Monday, August 9, 2010

Sketches and snakes

A number of employees at my work are artists and enjoy life drawing. As such each month we pool resources and pay for a model for a life drawing session.

This life drawing session was odder than most though: when I walked in the classroom the first question one of my friends asked was "Do you mind snakes?". Immediately I looked at the model and verified it was indeed a woman (I've heard that question before in life drawing, but it was from a sarcastic/overcompensating male model). My curiosity now piqued, I replied "No, why?". Then a 5 foot boa constrictor slithered in front of me and answered my question. The model was a huge snake fan (in the same way some women are cat ladies) and her pet needed some exploration time while "mommy" worked (ie posed nude for people).The rest of the life drawing class went well, but it it was rather distracting watching the (friendly) boa and making sure she didn't surprise you while we were deeply focused on drawing. She spent about 15 minutes crawling up the table behind my chair and then proceeded to investigate my eraser and other pencils before attempting the "jump" to my chair, at which point I scooted further away and let her glide down to the floor to go visit someone else.


As for my drawings, we ended up doing longer poses than my usual favorite quick gesture drawings. So I ended up drawing a quick 2 minute gesture of a 20 minute pose and then slyly drew gestures of the other attendees in the class (which I did by passing off my searching for the snake as really looking at each person's pose).

And, of course, once the session was over I played with the snake, who in the end only wanted to be loved.


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