I made this list of figure drawing challenges, because who would’ve thought that drawing naked people could get boring?

The studio I’ve been attending is organzied so the nude model is in the same pose over the course of four 20 minute sessions—the long pose as it’s called.

Now for me, I’m much more engaged during the quick gesture poses before the long pose. My mind just seems to work better with fast and dynamic poses that are only a minute long. I like being on my toes and it helps me channel my intuition.

But since I was paying for the full class, long pose included, I wanted to curb my tenancy to leave early.

I realized that if you aren’t engaged in an activity, especially a routine one like this, then there’s no point to putting in the time. I simply had to make these four 20 minute sessions more challenging. And thus, this list of challenges was born!

  1. Ambidexterity – Use your non-dominant hand exclusively.
  2. Anatomy – Focus on a specific muscle group and draw these muscles over the pose. Study the mechanics of this moving form.
  3. Caricature – Exaggerate the pose or face in a way that amplifies their features.
  4. Draw the person as a different age or gender.
  5. Draw them as an animal, maybe their favorite animal.
  6. Relocation – drawing them in a different environment that tells a story. Maybe even a different time period or alternate reality.
  7. Draw a small comic strip staring them. Include different reactions and kinds of shots.
  8. Surrealism – Draw their body, or part of their body, merging with an object, blending into the environment, or partly animal. ie: centaur, angel’s wings, disappearing into a black hole.
  9. Draw them as a robot – see if you can draw machine parts together in a convincing way.
  10. Flying blind – Don’t look at the paper.
  11. Whimsical – Draw their body as a giant landscape/ playground for miniature characters running on and around them.
  12. Illustration – Tell a story with one image. (a.) Editorial: capture their passions. Ask the model what topics they are passionate about, then illustrate them in a way that makes that dramatic statement. (b.) Narrative: capture their personality. Ask the model about their favorite memory, about the most recent dream they’ve had, or a recent memorable experience.
  13. Graphic Design – Incorporate their features into a logo for a made-up company, into a poster for a made-up event, into a book cover for a story, or into packaging design for a made-up product. Feel free to incorporate letters, typefaces, and graphical shapes. Even ask the model for their favorite kinds of products/ events/ books in order to get a direction.
  14. Restrictions – Put restrictions on what kinds of techniques or tools you can use. Experiment with unfamiliar mediums. If you normally work in lines, have a “no lines allowed” rule and work entirely in solid shapes. If you never work in color, do that, or if you always to, go black and white. Or restrict your color palette. See how restrictions bring the creativity out of you.

As you can see, this list is less about rendering the model accurately, and more about using them as raw material for something that would be interesting, fun, and challenging to create. Think of them as clay that you are sculpting with.

Brett's muscles

Co-Creation

Now writing this list, I realize that this process isn’t just more engaging for me as an artist, but it also has the potential to be more engaging for other artists and the model as well. This act of creation is feeling less like a solitary act and more like a social one: co-creation.

It feels like I’m becoming a performer that brings a volunteer from the audience on stage, and their input makes the show unique every time. I have to stay on my toes and improvise. Am I comedian? Well I hope as an artist, more people can enjoy my work than just me—I want people to have a good time. Am I magician? If so, I’m a bad one, because I love sharing my process.

The artist has long been heralded as a solitary worker whose “creative genius” should not be questioned. I’m getting bored with this viewpoint; the resulting social isolation wears me down. I much rather play and create with lots of people enjoying and taking part in the process.