Sketchy Artist: The Naked Truth About Life Drawing

My hands, soon to be blackened by graphite, were clammy.

I didn’t even have a pad of paper. The veteran artists in The Hutong had already set up their easels and produced packs of pencils from their bags. Only one other girl confessed to me that she had never done Life Drawing before either, and together we rummaged through the available art supplies.

Thinking that a touch of avant-garde would earn me respect among my more accomplished peers, I reached for the bucket of vibrant pastels and bright lead. The class director stopped me in my tracks with a humbling phrase.

“A lot of people start out with a pencil.”

I promptly heeded this advice. I snagged an eraser too, for good measure.

When I sat down with my chosen tools, a Chinese female was already stripping off her clunky brown boots and floral dress.

As she stood there, bare, in front of me, I silently panicked. I tilted my clipboard towards my chest to spare her from accidentally seeing what surely would soon be an unpleasant, scribbled reflection.

“Alright, the first one will be five minutes,” the instructor said, with a stopwatch poised. “Ready?”

Everyone around me was leaning forward slightly, pencils quivering just above their notebooks, and I half-expected to see a green flag whip through the air.

“Begin.”

I had a mere flash in time to capture the complicated curves of this posing woman, who twisted in such a way that made it seem as if her arm protruded out of her head.

They say some people look good on paper. Not this girl. Not on my paper, at least.

I glanced at an artist whose char coal screeched as he drew in long, graceful gestures. His depiction of the model was evolving nicely. Then again, the angle from which he was viewing her was more flattering than mine. I looked back at my own drawing, which was looking less human by the minute.

My method went something like this: Body, check. Left leg, check. Head, check. Wait, that’s too big. Erase. Head check. Now the leg is too thin, erase. Right leg ...

“Okay, that’s time.”

Wait, don’t move! I wanted to shout out, but I would have the chance to redeem myself. Over the next two hours, I began to relax like the others, and as the time limit was extended, my sketches transformed from frail pencil lines to bold strokes of pigment.

As the moment for the last pose approached, I felt ready. I waited for contortion, for a dramatic light show on the model's pale skin.

But she simply lay down on her side, facing away from us.

Whew. Glad I wasn’t the only one in the room who was exhausted.

The Life Drawing Club meets every Monday night at 7.30pm at The Hutong.

Click here to see the December issue of the Beijinger in full.

Photo: Elizabeth Phung