Feeling flayed…and that’s okay

Greetings from Philadelphia where there have been ground-shaking changes all around me. Over the weekend, my 5-story apartment building shook as another, smaller building (pictured here in this paragraph) behind mine was demolished and bulldozed to the ground.

Similarly, my perception of my ability to draw accurately is getting a bit of a bulldozing as I’ve been learning to ‘flay’ the figure these past few days.

This is an exercise to further refine my knowledge of the muscles and tendons of the human figure as I strive for an accurate representation of whomever I may be drawing. The tradition dates back centuries to the Renaissance (perhaps even further back to the Greeks according to Wikipedia) and is derived from the French word Écorché.

We are looking at and drawing the human figure at a layer below the skin. I confess that as I’ve been learning this technique, I’ve been feeling a bit flayed myself. It’s one thing to loosely sketch out the shape of a ‘thing.’ Show that ‘thing’ to your friends or family or even post it on your favorite social media platform. You will get feedback and most times a ‘close enough’ representation gets comments saying your image is ‘cool’ or ‘really nice.’

In the world in which I live now, however, I am training my eye and hopefully my left hand to accurately represent what I see. Ay carumba! It’s very rare when these two things occur. Here’s one example of a pretty good effort and this was a third attempt in a day of numerous 1-2 hour Écorché sessions. But the reason for this focus is so that, in a few years time, I’ll more readily be able to create concepts and ideas with my hand without laboring over the technical questions of the gesture of a figure and its proportions.

Even though I’ve been drawing for three years, I realize that I am only now beginning to see. Some of my classmates and I were feeling frustrated about our inability to excel at Écorché drawings more quickly.

One of our teachers must have sensed this mounting frustration because, last week, he asked us to stop drawing for a minute and gather ’round. He said, “In the midst of this exercise, if you’re feeling comfortable, I’ll encourage you to push yourself more. If you’re feeling completely stressed out, I’ll ask you to consider taking a breath. If you’re feeling a bit uncomfortable, know that you’re in the right spot and you’re learning something challenging and new.”

He could have said, “If you’re feeling a bit ‘flayed,’ then it’s OK.” Interested in a good bulldozing anyone?