Saturday, October 12, 2013

First impressions


The first session with a new model is thwarted with nervous tension for both artist and model.  Arrangements are made and a mutually convenient time is agreed upon.  I set out my materials and anxiously watch the hands on the clock, having stressed the importance of arriving on time.  A couple of days ago the appointed time came and went but no sign of my model.  Just when I was about to give up on her, I picked up a frantic text message: “Sir, I’m lost!”

I’m always losing things, but this is the first time I’ve lost a model, or rather, that a model has lost me.  As I was about to drive off in search (a difficult one to put to passers by, “Excuse me, have you by any chance seen an artist’s model?”) she showed up exhausted. 

Regardless of the upset, we were both determined to save the day.  I made my first two-minute sketch on a sheet of newsprint.  It serves to illustrate a message I stress to my students:  keep all your sketches, no matter how seemingly inferior or insignificant, for within them can be found a line of truth. 


The truth, in this instance, being a breathless model and a muddled artist desperately trying to make the best if it.  But regardless of a difficult start, my model, true to the spirit of artists' models, is game for another session next week.

No comments:

Post a Comment