It is specialized in the sense that it takes many years of study and practice to acquire the perceptual and technical skills necessary for its performance. Because drawing and painting the human figure are what I believe in, I'd like to try in this brief article to explain why I teach the figure and why I believe that its mastery is an indispensable condition for the training of every visual artist. Although I am a painter and deal primarily with color in my work, I find myself constantly referring to drawing issues even in my painting classes. Drawing has always been seen as primary in the training of the visual artist, and, thus, I will confine my remarks to the teaching of drawing. Figure Drawing Promotes Decision Making Faced with the presence of the model for the first time students immediately realize that they cannot simply copy what is in front of them.
Reality is three dimensional and drawing is two dimensional, so something has to give.
The question is what exactly has to give. The answers to these questions, of course, depend on the purposes we want our drawings to serve. My goal is to get the student to draw the figure convincingly as form in space. My reason for setting this goal is that the visual artist communicates through the language of space. By manipulating space or the illusions of space the artist metaphorically conveys complex ideas and emotions.