Seated Nude

The first female nudes were portrayed with exaggerated body parts and were thought to have magical powers that aided fertility; centuries later artists continued portraying goddesses, however the focus now was on depicting the ideal form of female beauty. Fast forward a few more centuries and artists were more interested in portraying female figures realistically showing imperfections.

With the invention of the camera, artists in the late 19th century began exaggerating and even distorting proportions to portray the life, action and emotion of the subject in a variety of styles such as Impressionism, expressionism, fauvism, cubism, abstract.

I had the opportunity to study art.  My course of study included figure drawing classes with live nude models.   We began with gesture drawings to loosen up and then did contour drawings of the figure moving the pencil as the eye moved  along the outline of the figure...later adding shading using various techniques.  This little drawing was done using a live model at an art center in the Orlando area.

Mixed media (pencil, charcoal, conte crayon on toned archival paper). 11 x 17 inches.  1974