The Life Drawing thread

Just got back from my afternoon life class, the model was a 60 year old woman who swims every day and whose body shows her age but is also toned and fit. There were 13 people there, less than usual because of half term child minding duties, but a reasonable crowd. So why were we all there? Certainly not to ogle the naked 60 year old on the dias. Were we there to learn how to draw people with no clothes on? That would be a rather pointless skill to have unless you were artist in residence at a nudist colony. Perhaps to learn anatomy? You would be better off going to medical school. I think the real reason why people come along to the life drawing sessions is because the human body is the greatest challenge an artist can face, you can't fudge a life drawing, it sorts people out. This is not to say that other subjects can not be equally challenging, but the naked human figure offers no place to hide inaccuracies or fudging . If you draw a tree no one will notice an extra branch or a bit out of place but an extra leg is quite noticeable! We are there because whatever our art out in the real world, we realise that the constant repetition of drawing figures will improve our eye and help us see a bit better, which will enable our other work to also get better. This evening we have a different crowd, mostly professional people and the model is a young woman in her twenties with tattoos down her back. They are also there because they want to learn how to draw one of the hardest subjects in art to get right, it is the challenge that is the enjoyable bit.