Saturday, July 25, 2009

3rd entry for July 16th, 2009



Due to another project on the go, faces are very much in my mind. Trying in part to channel the spirit of a Jenny Saville painting that has stuck in my memory, I asked Z- to try to let her face go slack while she was lying down. She stayed like this for over a half-hour. I like the ambivalent expression it engendered.

Later, she told me that it was really hard to keep her mouth slightly open like this, resisting the twin tendencies of going agape or closing. It's hard to know what will be physically taxing for a particular person to do, but it is fair to say that all the models I have drawn are working very hard as they keep still.

Just how hard it is to keep still one can only know by doing it oneself. The models all do an amazing job of downplaying just how much stress they undergo, Z- included on this occasion.

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