Monday, October 7, 2013

So I really am a nude model! Who'd'a thunk?

Gil Salk - Modeling      Blog#2

My first actual modeling gig: I posed for 2 Life Drawing groups at MCC on Main in Manchester CT. The background for this is in my last post.

I had only four concerns going into this:
Would I actually be able to take my clothes off, or would I have a sudden onslaught of shyness, modesty, or paralysis?
Would anybody laugh – or worse, everybody?
Could I hold the poses?
Would I be able to think of enough different poses?

As it turned out, I would have had no problem disrobing – if I had been wearing a robe. (Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself. I blame it on too much exposure to Groucho Marx as a child.)

Getting undressed was actually a “no worries” experience, and being nude in front of a group felt no different than walking around naked at home. The latter did surprise me a bit. I had expected to have to ward off a little self-consciousness, but the whole thing was very comfortable. (And nobody even snickered.)

The first day (Friday) there were nine people in the group. Age range was from college age (a guy and girl) to retirement age. The college age guy was the only male artist. Their skill level varied widely. One of the women clearly knew what she was doing. The others were having problems getting my feet right, or dealing with foreshortening if they were viewing me from a difficult angle, or getting curves and angles right, or some other issue. Several of them clustered during breaks to critique drawings and offer advice to each other.


Posing turned out to be less of a problem than I thought it could be. For the most part I used the familiar – sports poses (boxing, archery, in the blocks at the start of a race, et al.), sculpture (The Thinker), talking on the phone… Using the advice I got from the model I observed a couple of weeks earlier, I assumed standing-needing-to-balance-a-little positions for the early 2-minute poses, more stable standing postures for the 5-minute poses, and sitting or reclining for the 20-, 30-, and 60 minute poses.

Because they wanted angles and curves, for a lot of my poses I had my arms and legs bent and my torso a little twisted. I found that I was able to hold the poses up to 30 minutes (though my muscles, such as they are, were trembling toward the end of some of them. Fortunately, we took a break halfway through the 60-minute pose – I never would have made it all the way through in one take.

I did a lot of stretching during breaks, and I stopped to swim a couple of hundred yards in a nearby pond on my way home

All in all, it didn’t feel like a lot of exercise, but I had an amazing collection of stiff muscles in the morning.

Saturday was very similar, except that there were only two people; the woman a retired art professor at UConn, and the man working full time and taking evening art classes. He wants to be a set and costume designer for theater.


I had expected that Saturday would bring a lot more people than a Friday afternoon, but they told me that the groups were usually very small on Saturdays. Strange.

By now, being an experienced model, I got to be a little cavalier about what I could do in the way of posing. I kept getting into postures that were difficult to hold for any extended period. I’d have too much weight on one leg, or I was resting my head on my hand, which fell asleep a little more than halfway through the pose. I also discovered that, even with a pillow, my elbow would start to talk back to me.

Before I do this again, I think I’m going to Google “poses for models” and see if I can expand my repertoire. I might also start stretching and exercising a whole lot more than I do now.

I’ll find out toward the end of the month whether they would like me back in September. My fingers, eyes, and legs are crossed.

One last thing. I got in touch with the professor at Manchester Community College who is in charge of Life Drawing classes to see if there are any opportunities for me to model there. I hope to hear back from him soon.

Stay tuned.

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