You’re on your first assignment. You’ve done your first few gesture poses and are juuuuuust starting to get comfortable with the fact that you’re completely nude. You go for a longer pose. You’re starting to get in that Zen-like state (which I’ll discuss more in the next post) where you’ve found something to meditate on, but you’re not completely lost in the moment, either. And then it happens:
THWAP! CLUNK! BANG! CRASH!
Someone tipped their easel over, came late to class and SLAMMED the door shut, or dropped their pad of paper.
So how do you avoid perfectly natural instincts like looking at where the noise is coming from (or jumping out of your skin!)?
I’ll be honest: there aren’t any hard and fast rules. You kind of just learn to block things out after a while and remain composed--it’s one of those things that you just get better at the more you do it. There’s different types of distractions in the classroom, and what I’d like to do in this post is to tell you about some of the more common ones and how to minimize them so you can remain in pose.
Visible distractions: the best way to avoid these types of distractions is to avoid looking at any one particular person in the room if at all possible. You normally don’t want to be looking at anyone in any event, as people understandably have a tendency to move during a session, and it’s only natural that your eyes (and head) might inadvertently follow them. And let’s face it: if someone was staring directly at you for 20 minutes, you might get a little freaked out! Most importantly, if someone should come to class late, chances are that your eyes will be focused somewhere where you won't be tempted to look at the latecomer walk across the room and get settled.
You also don’t want to focus on inanimate objects that still have the tendency to move, such as an artist’s easel or a tree branch outside that might get rustled by the wind. It’s for these reasons that I try and find a spot on the wall that generally forces me to look up somewhat, and thus away from any line-of-sight distractions, particularly if people decide to move their position while I'm in the middle of the pose. I’ve also found that after a while, my vision starts to get a little fuzzy and I start to get tunnel vision. This actually helps, because you have a smaller, softer field of vision, and are thus less likely to pick up on any distractions in the classroom.
Every now and then you’ll get into pose and you’ll notice someone just moved into your line of sight because they moved their seat. If you’ve only been in pose for a few seconds, there’s generally no harm in moving your head minimally until you can find a new spot on the wall or on the floor to focus on. I’ve had to do it a few times. On a similar note, a lot of drawing groups are very casual, and artists will sometimes sit on the floor to draw you. And you may find that as they shift their bodies, the errant arm or leg will come into your field of view. In this case, you might have already been in pose for a few minutes, so you probably don’t want to move your head. What I usually do is shift my eyes ever so slightly to where I find another point on the floor to focus on that still keeps my head locked into the same position.
Audible distractions: you’ll know you’re a pro when someone accidentally knocks their easel over it, people jump up and shriek in fright, and you maintain your pose the entire time. That’s when you’ve made it to the big leagues! You heard the sound, so you aren’t lost in your own little world, but you’re mellow and focused enough that it doesn’t faze you in the least.
Aural distractions are a little harder to tune out then visual distractions, especially if the source of the sound is well outside your field of vision (think of a car backfiring on a busy street and you’ll know what I mean). This one is more mental discipline, and it’s a little harder, I’ve found, to trick your ears and your brain than it is your eyes. In my next post, I’ll tell you what I typically think (and don’t think) about when I’m on the podium, and how that helps get me into a special state where my brain is in the moment, but not overly so. It requires a bit more detail that’s really deserving of its own post, but just know that there’s a way to get your brain into a state where you pick up on things, but aren’t focused on them.
Other distractions:
Room temperature: this may not initially be an obvious distraction to most people, but a room that’s too hot or too cold will definitely distract you while up on the podium. Keep in mind that you’re not wearing any clothes, and you have the right to have the room at a temperature that’s comfortable for you so you’re relaxed and in the right frame of mind to give your best poses. In cases where the room is cold, someone will generally have access to a small space heater, but there’s been at least one instance where I was freezing toward the end of the night. It was early on in my career, and I didn’t even think to ask if there was a heater available. Don’t feel shy in asking for a heater or for them to focus more lights on you (and believe me, with all the lights that are on you anyways, you’ll probably be running a little hot, even if the room itself is somewhat cool). And I’ve had several people hem and haw when I’ve asked for a heater, but I don’t let them off the hook. That one session I just told you about? I was literally shivering when I was done for the night, and spent the first few minutes afterwards just trying to warm myself up. You can bet I won’t do that again!
