Dysgraphic life drawing on the first day of class - part 1

This class was meant to challenge how you draw, why you draw and what you draw. The message that I took away from the class was the more awkward and terrible your drawings are, the better they subvert the traditional ideals surrounding the drawn human form and, as a result, the better they really are. 

We were looking at dysgraphia - distorting and disrupting the traditional established ideas of what life drawing should look like, deskilling and unlearning what we know. I really enjoyed it and found it to be a breath of fresh air. Instead of being hung up on proportions, correct anatomical structures and perfect drawings, we broke away from what is considered to be skilful mimesis or methods of drawing that are based in academic skill. 

These were 1 minute poses which were drawn using a variety of techniques, such as  recording the model's pose using short lines, then long lines.

These were some more warm up drawings, in which we explored the model's pose through looking at negative space, continuous line, drawing with the side of the medium and drawing without looking at the page.

For another warm up, we were told to tear out the model's pose using butcher's paper. Quite interesting and fun!

This drawing was done over several poses, in which the model  changed positions several times and we had to draw the change in her body. Interesting to get a feeling of movement and animation. I could imagine a stop motion using this technique.  

This one was drawn using a variety of techniques, such as drawing with two hands at the same time, drawing then smudging the charcoal with the other hand and drawing without looking at the paper.

This drawing was meant to juxtapose the traditional skilful mimesis with a dysgraphic counterpart. The second drawing, done with my non dominant hand and without looking at the paper, was meant to explore the awkward and unnatural aspect to the pose.

This was a ten minute pose in which the model was in a corpse/ neutral pose. We spent a while drawing the model naturalistically and then closed our eyes and worked with out non dominant hand.