I’m now painting a series of nudes in oils, and am showing one of them in a lower Manhattan gallery (group show, along with Yoko Ono and thirty other artists) next month. if I could figure out a way to quit my job and paint full-time I’d be all over that.
I tried to sculpt a nude once but she kept flinching every time I hit her with the chisel. 
I voted “no and don’t care to try it”.
I am quite simply not artistically inclined and have no interest to even be attempting it. I wouldn’t run away from the situation if I somehow got stuck in a classroom that’s for painting/drawing a nude model, but I have zero interest in ever intentionally signing up for such a thing.
Well the actual Life Drawing class itself was held at Adelphi University on Long Island, but my high school art teacher took our senior class there a few times to sketch the models. This would have been around 1999/2000.
For those of you who answered, “No, but I would like to someday,” try Googling your location (or the nearest city) and “open studio live model” (without the quotes).
Yes, drawing. Enjoyed it much more than still life and abstract. The only time it got boring was when the model, a sub, was young and petite. No wrinkles, few folds, not a very challenging class. The teacher actually apologized afterward.
I had to choose Yes, and I enjoyed it!, but why the italics and exclamation point? I was a Visual Design major and figure drawing was a required course. I didn’t not like it, but enjoy! really isn’t accurate either.
If the OP hadn’t mentioned college courses, I would have guessed he was a fifteen year old.
Two semesters of life drawing back in the Kennedy Administration and one project in an undergraduate sculpture class. The men wore jock straps but the women (of all ages) were in the altogether – which made the rush for a dressing gown during the breaks a bit strange. When the model didn’t show up we took turns on a clothing optional basis – some stripped, some didn‘t. The model for the sculpture class was a young woman I had a terrible crush on in high school. She was not as attractive as I had imagined.
Yes, I took two intro drawing classes earlier this year at the Visual Arts Centre and both involved figure drawing. No, it didn’t feel remotely sexual, even when the model was an attractive man. You are much too busy drawing, which is hard work, to contemplate how he looks. Even when you’re looking at his junk, you’re thinking, “Are the proportions right? How does the light work here? How can I replicate that texture?”
I have both drawn nudes and modeled myself. Apparently there are several bronzes of me floating around the art world somewhere…
Did I enjoy it? Like others have posted, it was part of the education. I also have some pretty hilarious stories involving the nudes I have drawn and some of my own exploits…
I voted the fourth one, “No, and I dont care to try it,” but it’s not because I find it offensive. It’s just that I’m not the least bit artistically inclined. I wouldn’t even care to try to draw a bowl of fruit.
Well, almost. I can’t draw for shit, but I have photographed nudes. I did really enjoy the energy – a few of the sessions involved couples and it was fun to watch and feed off the energy they had between themselves. Very loving and sensual. The session with the professional nude/fetish model was not nearly as fun; she wouldn’t stop “posing” for the camera and seemed to be immune to all my tricks to get her to let her guard down.
I did participate in a semi-informal drawing workshop once, but as I recall the models didn’t end up totally nude. There were breasts and bums, but genitals were covered. One model wore a waist-cincher and a g-string. I enjoyed it well enough, but as I said I can’t draw for shit, so there was some general frustration in there, too. The resultant sketches were nothing to write home about.
I was a model for my college’s life drawing class. It paid better than any other campus job, as well it should have, because it’s really hard.
I wasn’t always undraped. On one occasion I sat on top of a filing cabinet while the class drew my feet. There was also a class that did my hands.
I was not considered one of the better models, because, it turns out, I’m too twitchy, really. If I wanted to take my clothes off in front of people I should have become a stripper. But I was okay at the 5-minute poses.
There was one model who not only could be absolutely still, she could take a break and get back into the same position, exactly. I could only almost get there.
As to how it felt. Have you ever seen an artist’s self-portrait? How they are all sort of goggle-eyed? They look that way because, apparently, that’s how you look when you’re concentrating on drawing. Imagine a whole roomful of people looking at you that way.
Also, when I first started, it was like I could feel their eyes on me, and it kind of tickled. I had to convince myself it was all in my mind. There was no reason for the back of my knee to itch just because someone was staring at it and moving a piece of graphite.
My college had only been open to men for a couple of years when I went there, so most of the students, hence most of the art students, were female. A fairly significant portion of the male art majors were not interested in naked women except as bodies to draw. But I did get lots of dates that semester. There were guys who hadn’t taken a class, but just apparently thought it wouldn’t take much to get me naked (it didn’t either, really). There were also a couple of clods who were pretty open about taking the class only to ogle naked women.
My worst experience. I was standing outside in the hall before class, reading the bulletin board. For some insane reason I was standing on one foot, with the other foot against my knee–this is going badly. It’s a yoga position (I didn’t know that at the time) called the stork pose. I wasn’t even thinking about it so balance was no problem.
So I got inside and the art teacher said, “Do that yoga thing you were doing outside.” Oh, no–the thing where I’m standing on one foot? Balance now a problem. I tried this mind over matter thing, but in the end I had to hang onto the stupid file cabinet, which meant I had to move, which meant the light was different…
The other thing would be when the teacher would say, “Okay, just move around…yeah…ah that’s it, freeze!” Always with an arm out. If you think this sounds fun, hold your arm out. Hold it there for five minutes. Don’t let it shake.
I do have some pretty cool drawings. Also a bust. (When the guy was doing the bust, I would be going to class and some person I wouldn’t know would say, “Hey! I’ve seen you in the art department!”) I kept the bust in the closet for years, which is why I look so young.
Yes, life drawing and painting classes in art school.
Not drawing or sculpting, but I would love the opportunity to photograph someone nude.
I’ve done paintings of nude models. It’s much harder than drawing them. Most of the models we had were rather ugly men, so there was no attraction or anything to be bothered with. I’ve also photographed nude models and been photographed nude for art projects.
I haven’t, but one of my biggest (and least likely to be achieved) ambitions is to learn how to draw, so I could definitely stand to take some classes…
The Italics are automatic, because that’s the option you picked. The exclamation mark wasn’t intentional, and I already said my OP was a bit too enthusiastic about the subject. Sorry to offend anyone.
I have drawn lots of nude models, in a classroom full of other students. It was not even slightly sexual in even the tiniest away. But I’m female. Who knows what goes on in men’s heads.
Drawing from life is different from drawing from photographs. The nudity isn’t much of a factor.