Dance as if no one is watching.........

It quickly became obvious to me when I started to paint,

that in order to paint the human form, I needed to do

some serious study.

Since I did not have any live models at hand, I decided

to buy some wooden figures that I had noticed that

they sold in art shops.

After I had bought the figure's, I spent weeks on positioning

 them and then sketching or painting them.

Strange though it may seem, I discovered that even

though the figure's had no features and were quite

difficult to manipulate into human-esque positions,

it was still possible to make them convey emotions.

Alas, eventually, I felt ready to move on to

human beings. 

But how? I still had no live models.

 I had a light-bolt moment.

Aha!!! Dance magazines.

Excitedly I went to my nearest News agency and bought

any magazine that had dancers in ''movement'' in it.

As luck would have it, I found a ballet magazine that contained

a lot of glossy and beautifully shot photographs depicting

the most amazing dance movements.

I filled a sketch book in a few days.

Perhaps they were not all sketched a 100% anatomically, but I

loved doing them. 

I acquired a whole new perspective and respect for the art

of Dance and dancers. Especially ballet dancers.

Much to my surprise I found myself seeking out

movies to watch that contained dancing.

Any kind of dancing really, because I had a last

realized what a truly magnificent art form Ballet/

and any kind of dancing, was.

I bought more magazines, even second-hand dance books,

just to keep studying the human form in movement.

 One late afternoon I found a photo of a boy dancer

I felt that I just had to sketch.

Problem was, I had run out of paper and canvas.

Scrambling for any bit of paper I found a roll

of brown wrapping paper. 

The paper was cheap, brown, rough, and what I used to

use for wrapping my paintings in.

Never mind, paper is paper, I thought.

I ripped off a piece, grabbed my black and my white charcoals,

and then did a sketch of the boy.

(The result is the image at the top of this post.)

Perhaps ''dancing as if no one is watching''

is something we could all benefit from doing every now then.....

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul.''

(Martha Graham)