Conversely, sometimes the room you’ll be posing in doesn’t have any air conditioning, and you’ll be sweating bullets. In those cases, I’d advise you to do simpler, less-strenuous poses, hydrate frequently, and ask to take a quick break if you find yourself getting dizzy. And I’d recommend that your longer poses be seated or reclining.
Visitors: every now and then, someone from outside the class might need to enter the room for a few minutes. While I’ve already discussed what you should do to minimize the impact of a person walking into the room late, this adds a bit of a twist because this person isn’t running late or anything: they’re not in the class at all! So they’re not the regularly scheduled people that are supposed to be seeing you nude.
For instance, I remember my first time modeling, there was a band rehearsing in the other room, and I was informed that on occasion, they’d need to enter our room in order to get equipment from outside, if you can believe it! In this case, however, I was told about this up front, and I agreed to it (and sure enough, they didn’t try to cop a look or anything, and were quite professional).
But sometimes, particularly in a classroom setting, you may have someone who’s not in the class but needs to get into the room, such as a professor from the next room over who needs to grab extra chairs, or a parent dropping off supplies for a student.
In cases like these, there’s really not much you can do, and I’ve never had an issue with someone staring at me when they shouldn’t (and this is one of the few cases where I’d recommend shifting your eyes just to make sure of this). Most people know enough to respect you by not looking at you. But if you find someone who’s clearly staring or loitering longer than they should, I think you’d have a completely legitimate reason to say something.
Smells: there have been one or two people over the years that had particularly pungent body odor. This one’s a real toughie. You can “program” your brain to be on standby mode. You can direct your eyes to a place in the room where no one will enter your vision. But you do have to breathe.
You're probably gonna have to suck this one up. You can’t move the podium, and chances are that person is going to be sitting where they’re sitting for the next three hours. This is unfortunately going to have to be a badge of honor, like not flinching when someone drops their art supplies. It’s definitely a case of mental discipline!
Immature students: if you’re in a class of freshmen or have a pre-college class, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that you might be the first person they’ve seen completely naked in real life. And for a lot of people, giggling is a defense mechanism that helps someone try to process something out that they’re really not prepared for. It hasn’t happened to me aside from one particular class, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a professor that doesn’t take a hard line on that immediately. I’ve both spoken with models about this as well as read models’ stories on the Internet, and it’s pretty much a universal truism that anyone caught giggling, trying to “distract” the model (usually a female student who thinks it’s funny to park herself in front of you and show you her cleavage while you’re trying to hold a pose) or otherwise acting immaturely is asked to leave immediately, and oftentimes will be booted from the course. I’ve known models who’ve said they’ve broken pose and said they refuse to continue unless the giggling and chattering stops.
And with that, I’d like to close by saying that virtually every single person I’ve posed for has been nothing less than 100 percent respectful of me and my body. I’ve had multiple professors let me know my comfort (physical and mental) was paramount. I guarantee you that you’ll discover likewise. But at the same time, no one’s a mind reader, so you do need to speak up if you’re not totally comfortable. But any artist or professor who’s worth their salt knows that without someone willing to do what you’re doing, there’s only so much art that can be created. And they’re typically sympathetic to and protective of their models as a result.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The Ambassador
The longer you model, the more you’ll find you’ll have some particularly inspiring or uplifting experiences. I’ve never had any truly negative experiences, but every so often, there’ll be a session that just hits the high notes for the entire duration. You learn to really, really appreciate them when they happen. They’re truly special. Dare I say it, you might even take those memories all the way to your grave.
I blogged about one particular experience earlier in the year (http://lightnessofjason.blogspot.com/2010/03/reflections.html). And I had another, incredibly positive experience last Saturday. Earlier that week, I got an email from a major art museum downtown. They were looking for a model for their Free Summer Saturdays program. Basically, as the woman who emailed me explained over the phone, they have an impromptu, pick-up drawing session that’s held Saturday afternoons in the atrium of the museum’s lobby during the summer. Anyone who wants to draw can get a clipboard, paper, and a pencil and draw out in the open atrium for as long as they wish.
