…

I started the figure drawing class different this time, maybe drawn in by the models attitude. I choose a small paper pad and instead of drawing from a safe distance I sat right under her nose almost. I wanted to be really close to see, really see this time. I was not trying to draw a face or a figure, but let my hand just followed the lines that my eyes saw, trusting that they know what to do without my head interfering. It was a surprise in the end when the lines added up and she almost magically appeared on the paper. Felt like “drawing from the right side of your brain” by Betty Edwards.

During the brake I got a chance to talk to her with another student. I admired her outlook on life shaped by her cancer survival and how it made her more fearless and grateful. She had made a list of things she wanted to have done or feared in her life and modeling in front of an art class was one of them. So she asked a friend (an actor) how to do it and he advised not just to sit there bored (the teacher had requested as the only requirement for her not to sit there like a log) but to imagine an emotion and to go into it and really give her full heart to it. She said it made it all the more interesting and she really loved doing it. Thank you, for being such and a great inspiration, not just to talk to but also to paint.

Later as I walked by a student, he told me with excitement that the teacher had taught him the “secret” of how to draw folds of fabric… I was stunned and realized that I never want to be taught those “secrets”. I want to draw every new drawing as if I knew nothing, slowly adding line by line, tentatively first, letting my pen and hand be guided by my eye until a figure emerges.