Capture the Vitality
Laguna Beach, California
Time for a hometown travel delight — something I haven’t ever done in all the travel blogs I’ve written throughout the years. So why now? Because enjoyment does not discriminate. My history as a traveler, jetsetter, and nomad has demonstrated to me that it matters not where I am but how I be when I inhabit a place.
Sorrow or delight, it’s not the province, country, county, or terrain that holds the emotion — it is me. The energy runs through my very own meridians, telling stories in my very own brain.
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One auspicious evening a couple of weeks ago I attended a figure drawing class at Laguna Art Museum. Apparently, the museum holds these classes monthly. I’d recently been attending figure study classes at an art studio near my home, so through the grapevine I came to know about this figure drawing session not even 30 minutes away. And at the beach! Oh, Love is real.
Laguna Beach is a favored of mine among those I’ve stepped foot on across the world. I’ll admit, I’ve been guilty of undervaluing hometown treasures in favor of far-flung international wonders throughout the past decade. And while the seascapes in El Nido, Palawan, Philippines still hold the top spot in my heart for most breathtaking (preceding the deliciously colorful autumn sunrises in Chacahua, Oaxaca, Mexico, but now I’m slightly bragging), Laguna Beach has a special magic that I’ve returned to year after year when I’ve resided in my hometown.
You know the magic I’m talking about. In beach towns, it’s like everyone walks on air and breathes dreams. There’s an ease to the way of life and the ebb and flow of the tides affects our humans more directly than it does when we are city or country-dwellers.
I love this way of being.
Beyond my figure study classes, I’d been to several figure drawing sessions throughout the past couple of years in the different countries I’d resided in as a nomad. My first was in Porto, Portugal on a winter evening, a short walk away from my Bonfim apartment. In that class, the instructor, warm hearted, salt-and-pepper haired, with his hair messily running down his back, kindly instructed me to depict the model on my paper using lines and rulers and rules. That was a first for me when drawing people.
I am a willing and open learner, though.
The second was in Mexico City, and it was an odd experience, as many are in Mexico City, because they can be. What an eclectic place. No instructor. Only a model and some cardboard I’d brought from home to draw on. Some markers and pencils. There was some sort of attempt at a quantum hypnosis by the host of the event. I didn’t get it. I think I left early. Nobody needs my rolling eyes changing the vibe. It be like that sometimes.
I’d attended another event at a teahouse in Los Angeles earlier this year where the model planted herself in different spots along the room, in different costumes. There were a few of us artists there and a host, an artist himself, though he didn’t give any instruction. Since there were so few of us, I felt relaxed in my depiction of the muse. And what I love about figure drawing sessions is seeing everyone’s renditions of the muse when on breaks or when the session is over. The way art moves through each persons eyes, their hearts, and hands is inspiring. One cannot claim I am not an artist and then arrive at a figure drawing class ready to create.
Figure drawing insists that you relax and become present to your perception of what you are seeing. Perhaps you are facing the front of the model and I am facing the back. Inevitably, what we see is different. But we still exercise the same focus, control, and sense of perspective to honor the being we see in front of us.
For a few weeks at the end of the summer I’d taken a few life drawing sessions with the Contemporary Art Academy, and they were online. So all artists who attended drew from the same perspective — whatever the model gave on her side of the screen. It was during these sessions that I realized I not only have a passion for figure drawing, but a talent for it. I soon after signed up for figure study classes to sharpen my natural skills and take my journey deeper.
Self-portrait
Peter, the instructor at the Laguna Art Museum figure drawing class was bubbly, present, passionate, and a wonderful instructor. Why? Because he was willing to honor each artist’s work while offering suggestions to bring their work more alive. It was a truly uplifting and encouraging experience, and I came away with inspiration and tips to move forward with.
The one tip I follow in my figure drawing practice at home and in other areas of life is to: CAPTURE THE VITALITY.
It was the first time I’d heard a term like this, and I hadn't heard it in any of the other figure drawing spaces I’d inhabited. Generally, figure drawing sessions begin with the model posing for 1-min at a time in more complex postures as a warm-up to allow the artist to whet their pen and their artistic appetite, get the general sense of the model, and — as I like to think of it — begin moving with the energy of the model, as each human has its own energy signature. 1-min postures turn into 2-min postures, then 5-min, then 10, sometimes 15, then 20, or even 30-min at the longest, as I’ve experienced (models be on the couch, zonked).
As Peter instructed with his warmth and clear passion for teaching, 1-min postures are easy to capture the vilaity of the model, the posture. Why? 1-min is no time at all! You’re basically running on adrenaline to depict something that resembles a body by the time the minute passes. But that’s the same energy to keep when moving through longer postures, without the raised cortisol, of course.
1-min warmup postures
Perhaps 2-min postures after instructor guidance
To capture the vitality is to be fully immersed in the experience of translating one’s interpretation of art, figure, beauty.
Trust me, I know how intimidating it can be to sit before a nude body and attempt to do it justice by drawing it, articulating it, not judging it. That is the both the challenge as an artist first unfamiliar to life drawing, and the practice.
After class, you undress yourself to shower after a long day or an evening of bending over a drawing board and you perceive your own body differently. Each dimple and pore becomes something you’re curious about rendering on a page. You wonder how another artist would see and depict the fold in the right side of your back, a deeper crease than the one that exists on the left side. You go for more classes, render the unique silhouette and posture of more humans’ nude bodies and wonder what it would be like to stand in front of a room of 11 people, or more, and have 22 pairs of eyes, or more, focused on your breasts, your thighs, your shoulder blades, your whole entire form.
You wonder what it might be like to have others fully immersed in the experience of translating your human body — your art, figure, beauty — onto paper.
For now, though, you commit yourself to rendering the unique beauty of others, with their pores and dimples, their acne, humanness, perfect imperfections. You commit yourself to capturing the vitality in the first 1-min of any given posture, and if given more time, you commit yourself to doing your muse justice by filling in the spaces that only art can fill.
You discover your own poetry in the process and you worry not about what your drawings look like because you are so immersed in the experience of translation. You are capturing the vitality of the human experience. On paper. Rendered from your eyes, through your mind, heart, and hands. It is a glorious thing.
After the session, I walked outside to see the sun setting, the last of her rays waiting for my gaze before she tenderly departed for the evening. I found a way to climb down to the shore, where the tide was low. Me and my combat boots. I set up a solemn spot with my beach sit-upon (because I’d come prepared) far enough up on the shore to witness the silhouette of misshapen rocks being met with evening water. I imagined how sensuous and erotic it is to be slapped with waves throughout the day, sometimes being pulled fully under and experiencing the momentary solitude of time spent underwater. I could also see, what I call, classic California palm trees standing together two by two, also enjoying the last of the evening’s sunset before another night would come and offer a familiar darkness.
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I share much of my art-making journey in different media on Instagram @bynkem. Connect with me there, if you like.
