LIFE DRAWNING: EXPERIENCE OR EXERCISE?

Life drawing has been a pillar of illustration for hundreds of years, with the human form being one that almost every artist has had to master. The UEL illustration artists continued this tradition last Tuesday, with their Drink and Draw event, held in the AVA building.

We went down to talk to some of the lecturers and students, to find out what life drawing means to them.

We spoke to Valerie Perezon, lecturer at UEL, to ask her why life drawing is essential for any artist and why it is offered at UEL.

“I think if you are really serious about learning good drawing, life drawing is very essential. This is why we give them that. I would say that its essential of art and design. To teach anybody who is serious about doing work in the art and design industry you’ve got to have done some life drawing at the early stages.”

Next, we spoke to some of the students at the event. Some saw the exercise as just that:

“It’s like an improvement for my drawing. It’s very hard to draw. You need to get all the proportions right, but it’s good for exercise.”

However, others explained the activity as a deeper concept for them.

“It is the fact that you can get realistic as possible, close to realism, and its just like a style of getting to know the human body and the aesthetic.”

The students were self aware and self critical, understanding how their life drawing both improves their skills, but also makes them aware of their limitations.

“I’m better at drawing women that I am at men. I think that everybody has different shapes and different sizes, big boobs, small boobs, big willies, small willies, and I just think that it is quite a relaxing and peaceful thing and it puts me in a bubble between me and the model.”

Despite this deeper contemplation by some, for others, this task was purely educational.

“Life drawing to me is just studying the anatomy that’s pretty much it.“

Valerie Perezon managed to merge the deeper and surface level understanding of life drawing, saying:

“The body is an object as well which teaches important things eg skill, perspective, body and space, shadow. There are many different things you can learn from that.”

But, no matter an artist views it as just an exercise as an experience or an exercise, both lecturer and student acknowledge that life drawing is essential for any artist.

Pictures taken by Dalia Araby