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I see naked people

Finally did something I’ve been meaning to do for years — found a local life drawing class and signed up. Just had my first two-and-a-half hour session.

Woo! Have I ever slipped. It’s been thirty years since I’ve drawn from the model, but I was kind of hoping all that other drawing I did would make up for it.

Nope.

Nude models, as a class, are not especially attractive people. Just people who feel comfy being naked and holding poses.

Our lady tonight had a butt-crack tattoo. A single Chinese character. My opinion of her would soar to great heights if it turned out to be the Chinese word for “butt crack.”

When I was in art school, tattoos were unusual — and tattoos on young women were unheard of. But one of our models had one. She was a dumpy young woman with a daisy tattoo’d growing out of her butt crack. The whole class was riveted to that thing. You could walk around the room, and I guarantee you the darkest, most fully rendered object on anyone’s drawing was that daisy.

No, you may not see my drawings. Not until I get a whole lot better.

Comments


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: November 2, 2011, 11:02 pm

This probably reveals all too much about my age and. . .other things. But the graphic on this post reminded me of a series of mugs it was possible to buy when I was in law school, with large heaps of elephants, or bunnies, or other animals (I only saw the elephant mug and the bunny mug)engaged in, um, fornication.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 2, 2011, 11:17 pm

I think I remember that, Can’t hark. And I should have said…the sculpture is one of Michelangelo’s first carvings.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: November 2, 2011, 11:21 pm

Can’t hark: ITYM copulation. Bunnies and elephants can’t fornicate, because that requires being unmarried. (I know, animals are not married – but they can’t be unmarried either.)


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: November 2, 2011, 11:55 pm

Sigh. OK, point taken. How the mugs were actually first described in my presence. . .

Well, see, I was a summer associate at a high price, big-city, law firm. We were on a junket somewhere (they used to do that for summer associates–how come I saw the one-and-only baseball game I have ever watched) and one of the actual associates was describing his reaction to a mug his wife had bought that day without closely examining it, because it had lots of bunny rabbits on it. He got home that evening, saw the mug in the kitchen, and asked (loudly, apparently) “What’s with all the f****** bunny rabbits?” His wife was offended, thinking that he was using it as an intensifying adjective, rather than a descriptive adjective. Once she had taken a close look at the mug, it ended up on a high shelf in an obscure cupboard. . .

So, sure. Copulation captures it. They were, in their own rather offensive way, quite funny.

And /not/ by Michelangelo.


Comment from Joan of Argghh!
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:21 am

Well, I’ll show you mine. I was and am very unskilled, but I loved the gesture classes at the city college. I loved the young, bold ladies who’d drop their robe and dare the trembling school-boys to capture her on paper.

Our class instructor wouldn’t accept a model with piercings or tattoos. Thankfully.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:24 am

Very nice, Joan.

I’m terrible at gesture. I ain’t loose. My second year, the drawing instructor gave me a chunk of fluorescent orange pavement marking chalk the size of my fist and made me draw with that for a term. He was trying to loosen me up, but at the time I just thought he was a sadistic asshole.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:29 am

The models in my live art class were pretty ladies for the most part (one was very slightly pregnant, even). The dude was really uncomfortable to draw for me at least.

What was weird though was having the models put on a robe and tiptoe over to look at the art and chat with me. That was awkward. A funny story.

I used to work at a convenience store downtown and one of the models came in to buy some stuff. I knew I recognized her but could not recall in what context. Finally just as she was paying I remembered… but what was I going to say to her? “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on?”

According to most artists and photographers I know, the tough part with models is getting them to leave their clothes on.


Comment from Mike James
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:51 am

Come on now, everybody chant after me, and let Sweasel hear it–

Butt Crack Daisy! Butt Crack Daisy! Butt Crack Daisy!

Louder!

BUTT CRACK DAISY! BUTT CRACK DAISY! BUTT CRACK DAISY!


Comment from Deborah
Time: November 3, 2011, 1:03 am

Is there medical or anatomical term for butt crack?


Comment from Oh Hell
Time: November 3, 2011, 1:16 am

Was she a plumber?


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: November 3, 2011, 2:12 am

Ladies and gentlemen and all our agents overseas:

Tonight’s secret chicken code is –

BUTT CRACK DAISY!
Repeat:
BUTT CRACK DAISY!


Comment from 16920502
Time: November 3, 2011, 2:18 am

Deborah,
“Is there medical or anatomical term for butt crack?”

But of course, but it’s not nearly as fun to say as “butt crack”!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergluteal_cleft


Comment from 16920502
Time: November 3, 2011, 2:23 am

To you, Some Vegetable

😯 😯 😯

Tonight’s secret chicken code is –

BUTT CRACK DAISY!
Repeat:
BUTT CRACK DAISY!


Comment from EZnSF
Time: November 3, 2011, 5:00 am

I always fancied myself the next Ansel Adams. Till I hit sophomore year in college. But I think I still got the eye.

My contribution to life and the human form: Last summer at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Shall call it Henry Moore and the Hidden But Crack.. I just couldn’t help myself then, or now. (and no, that’s not my wife.)

Love the Joan of Argghh!


Comment from mojo
Time: November 3, 2011, 6:28 am

It’s the ideogram for “aim here”…


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:05 pm

In art history class in high school, we used to sketch the art in our notes and then write about it. I and the girls around me always left a blank spot in a certain area of the statue.

Taking a drawing class is on my bucket list…I’m good at copying line drawings, but terrible at drawing from life, shading, coloring, perspective, and pretty much anything that doesn’t involve being really anal-retentive about carefully copying lines.


Comment from Deborah
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:53 pm

Thank you, 16920502! I agree that butt crack is more fun to say, but imagine being able to drop intergluteal cleft into a conversation.


Comment from fashizzlizer
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:54 pm

Ya nye znaio kak rabotat c karandashom. Ya nekogda budet artistom. K cozhelaniyoo.


Comment from fashizzlizer
Time: November 3, 2011, 12:55 pm

U na vsegda, 😯


Comment from nightfly
Time: November 3, 2011, 2:18 pm

Some Veg wins this thread. We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 3, 2011, 4:41 pm

what if the ideogram turns out to be Chinese for “scratch ‘n sniff”?


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: November 3, 2011, 9:29 pm

Probably means “stupid round-eye.”


Comment from MIke C.
Time: November 3, 2011, 9:51 pm

Feh. I actually signed up for a beginning drawing class in college, figuring at least some basics would come in useful, as geologists used to have to be able to draw, not just draft and such. A late addition, so I took the registration card to the first class at the end of it. The instructor/prof/whatever was standing at the door, accepting everybody’s first in-class assignment, which was to draw a pair of hands. So I stood there and watched what was being handed in. It wa painfully obvious that everybody in the damned class already knew how to draw far better than I ever would, and that the point was to either get an easy A or to learn to draw even better. Whatever. It was clearly not a class for beginners, so I slunk away to the admin building and changed for something else – Art Appreciation, IIRC. Which I actually flunked – turned out to be Painting Memorization. Stupidest class I ever sat through.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: November 4, 2011, 4:24 am

Can’t hark: Wasn’t trying to snark ya.

I was thinking of this passage from King Lear

“The wren goes to ‘t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive…”


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: November 7, 2011, 1:29 pm

Rich Rostrom: Ah! Lovely bit of language, that!

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