A Privileged Man

This pastel drawing ‘Model Session – 21-02-26 – 2’ is second from our montly life drawing event. My long-time model reclining this time. These poses that she has often taken for me in my own studio feel like coming home. Consequently, I was able to capture her features quite quickly. Even though she is not a tall woman (1.50 meter) she has all the right proportions. Her buttocks and hips are the best I have seen during a life drawing session. You surely can call me a priviliged man, since I had her as a model for more than 10 years now. The actual pose reminded of an earlier pastel of 10 years ago, called ‘Nude – Life Drawing Session 2 – 26-03-16’.

Elongations & Foreshortenings

Even though I drew this one back in 2016, these kinds of foreshortenings and elongations keep on challenging me. Her head looks appears to be very small now but I’m convinced drawing it bigger would look strange too. I kinda like it the way it looks now. Often creating art is about concessions. If you depict it one way there are issues but the other way it looks funny too. All in all, I think this is the best version I could imagine to make. Two remarks in this respect. First, the set-up of this pastel is made under one hour. Secondly, as a rule photographs of these body positions deform the nude model too. Lucian Freud’s nudes I saw last week in the Kunstmuseum’s exhibition ‘London Calling’ in mind. These were done exclusively during life painting sessions. His paintings show the real artistic view on things.

Back in My Studio

When I got back in my studio took another look at this pastel and something needed to be fixed. The result I got within the hour was quite alright yet very linear. Not bothersome but this result looked rather preliminary. Somehow I felt I could do more and I found the model very flat looking. Then I saw the tonal bandwidth simply wasn’t to broad enough. The solution was to lighten up the bed she was reclining on, contrasting her skin in mid-tones. Last but not least, I retouched the man in the back a bit. He is one of my students by the way.

Pastel drawing on Hahnemühle Dürer Ingres-Bütten Night Blue paper (48 x 62,5 x 0.1 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers

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