Naturally, my first question was to confirm that this was a clothed gig (it was)! The woman I spoke with said that traditionally, there was a certain woman who worked these Saturday sessions, so she figured that having a male model would be a nice change of pace for everyone.
Yeah, no pressure!
I arrived on Saturday shortly before noon and there was a choir performing in the atrium. I thought that was pretty neat, especially because—as talented as they were—the conductor noted their ensemble had only gotten together several weeks prior.
Soon enough, the choir dispersed, and I saw a woman set a precariously small podium in the middle of the atrium.
After checking in, I chilled out for a few minutes as the coordinator set up chairs around the perimeter of the atrium and started handing out drawing supplies. There were a lot more people than I anticipated! About 30 to 40 seats had been laid out, and virtually all of them were occupied by the time I was asked to start!
Given that the podium was so small (maybe 4 X 2, and that’s probably being generous), I felt a bit limited in my poses, particularly as the format was simply to do 10-minute poses until whenever I wanted a break. Ten minutes is too long to hold most action-oriented poses, and in any event, the size of the platform really prohibited any pose that was too gripping.
So I figured I’d do three standing poses, take a break, do three seated poses, take a break, and repeat the cycle for three hours. Since I had zero idea of the skill level of the participants, I decided that I’d keep the poses fairly basic.
As a later post will tell you, it’s tough sometimes to block out the typical distractions that come along with the average classroom. But that’s multiplied tenfold in a museum! It’s one giant cocoon of sound, people are coming and going, staring, pointing, walking in your field of vision, singing (the choir had an encore presentation right above me!) taking pictures (note: I devoted an entire blog post to this subject recently, but this was a clothed gig out in the open, so it was no big deal. And besides, in a public setting like that, you really don’t have much in the way of privacy expectations, which I knew full well going in). It’s a lot to block out in order to keep your composure and successfully hold your poses.
It was amazing! People were:
A mix of people were drawing me: toddlers, seniors, people of all backgrounds and races. I found that to be incredibly, incredibly inspiring.
And then, towards the end of the session, it finally hit me: I was an ambassador of sorts for the art world. I mean, not literally, of course. But I realized that, for three hours, people from all walks of life, from all over the world, were either drawing me or stopping to grab their friends and family and look intently at what was going on in front of them. I even saw children drag their parents to the session! For many, I’m sure this was their first experience with either drawing a model or directly observing what happens when people draw from a model.
I’d like to think that hopefully, I was able to:
It was an incredibly powerful feeling, which is hitting me even moreso while I sit down to type this.
You see, it’s experiences like these that really make it so rewarding to sit still in front of complete strangers for several hours. And while I’ve definitely had my share of classes that felt like they were on autopilot, it’s experiences like this one, and the one I linked to earlier, that make me proud to do what I do. Where people walk by, hesitate, and decide to spend a few minutes or more drawing you. Where people applaud and congratulate you for sharing something of yourself for a few hours in both of your lives. They’re experiences that are indelibly etched in my memory. And I count myself lucky to be able to have been afforded this, the opportunity, to do what I do.
I blogged about one particular experience earlier in the year (http://lightnessofjason.blogspot.com/2010/03/reflections.html). And I had another, incredibly positive experience last Saturday. Earlier that week, I got an email from a major art museum downtown. They were looking for a model for their Free Summer Saturdays program. Basically, as the woman who emailed me explained over the phone, they have an impromptu, pick-up drawing session that’s held Saturday afternoons in the atrium of the museum’s lobby during the summer. Anyone who wants to draw can get a clipboard, paper, and a pencil and draw out in the open atrium for as long as they wish.
Naturally, my first question was to confirm that this was a clothed gig (it was)! The woman I spoke with said that traditionally, there was a certain woman who worked these Saturday sessions, so she figured that having a male model would be a nice change of pace for everyone.
Yeah, no pressure!
I arrived on Saturday shortly before noon and there was a choir performing in the atrium. I thought that was pretty neat, especially because—as talented as they were—the conductor noted their ensemble had only gotten together several weeks prior.
Soon enough, the choir dispersed, and I saw a woman set a precariously small podium in the middle of the atrium.
