A Lot of Free Life Models
 

Here is what you can do to do to increase your time working from live models:

First, make sure you can draw well enough so that you don't thoroughly embarrass yourself the first day. I am assuming you have been drawing objects over and over and over again for years. Specifically, draw over and over again the oval shape of the head, where the eyes are on a line in the middle of the face, the location of the ears, etc. etc. in the full face (and easiest ) pose. (If you can get the location of the features right and add big eyes (for children) and pouty lips (for women) you will be halfway home in your drawings for many people. Incidentally, caricaturists frequently do this.) Then, buy a Planes of the Head cast and try this at home with a light in the classic portrait setup.

Secondly, set yourself up somewhere with your charcoal setup and inexpensive paper, two chairs, a timer and a portable light. Put your subjects in the same full face position, where you can see both ears and be lit from above, so there is a shadow on the nose that doesn't hit the upper lip. Make a big sign that says "Free Charcoal Drawings" and settle down for a few hours. (You can also try this with your oil paints but maybe not your first time out there.)

Take time figuring out where the "somewhere" should be. One of my favorite artists did this in a busy shop that his friend owned, one Saturday a month and the friend promoted the artist and put out flyers. The line of willing models went out the door.

I suggest that you take the position that you are creating free sketches - don't sign them with your signature. Be prepared to take some hits to the Ego of Vous. At first you will have only be successful with, oh, maybe one out of ten but in a short while this ratio will get much better and most importantly you will gain confidence.

If you're going to work in a park or on the street be sure you research the local ordinances against vagrancy and solicitation. Even if you aren't selling anything you can still be hassled for sidewalk obstruction, and then you'll be pushed into the gutter where you may be taking up valuable parking space.

What you should NOT do is take along a photo and show everybody how skilled you are at copying it. You will be ridiculed by passersby who snipe, "Oh, he's just copying a photo", and you will deserve it.

Your goal is to live and breath making art, to let seeing and drawing or painting flow seamlessly from you into your art. Get tough about criticism and rejection - all it means is that certian people are not with you on your planet, which is fine - others will enjoy you, and nobody is for everybody. (Nevertheless, get better, for heaven's sake, and seek out artists who can help you grow to be a better artist.) You must get your confidence level up - winning awards doesn't do it, DOING the work does it.

Remember that you are a drawing and painting machine! When somebody asks you to paint him, you don't say, "Oh, wait until I take the photo and go Photoshop it and then I'll get back to you." YOU PAINT. You're an artist, that's what you do.

Right on!
 

I have done thisat parties and fund raisers. It is a great way to really learn how to grab the salient features quickly.

Working and demoing from life in public is nerve wracking. I know this from the three years I taught at the Rhode Island School of Design. However nervous I was, I reminded myself that the model was free and the experience was invaluable.

First of all it frees you from the conception you have to produce a masterpiece, you just gotta draw and hope you survive.

Great piece Linda, thank-you for your effort in posting it.

I did exactly what Linda is recommending for two summers when I was in college. (I was paid for it by a company who had all the necessary permits etc. but otherwise the idea was the same.) Over those two summers I must have done 500 full color pastel portraits from life, in less than an hour each. What great training and experience. It made me fearless about tackling anything and doing it in front of a crowd, too. I highly recommend it, even if it's done for free. Where else can you get models lining up out the door for your work?

Thanks for the post Linda, I think that's a great idea. I don't think I've quite got this bit:

yet, but I'm working on it. I've got this filed away for later.

Maybe you should plan on embarrassing yourself the first day . . . what's the worst that can happen? If you get harrassed too much, hand the heckler the charcoal . . . one of two things will happen: either they'll "fold" and concede your skill, or they'll show you something and you'll learn from it. I'm betting on the former.

Paul, from what I can tell on your site, you are an exceptionally talented artist who is terrific with people - I predict lines going out the door. :) And I'd like to be drawn by you, too!

Heh, Richard, that's a good point.

Linda - are you sure you were at the right web site? ;)

You've convinced me. If it goes well I'll come back and report, if it goes badly and I get beaten up, arrested or laughed out of town I'll just go very quiet and pretend I never went in the first place.

I've been getting a few emails recently about photos vs. life work and so I want to clarify my own feelings about the subject. My best day is when I get to work from life. My second best day is when I get to work from a photo. (I think I am paraphrasing a sports coach here, maybe Vince Lombardi...?) The point is, I'll try to get it done however I can.

All I'm trying to say is that any way you can get good work done is better than no way at all. What ultimately matters is your product, and you must get your work done before your lights go out and your time to make art is over. But working from life will make any work you do from photos much, much stronger.

This is a great idea. This sounds like something fun I could do with my students as well. Although I might need to wait till it's fall here in Texas...right now it's excruciatingly hot.

It seems like this might be a great way to get models for more involved paintings as well. You hook them with the first one ;) .

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What a wonderful idea!

I'm going to take a gut check and see if I can do this. If I do I'll report back as well.

I have been doing this for more than two years at my local library here in teeny-tiny Skiatook, OK. I go Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and do free sketches of anyone who will be by "victim." Usually kids. I try to spin out simple pencil sketches in five miinutes, or thereabouts.

