Influenced - Life Drawing

Why I like (drawing) naked people.

In 2015, when I was still figuring out how to be a children’s book illustrator, I volunteered at the Barnes Children’s Literature Festival. All volunteers were allowed to sit in any talks / workshops for free as long as they did their given tasks. I watched some talks and tried to speak to as many authors and illustrators as possible. One of them was Ed Vere. I ran up to him outside the venue and asked him for advice. He said, “Go to life drawing classes.”

After that day, I looked up life drawing classes in London. There were a plenty of classes and many of them were “no string attached” drop-in sessions. My first life drawing (ever in my life) was with a female model. Being a perfectionist and slow drawer, I was really thrown off by the short (1-10 minutes) poses. Even with longer poses, I was a bit at loss. I could draw but, because I’ve never had formal training, I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t capture what I was looking at. But I understood why Ed Vere had said life drawing …