Figure Drawing Reflection

Drawing with Tommy Van Auken has been one of my favorite experiences of art during my time at Maggie Walker, and has made me certain that I need to take a figure drawing class in college. In addition to gesture, contour, and subtractive drawing techniques, learning to focus on shapes rather than objective parts of the figure (the eyes, nose, feet, etc.) has greatly improved my painting technique on my own time. I'm often very critical and methodical as I make my work, so being forced to let loose and just see what forms emerged on the page in one-minute and sometimes only seconds-long gestures offered me a vital shift in perspective that allowed me to find more trust in my mark. Over the three years I've had the pleasure of figure drawing with Tommy, I've seen an immense improvement in nearly all the aforementioned techniques, but particularly between my subtractive studies from 2024 to 2025.

Subtractive from fall 2024

Subtractive from fall 2025

10 min study (gesture + contour)

one-minute gestures (left + center) and gesture with contour (right)