A Drawing Lesson by Bert Weir 2002

How do I begin to draw the figure?

How do I begin to answer this?

One old master said

‘You first must cleanse your soul’

And he was right, I think



Drawing comes from within

Like a prayer

So you must prepare

Sit quietly

Turn off your mind

Let your feelings wander over, through

And around the model

Then slowly with great dignity

Begin to lay out the drawing tools



When all is ready sit and look

The more you know

The more you see



There are ways of knowing



Think of the air

The breath of the creator

Full of his energies



Watch as the model fills her lungs

Feel the warmth

Then expel the air

Mixing her energies

With those of the source



As you breath the air

Feel your energies blend with hers

And others

Let your thoughts follow the air

As it enters the models lungs

What happens?

The oxygen enters the blood

Travels through the body cleansing



Think of the activity

Beneath the surface



How to express it?



Watch the air

Surrounding the figure

Does it move

Lie silent or have weight

It too must be drawn

The Student's Work September - December 2009

Henry Whitehorne

David Clutterbuck

Ian Coleman

Becki Steele

Rob Pawling

Ian Coleman

Mary Jolly

Janet Howie

Naked or Nude

To be naked is to be oneself.

To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet recognised for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become nude. Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. It is a form of dress.

When the tradition of painting became more secular, other themes also offered the opportunity of painting nudes. However, the subject (a woman) is aware of being seen by a spectator.
She is not naked as she is.
She is naked as the spectator sees her.

The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. A male spectator enjoying the spectacle of her and yet placing a mirror in her hand scorns it as vanity. The function of a mirror was first and foremost to make the woman, and treating her as a sight.

In modern art, the category of the nude has become less important. Artist's themselves began to question it. In the above image, the ideal is broken, Manet has replaced it with the realism of the prostitute who confronts the male gaze.

Today the attitudes and values which informed that tradition are expressed through other more widely diffused media - advertising, journalism, television. The essential way of seeing women, the essential use to which their images are put, has not changed. Women are depicted in a quite different way from men; their 'ideal' spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman has been traditionally designed to flatter him.

3 November 2009 Exhibition

Ross Library will host a collection of this term's student's work. The display will run for one week; showing a range of drawing and paintings, covering quick sketches to longer pose pieces in a range of materials.