Aug 142014
Plumber (1)
It should not feel like glamour-modelling but it does. Due to Racy Derek (Pepperwharfe group organizer) saying Give us your shoulder blades, Suki. Due to my co-model the plumber having texted me loads ever since he met me, wanting to meet for coffee and “discuss poses”. It doesn’t take much to flip this activity over into something else.
He stands bluntly, a fence post. I put myself in more of a shape, show muscles, bones, the hollows between them.
Should we be touching?
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Hmmmmmm,
always the tough questions, Suki…
And what of the actual artist’s impression? Interesting that he has you coloured and the fenced plumber looking very pallid,
or is that hint of red from some discipline..?
Better not post it to FaceBook, lol
Re “the tough questions” Marli: I just think, what’s the purpose of setting a pose of two life-models if there is no relationship between the two figures – at the very least, apparent eye contact, or some sort of complementary body language or shape?
The technical drawers in the room might say that the only importance to them is the challenge of twice as much visual information to reproduce. Narrative irrelevant.
But what I always want to say to those types is – why don’t you just go draw the town hall.
I see where you’re coming from Suki. I am wondering if the artists can interpret the relationship? I guess if it is before them, whatever they produce is their interpretation, consciously or not.
Hi Suki
I realise that despite living in a post feminist world, men still have a lot of advantages, but you’re going to have to help this guy out if he’s ever going to make it in the life modelling milieu. Just being a male hunk isn’t enough – even with an elegant woman, well, not exactly on his arm, but…
Why did they pay double, if this is what they got? There again, depends what you want out of this.
If you mean, Maggie, that the plumber standing like a fence-post might make a difference to whether or not he’s considered a good model… Well, that is the least of the concerns of most groups. What is appreciated in a model?
No.1: stillness.
No.2: show up on time; in fact, just show up.
I don’t often hear groups moan about a model just because the model doesn’t endeavour to make an interesting shape. It’s completely acceptable and completely standard for a model to plonk him/herself on a chair like a dollop, take it or leave it. Models are in short supply around these parts.
I modelled with one other model, always the same one, every Wednesday for twelve years, and also on other occasions with different models, both male and female. Just about every conceivable pose was carried out during that time. The intertwined ones seemed to give more satisfaction towards a good end-product drawing, more so than being separate. The reason was given that although obviously more complicated, it was easier to relate body-parts, whereas in “bookend” poses, the separated poses, it was literally just drawing two figures. For foundation students, both were extremely useful for the learning process.
That’s really interesting Bea (re: intertwined poses being easier): the sense that they are drawing one form, not two.
Marli – regarding your last comment: I think lookers at a pose (i.e. artists) or lookers at a completed picture are, in both cases, seeking a narrative, because I think that’s what humans do. That, of course, is then conjured by the individual looker, and is likely to vary hugely from person to person. But yes, in principle I think there will always be some kind of relationship imagined between any two juxtaposed figures.
I think the balance of this composition is perfect and serves a narrative beautifully.
His understated pensive male stance – head slightly cocked listening – is just the ticket to offset Suki’s highly expressive pose striking clear across the canvas. She appears to impart some endearment or comfort to him.
It’s less a performance and more a captured moment.
I say bravo to both models, and of course to Keith Lowe, for not over-egging the pudding.
Thanks ‘loizart’ for the bravo. Wonder whether the plumber will read this and enjoy his share of the ‘bravo’.