After checking in, I chilled out for a few minutes as the coordinator set up chairs around the perimeter of the atrium and started handing out drawing supplies. There were a lot more people than I anticipated! About 30 to 40 seats had been laid out, and virtually all of them were occupied by the time I was asked to start!
Given that the podium was so small (maybe 4 X 2, and that’s probably being generous), I felt a bit limited in my poses, particularly as the format was simply to do 10-minute poses until whenever I wanted a break. Ten minutes is too long to hold most action-oriented poses, and in any event, the size of the platform really prohibited any pose that was too gripping.
So I figured I’d do three standing poses, take a break, do three seated poses, take a break, and repeat the cycle for three hours. Since I had zero idea of the skill level of the participants, I decided that I’d keep the poses fairly basic.
As a later post will tell you, it’s tough sometimes to block out the typical distractions that come along with the average classroom. But that’s multiplied tenfold in a museum! It’s one giant cocoon of sound, people are coming and going, staring, pointing, walking in your field of vision, singing (the choir had an encore presentation right above me!) taking pictures (note: I devoted an entire blog post to this subject recently, but this was a clothed gig out in the open, so it was no big deal. And besides, in a public setting like that, you really don’t have much in the way of privacy expectations, which I knew full well going in). It’s a lot to block out in order to keep your composure and successfully hold your poses.
It was amazing! People were:
- Slowly walking towards the atrium, trying to find out what the commotion was
- Standing and looking when they did find out what the commotion was
- Taking pictures of me (I was a real hit with Asian tourists in particular)
- Pointing and observing me from the balcony
- Applauding me between sets(!)
- Asking if I was an actor (which was nice, since I've been on the fence about doing another play)
A mix of people were drawing me: toddlers, seniors, people of all backgrounds and races. I found that to be incredibly, incredibly inspiring.
And then, towards the end of the session, it finally hit me: I was an ambassador of sorts for the art world. I mean, not literally, of course. But I realized that, for three hours, people from all walks of life, from all over the world, were either drawing me or stopping to grab their friends and family and look intently at what was going on in front of them. I even saw children drag their parents to the session! For many, I’m sure this was their first experience with either drawing a model or directly observing what happens when people draw from a model.
I’d like to think that hopefully, I was able to:
- Inspire people to find their inner artist
- Persuade someone to take their first art class
- Encourage someone to push for more funding for the arts in schools
It was an incredibly powerful feeling, which is hitting me even moreso while I sit down to type this.
You see, it’s experiences like these that really make it so rewarding to sit still in front of complete strangers for several hours. And while I’ve definitely had my share of classes that felt like they were on autopilot, it’s experiences like this one, and the one I linked to earlier, that make me proud to do what I do. Where people walk by, hesitate, and decide to spend a few minutes or more drawing you. Where people applaud and congratulate you for sharing something of yourself for a few hours in both of your lives. They’re experiences that are indelibly etched in my memory. And I count myself lucky to be able to have been afforded this, the opportunity, to do what I do.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Don't Spend it All in One Place
In fact, don’t spend it at all until you’ve got that money in your hand or you’ve at least physically modeled for your session.
When you get multiple bookings over the course of a few weeks or a few months, you’ll find yourself tempted, to (ahem) bank on that money to the point where you begin to consider it as good as yours. And proceed to start spending it in advance. This probably won’t happen to you after your first gig or two. It’ll most likely happen when your modeling career starts to take off and you find yourself working multiple times a month as opposed to once or twice every few months. Your popularity and demand will increase, and with all these bookings coming in, you may find yourself tempted to treat these upcoming sessions like the money’s already in your pocket.
I’m here to tell you this is generally a bad idea. Gigs can and do get canceled. In the past week, I’ve had one gig canceled due to low class enrollment (luckily, I was only on deck to model once for that class. I think there were one or two models who got screwed out of multiple sessions), and today, a drawing group canceled an upcoming session later this week (though I did get rebooked for later in the year).
And naturally, since one of these sessions was on the tail end of a long weekend, I figured I’d use that money in advance to splurge on some food and wine for the long holiday. After all, I reckoned, I’d be getting that money in cash in just a few days’ time.
