MODELING HIGHLIGHTS

2014

2014collage-ducret-mcaa

AMBER LOVE 27-DEC-2014 Almost all my modeling this year was limited to only three places from what I can remember of the last twelve months (photography was done at home by myself). I worked at DuCret School of Art, County College of Morris and for the Morris County Arts Association. I didn’t put in the effort to travel around as much as previous years in order to model at more places in NJ and PA. Plus, for most of the year, I was working a full-time day job and not available for some of my other favorite places like Kubert School and Montclair Museum. Other artists weren’t booking for their own reasons I guess, so I didn’t get to the New Hope area at all. And yet other places, like Princeton, I decided aren’t worth it for the pay because it costs me money to park and 3 hours of travel.

I think the work broke down to maybe 85% students to 15% professional or post-grad artists but I don’t really know for suse. It’s something I’m guessing based on how large some of the classes have been. Because I haven’t been to Kubert School in probably two years since I had taken that job, I’m not sure what their student gender ratio is at present. Based on my past experience though, there would only be about 10% female students. At DuCret, which is not a comic book school, there seems to be a fairly even ratio (probably more women) and a racially diverse student body. Kubert usually had a few interesting international students; I’m not sure if that was any kind of program or just individuals who wanted to come to the States to study there. The County College was gender balanced but because of the location, not ethnically diverse.

All the schools study anatomy and figure drawing. I think DuCret takes a different approach – they might have a separate class for the science part of it because not much is explained during the actual figure session where they are supposed to focus for a few hours on drawing; I could be wrong but I’ve never seen them explain much about the musculoskeletal system. When I was a Kubert, I would get to sit and listen to the lecture about that day’s focus which great for me because it reminded me of things from massage school. My natural breasts made “rib cage” day at Kubert my favorite because they got to learn about mass and gravity; but it was felt like they would have preferred more “comic appropriate” bodies in terms of build/definition because that’s what those students wanted to get into drawing after graduation.

Once you’re out of art school, it’s helpful to revisit the skills from figure and anatomy classes. There are open studios all over the place for nude figure sessions. There are also whimsical monthly drawing events at bars for things like Dr. Sketchy’s or Drink N Draw.

This year I worked a seven-week sculpting session for a couple of professional artists. They normally require a one-year commitment but the MCAA studio is over an hour from where I live but it was only the next town over from where I my day job was so I was out there in that area. After losing my job, it was hard for me to justify driving that far in the dark. I did it because I like them and I feel better modeling. Plus posing for sculpture is a rare opportunity. I prefer figure sessions but it’s interesting to mix it up once in a while.

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