ramblers annonymous

when my drawing teacher told us we were going to draw live nude models in class, i was kind of scared.

not that i think there’s anything to fear about naked people! i mean, everyone is naked at some point of the day so how big of a deal can it be, really. but i also haven’t really been around a naked person in this casual of a context before.

there’s something to be said about the desensitization to this sort of thing. fashion gets more revealing by the minute and with a plethora of Personal Content advertisements on social media, i guess i can say that i’ve been unwillingly exposed to many parts of the body on numerous occasions. still… the feeling of having a scheduled encounter is a bit daunting.

unsurprisingly it was a completely normal experience. the model disrobed and i drew her, that was that. there was just one small development that i hadn’t expected.

as a typical young(ish) woman i have various insecurities about my body. while i understand that the presentation of women i see online are not all they appear to be – with the assistance of editing, procedures, and actual knowledge of how to pose with “good angles” – at times i can’t help making the comparison between myself and what i should look like (or wish to look like, depending on how you approach it).

this time, i was looking at a real woman. now i won’t go into details because that would be weird (and perhaps offensive to the model, who so graciously held still while a bunch of university kids attempted to draw a human being for the first time), but i sketched features that people usually rush to airbrush away or surgically alter. it’s as though i tend to forget that these features exist on woman, and it doesn’t make them any less beautiful. and when she walked around the class she didn’t scrutinize what we captured of her, only smiled at each of us and complimented our work.

i hope, with that class, i have gotten better with drawing anatomy. i want to make clear that seeing the new model didn’t help my insecurities or raise my self esteem, but her body reminded me that real bodies exist. i also hope that if i ever have to be drawn naked for whatever reason, i can be confident enough.