The Silhouette Project – An different way to work with a live model

What I learned in school this week…

Another amazing and surprising lesson on seeing and observing in our drawing class. We were told we would be making silhouettes and cutting them out of large sheets of black paper. We had the option of articulating them like shadow puppets. That was all I got from the explanation. I’ve quickly learned the magic of this Professor’s method: he leaves out as much detail as possible to allow our imaginations to ferment and soar, then he throws in a surprise or two to really confuse us out of any preconceptions.

This week, I got to class early, and since some students dropped the class, while new ones joined, I didn’t immediately question the presence of this oddly dressed, older lady who was moving furniture around the room and clearing the model platform. When she started asking the teacher questions it became obvious she…