It was so much fun modeling for Mo's class, he tries to instill his passion to his students who are learning animation at Capilano University. I was happy to model for the same class as a month ago, and to witness this group's evolution in a such a short amount of time. After a semester of gestures and outlines, understanding more about negative space, these young adults are learning to treat the body as a 3D object. Last time, they were back from the holidays and Mo was hinting at the intimate relationship they would soon develop with the box god. I saw evidence of their encounter with the deity, since they would flip past drawings towards me, moving through the one minute poses. Boxes in the shoulders facing up and boxes at the pelvis facing down. It all made a lot of sense to understand the side planes of the body or the ones you would see by slicing it length wise. I love their quest to understand the underlying structure with simplified shapes.
If you wish to catch up with this post and see the drawings from a month ago or more pictures from that same snowy morning, go here.
https://steempeak.com/art/@edouard/nude-by-the-snowy-mountain-flank
The crisp morning air just biting the commuters' cheeks. Nature is so powerful around Capilano University, it must really improve the mood in the area favouring some quality learning.
Gestures came as an excellent warm up before seriously tackling anatomy.
I was standing in the room while the teacher was pointing out some bone landmarks on my body. He focused on ones that are visible from the outside like knees or clavicles. At one point, I was moving my arms from the back so the class could observe the scapula in action.
This process of imagining the bones inside the body yields fascinating results which remind of the less known X-Men mutant made out of goo from New X-Men. I actually have the New X-Men omnibus back East I think it was Emma Frost’s early days with the team.
The exercise of drawing skeleton inside the body is one I have done with my students recently in a brand new class called Drawing the Figure.
In Mo's class, the hardest pose was when I held my scarf from the back underhanded, lunging and leaning forward for 7 minutes. All the second round of poses were for that amount of time. I only picked poses I found pretty challenging and was told that I did a good job. He even called me: our beautiful model. I felt proud in that moment, I work very hard to stay fit so it was nice recognition. Mo is a very unique character, he said that he found it challenging to learn the names of all the muscles to this day and talked about death. He spoke of a model who died of a heart attack on the job in his 70s.
I said that I found that to brilliant and everybody laughed. But he shared the same point of view, why not die healthy and doing what you love?
He connects with them by breaking up the lesson with such anecdotes and the group seems to love him for keeping things fun and interesting. By being so personal, he gives everyone a chance to relate to him.
From afar, this animation program seems excellent. I am convinced that I would have found success here where at 18, I failed my second semester at Cégep du Vieux Montreal where the teachers were not very competent or nice. Mo says that it is a better program than the Sheridan college he had known many years ago.
I am rooting for each and every student to become great animators, comic book artists or illustrators. It is not an easy life yet it is infused with art and creativity. Tonight I am meeting my friends from that industry to participate in the comic jam, I’m very excited!