Visual art often reveals how difficult it is to draw a person. Subtle asymmetry and minute details become the difference between an accurate rendering and fodder for the wastebasket.
In her life drawing class, Ann Foxworthy Gallery director Marti Fast attempts to lead Allan Hancock College students down the path of good technique for capturing form, including that of Homo sapiens.
“Figure drawing, and drawing the human form, has been a traditional gateway for all artists to prove themselves before they’re considered artists,” Fast said. “All the way back to Leonardo and all those old schools, they did studies from life.”
Subtle things begin to emerge to an artist who sets his eye and brush to a human form—but the basics come first.
“For beginning students, especially, they are learning to perceive shapes of light and dark, and they are trying to get the proportion of the person they are looking at,” Fast said. “Their body may be tall and lanky, or short and squat, male or female, and getting all that visual information down and accurate so it looks good on the page is very difficult.”
Fast has selected five outstanding artists and their work from last semester’s life drawing class to show in the Ann Foxworthy Gallery: Jamie Chesnut, Susan Connors, Garrett Kaida, Teresa Pardini, and Leslie Parsons all have works showing in the exhibit “Brought to Life,” which focuses specifically on the human form.
“I had these five really wonderful students in my life drawing class last semester and I thought, ‘you know, this would be a wonderful group show,’” she said, “and I asked them and they were all delighted.”
Each artist portrays the human form in a very different way. Some of the works will be of the same model. The stylistic differences among the featured artists will be in plain view, providing an intimate look at what the body means to each artist.
“Our bodies are so complex, and the way we balance to hold a pose—that is such a miracle,” Fast said. “So as artists we are trying to capture these invisible forces that are at work from the inside and the outside and make it something we can see.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne tries to live in harmony with both internal and external invisible forces. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 14-21, 2013.