It’s honestly no big deal, because these things happen, and you have to roll with the punches. No one owes you a living, and you’d be wrong to treat artists as such. But I realized that it’s a really good teaching moment: Don’t spend that money until it’s either in your hands, or until you’ve actually modeled for that class and know a check’s in the mail (and even then, you may want to wait until you have a check in hand).
It’s really, really tempting to start adding up that upcoming windfall of cash over the coming months and automatically make plans for it. Ever find a spare $20 in a pair of pants you haven’t worn for a while? Well, pretend that $20 is now several hundred dollars and instead of a pair of pants, it’s in the form of an email that says someone wants you to work for them three times in the next month. And now you’ll hopefully begin see where you find yourself thinking that money’s as good as yours. So why not spend some of it? After all, the email just said you were going to get three bookings.
Well, even if that gig doesn’t cancel, you could get sick. You could get stuck having to work late. There’s a whole host of reasons that you'd have to cancel, and you just can’t predict these things.
As I said in my last blog entry, you should view your modeling income as easy come, easy go. It’s just not a reliable enough source of income (for most people) to treat as steady money. I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve only had a handful of gigs cancel since I’ve been doing this, and in most cases, I just got rescheduled later in the term.
But then, I’ve also had people promise to book me for sessions and they never followed through. You don’t want to treat vagaries as promises and just assume that someone who said they’d “definitely” book you in the future is going to come through. There’s a gambling term called “betting on the come,” which means that you may have a bad hand now, but you hope that things pick up and you’ll have the cards you need when the time comes. It’s basically whistling past the graveyard and hoping your luck will change when you need it most.
Bad idea. Do not, do not, DO NOT do this. It’s one thing to mentally determine how you’d spend this (X amount for a credit card bill, Y amount for a new pair of jeans, Z amount for dining out next month), you really don’t want to start solidly earmarking money that’s not even yours yet. Once you’ve been modeling for a while, you’ll generally get a good feel for which schools and groups are reliable, how much work you’ll average in a semester, etc. But you really, really need to resist the urge to think “okay, September’s usually busy, so I can assume I’ll pull in at least $300.”
Like I said: easy come, easy go :) Keep this in mind, and you’ll do all right!
When you get multiple bookings over the course of a few weeks or a few months, you’ll find yourself tempted, to (ahem) bank on that money to the point where you begin to consider it as good as yours. And proceed to start spending it in advance. This probably won’t happen to you after your first gig or two. It’ll most likely happen when your modeling career starts to take off and you find yourself working multiple times a month as opposed to once or twice every few months. Your popularity and demand will increase, and with all these bookings coming in, you may find yourself tempted to treat these upcoming sessions like the money’s already in your pocket.
I’m here to tell you this is generally a bad idea. Gigs can and do get canceled. In the past week, I’ve had one gig canceled due to low class enrollment (luckily, I was only on deck to model once for that class. I think there were one or two models who got screwed out of multiple sessions), and today, a drawing group canceled an upcoming session later this week (though I did get rebooked for later in the year).
And naturally, since one of these sessions was on the tail end of a long weekend, I figured I’d use that money in advance to splurge on some food and wine for the long holiday. After all, I reckoned, I’d be getting that money in cash in just a few days’ time.
It’s honestly no big deal, because these things happen, and you have to roll with the punches. No one owes you a living, and you’d be wrong to treat artists as such. But I realized that it’s a really good teaching moment: Don’t spend that money until it’s either in your hands, or until you’ve actually modeled for that class and know a check’s in the mail (and even then, you may want to wait until you have a check in hand).
It’s really, really tempting to start adding up that upcoming windfall of cash over the coming months and automatically make plans for it. Ever find a spare $20 in a pair of pants you haven’t worn for a while? Well, pretend that $20 is now several hundred dollars and instead of a pair of pants, it’s in the form of an email that says someone wants you to work for them three times in the next month. And now you’ll hopefully begin see where you find yourself thinking that money’s as good as yours. So why not spend some of it? After all, the email just said you were going to get three bookings.
Well, even if that gig doesn’t cancel, you could get sick. You could get stuck having to work late. There’s a whole host of reasons that you'd have to cancel, and you just can’t predict these things.
