
©Candace Sanderson, Seated Female (c). Charcoal and conté on toned paper.
I love sculpting – in an obsessive, driven sort of way – but drawing brings its own kind of pleasure.
In particular, the human form, the sweeping curve of a hip, the voluminous shadow cast by a breast, or the bright highlight on a forehead and cheek.
All are reasons enough for a sculptor whose work has been typically non-figurative to draw the human body.
Luckily for me, our local Centre for Creative Arts offers a weekly drop in drawing night with a live model. It gives me the chance to draw the human form without having to resort to using myself as the model. (Trust me, that awkward self-portrait is very different from all those selfies we seem to love to take.)
Most of the time I use drawing as a tool, sketching line and volume that are then translated into three dimensions. How I look at a subject intended for sculptural work is very different from how I see it when I’m drawing for the sole purpose of making marks.