But, baby, you'll freeze out there..

Okie-dokie. My excuse for blogging late is that I was trapped in a house in the semi-country due to the crazy weather with no power or Internet. Frankly, I thought it was absolutely wonderful.. I mean, until I realized it was in fact Saturday and since my Final Friday plans had been frozen over, I still had to do a blog. Oops. Well, anywho, back safe and kinda-sorta warm in the dorms, I'll just write one now.

I am currently enrolled in a Life Drawing class at WSU, but I attended a Life Drawing class at the Center of the Arts this last Friday morning. The atmosphere was completely different. At WSU, the model is surrounded from all sides with most of the lights (including the flourescents) on. None of the 6-8 people say much at all, whether the model is clothed or not. No music, no noise, just focus. Poses range anywhere from thirty seconds to thirty minutes with a majority of them being shorter poses. The focus is on speed; you're supposed to get as much accurate information from the model as possible before the time is up. It definitely keeps things moving along, and it definitely keeps your hands dirty.

At the Center for the Arts, only two people came--but from what I heard, the classes weren't usually much bigger. The model was lit with three lights from one source, and each artist had their own light for their paper. The three hour class only had three poses. Basically, minusing the breaks, each pose was about an hour or so long. Class was cut about thirty-minutes short due to the weather, but those were still some really long poses that allowed the artists to really spend time on details. The model was only about three or four feet from the artists, and during most of the session, all three--the model and the two artists--were in conversation. It was a very comfortable atmosphere as they talked about their own art work and how family reunions cost too much.

In general, I think I prefer the Center's version of model-artist relationships over WSU's. Then again, I suppose it all depends on the model and what they're comfortable with. But in general, the atmosphere was much more enjoyable and really made the time fly. It was definitely an interesting contrast. I think I'll go again next Friday.

-Aerica