Tryon Painters and Sculptors (TPS) offers two figure-drawing sessions each week at the new TPS location, 26 Maple Street in downtown Tryon: Thursday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. and Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon.
Members of TPS pay $10 a session; non-members and guests pay $15. What you get for your “tuition” is an opportunity to draw a model, usually nude, in the company of other artists, from beginners to professional. Whether their primary artistic interest is still life, plein aire, figurative, abstract or sculpture, these artists believe continued practice drawing the human figure will result in better art.
“The process trains the eye/hand to see form, spatial relationships, proportion, contours, tonal values of light to dark and color and textures of skin and hair,” said Pauline Ross of TPS. “Some liken the experience of drawing the body on a regular basis to a musician doing scales and chords to facilitate their virtuosity during everyday practice or to warm up before a concert. Many in our figure drawing studios have marveled at the improvement in the speed and accuracy they have developed in drawing. Things that used to be difficult are becoming second nature to them now.”
Drawing the clothed figure is made so much easier when you know what is going on under the fabric, Ross said, just as drawing the undraped figure is made simpler if one has an idea of what is going on under the skin. The studio has an articulated human skeleton that is used for reference. Muscle and other tissue covering the bones of a model are accentuated in the way the model is lit. These forms change with the model’s movement and challenge the artists’ ability to depict what he/she sees accurately.
Each session starts with drawing “gesture poses.” They number about 10, are varied from standing, seated, kneeling or reclining poses, but the challenge is that they range from one or two minutes each. The idea is to get the feel or movement of the body with no time to work out detail.
“Most of these poses would be too difficult for a model to hold for any longer than the two minutes,” Ross said. “These are designed to ‘warm-up’ the artist for the longer poses that follow. Being a democratic atmosphere we decide if we want to spend the rest of the time on a series of shorter poses of 20 minutes to an hour or whether we spend the entire time on one pose. Should the class opt for one pose, those who prefer shorter poses can move about the room and draw from different angles.”
TPS invites all those interested to join. The studio is not large and space is at a premium, so it would be best to make sure there is room for you. Check with Mike McCarthy for the Thursday night session at 828-859-9963 or Dick Neff for the Saturday morning session at 864-915-3144.
If you are interested in modeling, call Dick Neff at the number above.
– article submitted by Pauline Ross