Sunday, September 28, 2008

Wednesday's Class

It's Sunday and I'm just now getting to posting about Wednesday's class at the state university. It's been a bit of a busy week...

I was modeling in room 400 for the instructor who likes me (it's mutual) and managed to arrive early from my day job still dressed in my business casual attire. The weather looked like there was a possibility of rain so I drove my car instead of riding my motorcycle. When I take the motorcycle I always wear jeans and riding gear and look like I might actually be a college student. When I come dressed for the day job I clearly am NOT an art student.

Arriving early I found the 1:00pm - 3:00pm drawing class still in progress so I went to Fine Art Studio secretary's office to wait. I noted many of the students passing by eyeballing me and realized I probably was dressed like many of their parents who work corporate jobs. Perhaps they mistook me for someone from administration.

When I finally got into the classroom and went to the tiny, shower-curtained changing area, the room was devoid of students. I quickly undressed and got into my robe and flip-flops so I was ready to pose. Then I waited. By five minutes to class only one student had shown up. The instructor was coming in and out of the room obviously wondering where her class might be. Just as 3:30pm hit several more students showed up charging to the nearest easel and setting up.

At ten minutes after the official start of class there were about ten students in class. It seems Wednesdays truly are busy days for art students- they'd rather be elsewhere than in their class. One student whom I had never seen before was accosted by the instructor who asked where he had been for the last two weeks. He claimed illness and the instructor requested a doctor's note. I could sense she was somewhat frustrated by the absence of so many students.

We started with two, seated poses for five minutes each. I set my legs in one direction and twisted by torso in the other direction, setting my weight to one side on one arm. I can't seem to ever take it easy on myself for any kind of pose...

We moved through the usual exercises... contour drawings, mass drawings, line drawings. Finally the instructor asked me to do a twenty minute seated pose- this was the first long pose I had done for this class. She was not satisfied with their progress and extended the pose to thirty minutes.

We took a 10 minute break which I spent stretching and limbering up for the rest of class. l've been running a lot lately and I realized my knees were actually hurting from my last pose so I was glad for the opportunity to stretch my muscles a bit.

After the break the instructor asked for a thirty minute standing pose so I did a classic, contraposto pose with one arm up and my hand spread across my clavicle. This pose was actually more comfortable than my last, seated pose. The only problem is that with thirty minutes to pose, I let my mind wander and I completely lost my timing count. I think I lost count after fifteen minutes so I started over and hoped I really only had 15 more minutes to go.

The instructor finally asked me how long we had to go and I told her about five minutes. One of the students piped in that it was already 5:50pm and the class was ending at 6:00pm! I had held the pose for almost 15 minutes longer than requested! The instructor had been busy advising the class so she hadn't noticed the passage of time. I apologized but the instructor said it was okay- it was the first time the class had done long pose so she was glad to give them the extra time to develop their drawings.

I gotta figure out a better way to self-time. Maybe I can find an egg timer or something...

I'm only for one day next week at the state U. but I do have several days of work coming up at the local community college which means I have several days of long pose ahead of me. It will be a little bit of a relief because the instructor there always times for me...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bring a timer, definitely. The one I bought from Radio Shack has been a lifesaver. Instructors never have timers. Student monitors lose them or can't find them. I highly recommend every model to have his/her own timer with them. You're the one posing, after all. And you know how disorganized many art classes can be!

exbrun2 said...

Hi, Claudia!

Thanks for checking out my blog and thanks for posting!

I did go out and buy a $2.00, wind-up egg timer. It will be useful for poses 2 minutes or longer... less than that and I'll lose more time winding the egg timer.

What kind of timer did you get from Radio Shack? I'm guessing it's something electronic...

Thanks again,

-Alex

Anonymous said...

Alex, it's a great timer. Takes just one AAA battery. Much better than the egg timer. You set the number of minutes, say 2, when it goes off all you have to is hit the start/stop button, then press it AGAIN, and it is re-set at your original number of minutes! I've done it over and over again for gestures if I'm timing myself. Works great.