Figure Class

Yesterday was the first session of my 7-week Figure Drawing in Varied Media class at the Art League. It's three hours every Saturday morning, led by Priscilla Treacy. It's a fairly large class, as these classes go, so I'm not sure how much individualized attention each of us will get. But oh well, I'll make sure that it will be fun.

What luxury to:
-- Have a model that will hold still! So much better than my usual "models" on Metro.
-- Get all messy with charcoal! This stuff called Char-Kole is the greatest! As black and as heavy and as creamy as you could ask. Neat stuff. (I definitely need to bring hand wipes next week.)

Eventually we are going to paint on paper with a technique called "peinture a l'essence" (used by Toulouse-Lautrec and Eddie Degas), which appears to be regular oil paint that has had the oil leached out of it by letting it sit on absorbent paper for a while. We'll use turpentine to dilute and apply it. It sounds stinky and awful to me and I wonder, if the 'requirement' is that we have to use paper as the support in this class, why we don't just use gouache. No muss no fuss. No turpentine! Maybe I'll be a pest and ask her.