Learn the rules. Know the rules. Break the rules.

Tonight, when walking around the room, chatting with the artists and looking at the diverse styles of portraying the same figure standing naked in the center of the room, there were some who followed rote and convention and the way they always draw. There is no problem or wrong in seeking the comfort of what you know how to do. There were those who drew not what they saw, but illustrated the story of what they saw in their heads, carried forth from the inspiration of a beautiful naked male form standing there, just for them. There is no problem or wrong in freeing the mind to wander by inspiration, and attempting to capture the fleeting imagined images.

Then there were those who, like me, know the rules of how to draw, how to create a proportional figure, where to place the lines to translate  by the mind into shape, and form, weight and balance. light and darkness. And sometimes, its good to bruise those rules a little. push the limits a little.

Or a lot.

I’ve been bumping into boundaries quite a bit lately and I like some of the safer parts of my work.

But I see those lines I’m supposed to stay inside.

And I’m just itchin’…

Tonight’s drawings…