It's challenging and fun, and definitely helps the old "eye/hand" duo, and it definitely helped my painting.

I invite mothers (especially mothers) to stand behind and watch it all go together. Whether it's good, or not so good, they ooh and aah, of course because they can't do it.

One day, a little girl stood beside my watching me sketch a teen boy. Quietly, she leaned forward and said softly, "That doesn't look like him."

I asked her if I had ever drawn her.

"Yes," she replied.

"Was it any good?" I asked.

"Oh yes," she replied, "you're a very great artist, you know."

I've always wondered how I could be great enough to sketch her flawlessly and not the teen boy.

But it's always fun, and a great source of free models. It also lets me pick the good heads for later development in oil.

Dear LInda

Thank you for this thread.

It is hard to gather the courage to start out in public. I will try to get hold of a plain cast to start off with as you have suggested.

I have a part time job now (that is worked usually over 5 and a half days) and am arranging other responsibilities to allow time to focus on my drawing once again. I am hoping to cut my hours down to just 3 days (say 10-12 hours a day instead of 6 or so hours a day) so that will leave time to practice. I really have missed my practice time, I certainly have gone backwards that is for sure. Your suggestion of how to get from chook scratch to something reasonable would certainly work.

Richard, what a wonderful thing to do. I hope you post some of your drawings here!

Ngaire, I am so impressed by your dedication to your art and your will to succeed at this. Please keep us posted as to how it's coming along.

One never knows the extent one's actions influence others down the road. I just think it is so important to get visual artists into the public consciousness. I recently did a 2-hour portrait demonstration at a "family day" at an art museum here. At one point I backed up and nearly stepped on several of the children sitting on the floor using crayons to sketch on their drawing pads along with me. (There must have been twenty of them.) Many of them told me they wanted to be artists, too, so I gave them all a pep talk.

Hi Richard,
This sentence rekindles a recent event i had, when i was doing public portrait drawing for a charity event raising funds for the "special athletes". I had 7 portraits done throughout the day, and 2 of them were of special people.

My first model, an intellectually disabled person, couldn't sit still as he couldn't understand fully what i meant. Fortunately he wasn't fidgeting a lot so i could capture a general likeness of him. But i wasn't happy with the work, and had the same question you had, reeling through my head.

By the 2nd special model, who seemed to be attention deficit and couldn't sit still, i had realised the most important thing that we could do for these live sessions, was to challenge ourselves to get a "general likeness within that time period".

I had works with pretty good likeness for a couple of models in between the special models. That was after i'd cleared up my thoughts, and went down to measuring and assessing them quickly.
But it helped the most by breaking out of my routine - varying the start-out points when drawing the faces! That was when "the holy light of creativity" shone of me!!
So i hope this little story will be helpful in your next public art session, Richard!

I've been looking for ways to get models too. Today I decided to place an ad on freecycle.org. It's a site where you're only allowed to post items that you are giving away free. Well, I posted a "Free charcoal portrait" ad today, and have already gotten seven responses from people who seem eager to participate. I don't know how many of them will follow through, but if I got seven responses in just a few hours, I think I'll be able to find models for sessions a few times per week.

I'm hoping to do fairly sustained poses, but we'll see how tolerant they are of it.

Some respondants expressed a desire to pose for paintings. I'm not sure they know how long that will take, but we'll see how it goes.

Great idea, Jeff! I may try that too.

I'm trying to organize an open studio here in town, and the university students are an unknown at the moment. My first interviewee forgot to show up, then when I called, she apologized, saying she'd come right down. Nope - that interview was to check for dependability. A no show first thing does not cut it.

Please report back on how dependable your freecycle folks are, okay?
Free beats paying a model, for sure!

Okay, now I have a date to go to a senior apartment building in a couple of weeks. The residents are eager for portraits!

This came as a result of the Freecycle ad.

J

That is SO cool, Jeff. I hope you have lots of fun and practice

You've inspired me. I'm about to put flyers out in mailboxes in my neighborhood, with a deal - sit for 3 hours and get a free portrait.
I used to be my neighborhood president, so most folks here know me already, which is a plus for this sort of thing.

There's an elderly male neighbor who likes to tease me: he enjoys telling me and friends that I am going to paint him nude. Well, if he tries that now, I think I'll turn the tables and tell him our drawing group would be happy to take him up on the offer! ;)

All my friends thought I was crazy when I did this. I would trade anybody a charcoal that they would sit for, for an oil that they would sit for me. I saw it as getting two models for free but most of my friends thought I was giving my work away too cheap. The good thing as I am not my biggest collector. I still do it now only it cost them three settings. Ha! Hey, an artist as to do what he's gotta do.

Clayton

What great idea! ( I am still my biggest collector)

A Single Spark Can Start A Prairie Fire
 

A Single Spark Can Start A Prairie Fire
A Single
Spark
Can
Start
A
Prairie Fire
A Single Spark Can Start A Prairie Fire

(Chris, you can read your name here----PSA--C SAP)