Sunday, January 17, 2010

After Hale finished his anatomy lecture he would go to the back of the room and critique drawings. Those who wanted to draw would work from the model while the rest of us watched the critique. One day a young man put a drawing of a standing male nude before the instructor. "I see you put a rather prominent bump on the flank of your figure. Why did you do that?" Hale asked. "Well I saw a bump so I copied it" the student replied. "After you've studied that part of the anatomy you will come to realize that the bump you saw is the external oblique. It starts at the rib cage and extends down to the crest of the pelvis" Hale said. "It has a form and a function" he continued "and the more accurately you can draw it the more human your figure will become. But you can't draw something until you know it exists." What a profoundly beautiful way to think about drawing, or life. To discover the existence of things or ideas or characteristics, of healthy food, of philosophy or music, humility and compassion, that, when applied to our lives, make us more human.....

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