Los Feliz Figure Drawing Workshop Monday, March 22nd

I've been drawing from nude models since I was in high school, and for all the crazy poses I've seen models hold for excruciatingly long periods of time, I have never seen a model on the verge of blacking out... that is, until last Monday. In the drawing to the right, I drew Monday night's model sitting with her back arched in a chair (I didn't draw the chair), her head hanging over the chair's back.

It was a great-looking pose, but it sounds pretty painful, right? Well, apparently it must have been, because after about 4 minutes she lifted her head up, said faintly something along the lines of she couldn't do it, and kept her head upright. She seemed OK until she got into the next pose and started shaking, her head lulling forward and backwards as if she was falling asleep. Someone started saying her name, and when she didn't respond, everyone began to realize something was up. Finally, the guy who organized that particular workshop went up to the model, said her name a few times, and when she finally responded with a confused mumble, he asked her if she wanted to take a break.

To be a good figure drawing model you have to be pretty ballsy, focused, and disciplined. I've always been in awe of great models, and the power and love of the human form that they project in their poses. They are capable of giving so much to an artist for what seems to be not the greatest pay. Besides the obvious guts that are necessary to take your clothes off in front of a room full of complete strangers, these brave models must not only be COMPLETELY still for extremely long periods of time, but they also have to come up with creative poses that will inspire an artist to start drawing furiously. They need to give the artist that sublime moment where everything in a drawing clicks. It's not an easy thing to do.

I had a drawing class when I was 16, 17 at my high school in which we had professional models every now and then, and the rest of the time we had to take turns posing (clothed, of course) for the rest of the class. When it was my turn to pose, I think I ended up sitting on the modeling stand, feeling completely self-conscious and inept. I guess I did OK, and I have a faint memory of possibly doing 1 or 2 interesting poses, but I knew that I was in no way on the same level as the professional models, and my already high respect for them increased. A professional model, in I think that same class, berated us students for something - I forget what. We were punk teenagers, so maybe some of us were talking while she was posing or something.  I'll never forget the image of her, naked under her half-open robe, striking, and probably no more than 25, standing regally above us with her hands on her hips, looking and talking to us as if she were going to come down from her stand and slap each of us across the face. None of the models that posed for us at our high school ever talked to us like that, probably because we were always extremely quiet and respectful to models, particularly for teenagers, except for this one time. I wasn't one of the troublemakers, but I do remember having some mixed feelings at the time - I hated being talked down to, but at the same time I had to agree with her. Modeling nude accords a certain amount of respect that you just don't mess with.

Should a model have to hold poses that bring he or she close to blacking out? Hell, no. But is the discipline, and the love of the process of creativity, that is behind the desire to hold such painful poses admirable? Yes.