Features Reporter
Photo by: Kenny Coles
On a Friday afternoon, in a well-lit room on the second floor of the Fine Arts building, 11 students spent a few minutes rearranging chairs, closing blinds, opening easels and sharpening drawing pencils.
Two men, both students as well, paced the treated concrete floor in bare feet, making conversation and fidgeting with the loose knots that keep their robes in place.
In the time it takes to rearrange a chair, the two men have shed their robes and are now standing (and sitting) completely and unabashedly naked.
Fortunately, the others in the room knew that this was coming. In fact, that is why they are here.
Each Friday from 2 – 4 p.m., the CMU Art Club hosts a live figure drawing session featuring nude models. Students taking drawing classes are required to attend the sessions in order to practice depicting what Assistant Professor of Art and Art Club Advisor Alison Harris calls “the biggest challenge in drawing”: the human form.
According to Harris, there is also a “psychological mountain to overcome” with drawing the human body.
“People are intimidated by thinking about drawing a face, for example,” Harris said. “Many times they draw what they think they know about a face and not actually what they’re looking at.”
It takes at least a year of very serious study before you have a handle on it [figure drawing].”
There is a rhythm to the way each student studies the models: heads cocked, holding pencils and pieces of charcoal out in front of them, extending their arms and squinting their eyes to get an idea of space, ratio, depth and perspective.
Stretch, point, squint, measure, turn, sketch, blend, erase, repeat.
Ten minutes in, the complete human form already exists on the easels and sketchbooks of some. On others, he is still being constructed between lines, sharp and soft.
Criminal Justice student Dmitri Olivas poses standing while English Writing student Will Whalen sits, both facing those who are attempting to bring their figures to life on paper. Both men have previous figure modeling experience, though Olivas has only posed a couple times.
“The first time was nerve-wracking,” Olivas said. “Just about the first 10 minutes.”
Despite his initial nervousness, Olivas came back to pose a second time and plans on doing so again.
“I like breaking my own boundaries,” Olivas said. “I don’t know any of my friends who would do this.”
After 25 minutes, the sharp beep of a digital timer makes itself heard so that the models and artists can take a break.
Kayla Golub, an Arts Education student, keeps her drawing paper clean and nearly smudge-free. Like her peers in the room, Golub does not feel uneasy or nervous about spending two hours focused on the naked body of a stranger.
“It was something new, but once you start drawing, you’re not really focusing on that (the nudity),” Golub said. “You’re just focusing on what’s on the paper and what your hand’s doing, so, no, it’s not really awkward at all.”
Whalen has been modeling since Feb 2012, when he was told by another figure model that it was “an interesting kind of experiment.”
“It’s a strange mindset you’ve got to get yourself into,” Whalen said. “You’ve got to be focused, but at the same time, you’ve got to be completely calm and have that exchange with the audience, with the artists.”
As a musician, Whalen says he benefits from the experience of nude modeling when it comes to performing.
“There’s different ways to be naked,” Whalen said. “There’s taking off your clothes, and there’s actually being exposed, like energetically having an exchange with the artists. You’re providing a service, a lot like getting up on stage and playing music.”
cblackmer@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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