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Painting intuitively from the model

This week my students worked from a female figure model. The object was to capture movement and paint what the model is doing, not what she looks like. In other words, look for the gesture of the movement, and don't get caught up in trying to make the painting look proportional, or even look like the model!

Students painted rapidly, creating a painting every minute or so. We painted using sponges and brushes. One of the most successful exercises was one in which the contours of the model were laid down in less than a minute - then each student moved to the right and painted on their neighbor's paper. Students continued to move to the right until they came back around to their own piece of paper.