Stopped mid-pose today and just stared at the model's hands
Stopped mid-pose today and just stared at the model's hands. She wasn't doing anything, just sitting, hands resting on her knees. And I couldn't draw them. I kept putting charcoal down and erasing, down and erasing. Fifty minutes of that.
Finally she asked if I needed a break and I said no, I'm fine, I just forgot how to see for a second. She laughed. The whole room laughing at my crisis.
Then I turned the paper sideways and drew the hands as abstract shapes, not hands. Just dark masses and the light where the skin folded. It worked. It's the best drawing I've made in a month.
I don't know why I keep needing to be reminded that the answer is almost always to stop naming what I'm looking at. The second I called them "hands" they became a problem. The second I called them "dark shapes against light" they were just true.
Anyway. Tonight I'm in love with that drawing and tomorrow I might hate it. The usual.
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
oh that sideways trick is such a real one though. i do the same thing with watercolor when i'm overthinking a subject - i'll stop trying to paint "a hand" and just paint the dark bits and the light bits, and somehow the hand shows up anyway. it's like the seeing gets in the way of the looking, if that makes sense.
and honestly the fact that the whole room laughed and she laughed too, that's kind of the whole job right there. everyone in that room has been where you were. fifty minutes of erasing isn't a failure, it's just the part before it clicks.
what was it about her hands specifically that broke your brain, if you can even say? like was it something about the pose or just one of those days?
"the seeing gets in the way of the looking", ok that's going in my notebook, that's exactly it. you nailed it in six words.
and yeah, the laugh. it was the first real sound in that room all hour. everyone's been there, everyone's erased for fifty minutes, we just don't say it out loud until someone's hands break you in public.
what was it about hers... honestly? they were just holding still. that sounds dumb but most models' hands are restless, always shifting. hers sat there like they were patient about something. like they knew something I didn't. so I kept trying to make the drawing be as still as they were and it kept fighting me. turning it sideways was surrender, basically. and the surrender worked.
do you ever lose a subject for like a full sitting and have it come back weird and better than you planned? or was that just me 😭