The art of life (drawing)
Alongside my personal artistic journey, I also have the privilege of co-hosting Beyond the Frames, a life drawing collective that has become a home for many artists in our community. Week after week, we gather not only to draw, but to share the discipline, vulnerability, and joy that comes with this practice. It has been profoundly rewarding to hold space for others, to witness their growth, and to see how life drawing can be both an individual exploration and a collective celebration of being alive. After consistently participating in life drawing on a weekly basis for almost four years now, this is the essential wisdom I’ve distilled from my experience:
1. For nearly four years now, I’ve shown up week after week to sit in front of another human being who is naked, vulnerable, and yet utterly powerful. At first, it was a shock. The very first time I faced a life model, I remember being stunned by her beauty. There she stood, unapologetically herself, while I sat frozen with a stick of charcoal in my hand and a huge white sheet in front of me. How could I possibly capture her? When the break came, she walked casually around the room to look at the drawings. I wanted to sink into the floor. My clumsy attempt at her likeness felt like an insult to her presence. But when she looked at my paper, she simply shrugged and said, “Nice bum.” Her humility and groundedness was profound and stuck with me to this day.
Since then, I’ve had the privilege of observing many different bodies in this setting. Each unique and each sacred. Far from losing its impact, the experience has only deepened for me. Every session reminds me of the sanctity of the human form as the vessel of our shared existence. To draw the human body is truly to sit with life itself.
This ritual has also transformed my relationship with my own body. I’ve learned to see it with more kindness and respect, as something worthy of care and cultivation. It has made me want to inhabit myself more fully: To eat well, to exercise, to treat my body as both a temple and a canvas.
2. There is immense power in allowing oneself to be fully and truly seen. To stand without performance, without mask, without persona, without clothes and ultimately completely uncovered, in a room full of strangers is an act of radical vulnerability. And yet, when it is done consciously and deliberately, the power shifts entirely to the model.
Again and again, I’ve noticed that it is not the nude model who seems exposed, but the artists. The model holds the room with authority, while we, with our pencils and charcoals, are the ones who squirm. As artists we feel the weight of our inadequacy, our fear of failing to honor the beauty and sanctity before us. At break time, it is often the artists who turn their papers face down, mumble excuses, or insist their work is “not good enough.”
If only we, as artists, could absorb some of that strength and bravery from the model. To be more bold and accepting of our own attempts. To stop shrinking from the page and instead accept it with the same courage. Because strength, I’ve learned, does not come from perfection or control, but from vulnerability itself. It is the willingness to be seen as we are, whether as model or artist, that creates true power.
3. Life drawing is really hard. Perhaps it’s because our eyes are so exquisitely trained to notice the slightest imperfection in the human figure as an evolutionary and deeply anthropological inheritance. Every curve, proportion, and gesture feels heightened, unforgiving.
And yet, the wonder of life drawing lies in persistence. Looking back at past sketches reveals the quiet miracle of incremental improvement. Progress emerges not in leaps, but in layers…
This discipline also radiates outward into art as a whole. Observational skills sharpen, decision-making becomes quicker and more instinctive. Because in life drawing, time is scarce. A pose may last only one to fifteen minutes. There is no luxury of overthinking and definitely no room for analysis paralysis. Each second matters and each line carries weight. And through that urgency, we learn to trust our eyes, our hands, and ultimately ourselves as artists.
4. Having witnessed countless nude models take centre stage, in all their vulnerability and confidence, I’ve come to understand something essential about human beauty. Across all differences of body shape, gender, age, and ethnicity, there is one single quality that makes a person truly radiant: self-acceptance.
When someone inhabits themselves fully, without apology or disguise, beauty flows from them effortlessly. It’s not about symmetry or perfection, but rather presence. That kind of acceptance carries an almost tangible energy. It fills the room, draws you in, and makes the person completely enigmatic. Most of all, it feels contagious, as if their wholeness gives us permission to be a little more whole ourselves.
5. There is something profoundly powerful about creating in a room full of artists. Each of us faces the same model, the same light, often even the same medium and yet the artworks that emerge are never even remotely the same. Each hand translates the moment through its own unique lens of perception, skill, and imagination.
That is the beauty of life (drawing) as a collective practice: individuality and unity existing side by side. We share the same fleeting poses, the same concentrated silence, and then, when we look around, we get to witness a kaleidoscope of interpretations! We learn from one another and we are constantly reminded of the endless possibilities of seeing.
Over time, these shared hours leave more than stacks of sketches behind. They create bonds. I’ve had the privilege of seeing deep and lasting friendships form within the life drawing studio, all rooted in the vulnerability and joy of creating together.
6. In the end, I’ve come to realise that life drawing is not only about drawing life, but it is ultimately about living. To sit before another human being, to witness them fully, to wrestle with your own limits and slowly grow through persistence, to see beauty emerge not from perfection but from acceptance, and to create alongside others in community… this is nothing other than a practice in being alive.
Life drawing teaches humility. It teaches us to see… to truly see, not only the model before us, but ourselves and ultimately each other. Week after week and line after line, it has become clear to me that this discipline is more than an art form. Life drawing is a way of honoring life itself.
And that is why, to me, life drawing will always be the art of life.
The Gaze:
Who is looking and why?
The male gaze is a term describing how women’s bodies have historically been viewed as passive objects of desire, particularly by men. In response, the female gaze arose, representing women as active subjects with agency and interiority, not objects.
As a figurative artist, I’ve long observed how differently men and women view both themselves and each other. Beauty standards, desirability, even how we frame the human body, are shaped by deeply ingrained filters, not least our gender.
For example, hosting a recent life drawing session, I noticed how, when given the opportunity, male artists directed a male model into poses emphasizing strength and muscle definition... Forms appreciated as much (if not more) by other men. The only female artist in the room, however, directed a pose inspired by Rose from Titanic: reclined, intimate, vulnerable... A visual language of trust and softness.
This contrast reflects what I’ve experienced in my own work: paintings of female figures sell quickly, to both men and women. Yet paintings of male figures, particularly nude or semi-nude, are harder to sell, often purchased almost exclusively by other men. Even my own ideals of male beauty, shaped by my artistic gaze, don’t always perfectly align with the tastes of this specific audience.
As a female artist, my own exploration of the male form comes from a place of agency. To me, a well-sculpted, muscular body symbolizes virility, strength, and life force, a sacred emblem of man’s (humanity's) volition to shape not only his body but the world around him. It represents hope.
Oscar Wilde said: “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” In this way, every painting becomes a kind of self-portrait, a reflection of the strength, vulnerability, and beauty I see in my subjects. A thread of human connection that unites us all.
And isn’t that what art is meant to do? To reflect our humanity, and remind us of the strength and beauty that lie within.
