A lecture room was transformed into a figure-drawing workspace with easels angled towards a semi-nude model to enable the third-year art education students to capture a straight image with minimal head movement required.

Students were instructed by their lecturer, Dr Deléne Human, to use charcoal and/or graphite pencils throughout the workshop as those would allow them to freely build on previous marks. Each of the four preparatory drawings took the participants fifteen minutes to complete, allowing them to gain confidence in the medium while drawing a live, continuously moving three-dimensional semi-nude model. After completing all the preparatory drawings, the students placed their four drawings side by side to compare them and note potential anatomical corrections before beginning the final drawing of the seated model using either charcoal or graphite pencil. They were allowed ninety minutes to capture the seated model.

The figure sculpting workshop that followed required more workspace preparation. As for the figure-drawing workshop, the model was staged in the centre, but was reclining on a mattress placed on a table, which put her at the artists’ eye level. After a fifteen-minute experiment to manipulate the clay into a female figure, the students were ready to move on to the final figure sculpture. The model moved into a comfortable position on her side, in which she remained for the next few hours while the artists studied her from different angles while attempting to create an accurate smaller replica. Once the sculptures were completed, a clay wall was built around each one to act as a barrier before the pieces were cast in plaster of Paris to capture the figures’ negative spaces. Cement was then poured into the moulds to produce cement sculptures of the original clay figures.

The workshop aided in the perception of transitioning from two-dimensional flat drawings to three-dimensional sculpture—a skill that future art educators can apply in their own creative spaces.
This annual third-year project, which was developed by Dr Human to enhance students’ perception skills and expose them to the study of the anatomy of a semi-nude model, was successful on many levels. The students not only experienced the development of a two-dimensional figure drawing into a three-dimensional sculpture, but also had a transformation experience.