One of my favorite things about Cogswell’s life drawing sessions are the short poses. At Cogswell, five minutes is considered a long pose. The warm-ups are ten-second poses. Ten seconds. I’ve never been at another drawing session that does it this way, but it’s great. When the models know they won’t have to hold a pose for very long, they all seem much more willing to give us more difficult poses. And with less time, our pencils get looser, and our drawings get better.

That’s the idea, at least. It doesn’t happen that way all the time, and sometimes it makes me feel utterly exhausted to draw that fast for three hours straight. But more often than not I get some real gems out of these sessions, and even when I don’t, it’s more fun this way.

Some of my favorites from my last two sessions: