A Lot of Free Life Models

[Marcus Lim]

Originally Posted by Richard Budig

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

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!

[Jeff Fuchs]

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.

[Julie Deane]

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!

[Jeff Fuchs]

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

[Julie Deane]

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!