The Mandolin Player, 7x5

'The Mandolin Player', 7x5" graphite on paper

My last post had me thinking of a story of when I was drawing nudes as a young adult on a weekly basis. It is a funny memory at best. I do remember clearly, one session we had a male nude who we had deemed "the Mandolin player". He was a regular model and he'd play his mandolin while we were drawing him, there in the buff. His music was wonderful to draw to, but he was always in pretty much the same position...standing there before us, holding his instrument (OK, get your minds out of the gutter...), possibly with a foot up on a stool to help hold his posture and mandolin. So one session our instructor asked the Mandolin player to sit on a stool without his mandolin so we could get some figurative variety. Nice idea, one would think... So the model arranged to sit and he did so with his elbows on his knees, with all his glory, on the chair looking directly at the entire class. Good thing I had a side view, because at the time, my maturity was pretty shallow as did most of the students who moved over, en mass, to avoid their natural 'man-ness' point of view. The instructor, in his low and quiet-like Clint Eastwood sounding voice said, "you only have to suggest the parts", and so the high level of anxiety waned. I still have that sketch and it was one of my favorites...albeit just his face. Here it is from 25+ years ago!