Drawing from life … arrhhh… yes, some of us love it, some of us hate it. I had a severe dislike of drawing from life and Life Drawing. Drawing from life made me feel like I couldn’t draw ANYTHING and a Life Drawing class either had me in fits of giggles (at the naked person before me) or in tiers because what I saw was completely different to what my hand produced!
What I have learnt as I have got older:
1. Let go! Just let it go, let loose and go with the flow. Don’t be so precious about the end result. Don’t worry about making “mistakes”. The end result will be better (better as in what you were after in the first place).
2. Enjoy it, if you don’t enjoy it stop. I don’t like going to Life Drawing classes. Instead I draw my family and friends going about their everyday lives.
3. It’s all to do with confidence really, not skill (not in my case anyway) – all I had to do was believe I could do it.
4. There’s a lot of pretence surrounding drawing from life. Don’t listen to it. Don’t believe them.
5. There is no right way, only your way.
I made a promise to myself to draw and paint my daughter more often, so far I have managed to keep it…
