{"id":31656,"date":"2025-07-02T04:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31656\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T04:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:26:10","slug":"art-comes-to-life-with-nude-figure-drawing-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31656\/","title":{"rendered":"Art comes to life with nude figure drawing class"},"content":{"rendered":"

BELFAST, Maine (WABI) – From prehistoric Venus figurines<\/a> to Michelangelo\u2019s David, artists have tried to capture the natural beauty of the human form for thousands of years.<\/p>\n

In Belfast, a weekly class is giving this opportunity to any adult, regardless of experience level or preferred medium of creative expression. <\/p>\n

Hosted every Tuesday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at community arts center Waterfall Arts<\/a> is the adults\u2019 short-form figure drawing class.<\/p>\n

While it is typically monitored by Tim Conte, the class is led this summer by local artist Donald Patten.<\/p>\n

The class is open to anyone 18 years of age or older and features a nude model.<\/p>\n

After starting his creative career in ceramics, Patten says he fell in love with the art of figure drawing after attending the classes at Waterfall Arts in 2022.<\/p>\n

Now, not only is Patten one of the center\u2019s Figure Drawing Coordinators, but he also hosts other opportunities for artists to experience a live figure drawing session.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfessional artists, newcomers and students, so we see a lot of variety in the art that\u2019s made, especially with a different variety of media,\u201d says Patten on the class\u2019s attendance.<\/p>\n

On Tuesdays, the model is only posed for a timed duration, ranging from two to twenty minutes as the class progresses. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love to see the different shapes and discover things and you can do that in short poses,\u201d explains class attendee and longtime local artist David Estey. \u201cBecause the model can do a more dynamic, interesting thing she can hold for the short pose, but that\u2019s difficult in the longer pose, so they tend to be more static.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the different poses keep things interesting, having the model in the room makes a huge difference in how students\u2019 works turn out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the photograph, you only just have the image and there\u2019s no variant in that,\u201d Patten describes. \u201cWith a figure drawing, where you are in the room really shapes the drawings you make.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Philadelphia, Terry Halbert has been coming to figure drawing class for the past three summers while on vacation in Belfast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not an artist, I was never in art school,\u201d comments Halbert on her skillset. <\/p>\n

Despite her lack of experience, she says she has always been made to feel welcome: \u201cThere is really, literally no outside judgment. You just sit down with your tools and you do what you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her, the figure drawing class is a lesson in looking with care and intention: \u201cIt\u2019s about sort of training yourself to really see what\u2019s in front of you and then try to replicate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Estey explains, nudity is an amazing subject to sharpen artistic skills: \u201cDrawing from the figure has historically been important because the figure has virtually everything. Softness, hardness, angles, curves, all kinds of contortions when the body moves. So, it\u2019s always been a primary focus of artists and where they learn to draw and design and think about space and form and light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arianna Forbes has been modeling for figure drawing sessions since college and has spent about three years modeling for Waterfall Arts.<\/p>\n

For her, the confidence to model nude comes from the comfortable atmosphere and the long line of women who have come before her, who were only historically allowed in artistic spaces as nude models.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my favorite parts about figure modeling is seeing that one specific pose shown in different perspectives and different talents,\u201d Forbes comments on her experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a different experience to walk into a space where one person is naked and everyone else is looking very hard at them and trying to draw them,\u201d describes Halbert. \u201cI think to be prudish about it, to be upset by it or shocked by it is to really be losing something important about being alive. So, you know, when I come in here and I see everyone is being normal in this situation, it sort of reinforces this sense of being connected to a richer human experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside Tuesday\u2019s short-form classes, Waterfall Arts offers long-form figure drawing classes every Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.<\/p>\n

For Saturday classes, instead of multiple poses in different durations, the model holds one pose the whole session.<\/p>\n

Both classes cost $15 for drop-ins and $10 per student.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 WABI. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BELFAST, Maine (WABI) – From prehistoric Venus figurines to Michelangelo\u2019s David, artists have tried to capture the natural…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,104,2132,1033,171,7220,7218,7217,7219,7221,67,132,68,7216],"class_list":{"0":"post-31656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breaking-news-video","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-live-speeches","15":"tag-live-updates","16":"tag-live-video","17":"tag-press-conference","18":"tag-real-time-coverage","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-video-updates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114781748551820758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}