As I said in my last blog entry, you should view your modeling income as easy come, easy go. It’s just not a reliable enough source of income (for most people) to treat as steady money. I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve only had a handful of gigs cancel since I’ve been doing this, and in most cases, I just got rescheduled later in the term.
But then, I’ve also had people promise to book me for sessions and they never followed through. You don’t want to treat vagaries as promises and just assume that someone who said they’d “definitely” book you in the future is going to come through. There’s a gambling term called “betting on the come,” which means that you may have a bad hand now, but you hope that things pick up and you’ll have the cards you need when the time comes. It’s basically whistling past the graveyard and hoping your luck will change when you need it most.
Bad idea. Do not, do not, DO NOT do this. It’s one thing to mentally determine how you’d spend this (X amount for a credit card bill, Y amount for a new pair of jeans, Z amount for dining out next month), you really don’t want to start solidly earmarking money that’s not even yours yet. Once you’ve been modeling for a while, you’ll generally get a good feel for which schools and groups are reliable, how much work you’ll average in a semester, etc. But you really, really need to resist the urge to think “okay, September’s usually busy, so I can assume I’ll pull in at least $300.”
Like I said: easy come, easy go :) Keep this in mind, and you’ll do all right!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Show Me the Money!
Okay, so now you’ve started to get a few modeling gigs under your belt.
And then it happens: you find yourself getting regular bookings. From different schools and groups. Each of which pays a different amount and has you posing for different amounts of time. What to do?
Now, as I’ve told you time and again, modeling isn’t an easy job, even if you do it part time. So you owe it to yourself to make sure you know for certain how much you get paid for each venue (it varies from group to group and school to school), and if you find yourself working a lot, you’ll find that you may be forgetting how much you’re owed, and by whom.
In this post, what I’d like to do is to give you some ideas on how to keep track of all that money you’re owed, as well as to provide you with some advice on how to manage it.
First off, I recommended in a previous post to mark all your upcoming gigs in a calendar of some kind. What you also want to do, as you book your upcoming gigs, is to confirm how much you’ll be paid. Usually, the people you’ll be working for tell you this up front, but it’s possible they might forget. Generally, the going rate is anywhere from $15 to $20 per hour, at least in an urban area. Frankly, I wouldn’t advise working for less than $15 unless it’s a favor to someone you’ve worked with before and know very well.
Think about it. You’re doing a job that 99.99 percent of people out there can’t or won’t do. And yet, there’s a demand for you. You’re the rare, select few that can take their clothes off for complete strangers. And hold some incredibly difficult (and painful) poses. You’re a valuable commodity. You owe it to yourself to get paid handsomely for what you do. After all, if just anyone could deal with the physical and psychological baggage that comes with the territory, you wouldn’t have work!
What I’m getting at is that, once you get established, you’ll come up with an idea of what you feel is the bare minimum per hour that you’ll work for. Occasionally, you’ll find that sometimes you may end up working for less than you think you’re worth just to establish yourself with a new group, and gain some exposure.
It’s all up to you in terms of marketing yourself and making sure that you work for what you’re worth.
Now once these gigs start rolling in, I’d highly advise you to create an Excel worksheet that lists each place you work for, their hourly (or flat) rate, and the days you work for them, per hour. This way, you have an at-a-glance way of knowing who you worked for, when you worked for them, how much they pay per hour, how many hours you worked for them, and the total that you’re owed.
Most art schools pay via check. Some pay you via direct deposit and take out the necessary taxes. Others have you fill out a 1099 but don’t withhold taxes. It’s up to you to set aside the necessary money (if any—generally if you make under a certain amount, somewhere around $600 per year, you don’t have to file) to pay any taxes owed. Since they’re reporting your earnings to the IRS, don’t think that you can dodge paying them! Other places (generally art groups and private artists) pay you under the table, and it’s up to you to determine whether or not you choose to report this to the IRS.
If you get paid up front, you’ll be paid at the end of the session (usually in cash, but sometimes in the form of a personal check). Even if it’s a multi-session gig, you’ll be paid that day’s wages at the end of the day. If you’re working for an art school, you’ll generally be paid via checks that are cut whenever they run payroll (usually bimonthly). If you’re being paid this way, I strongly, strongly advise you to keep tabs on what you’re owed (and this is where the spreadsheet I just talked about becomes invaluable, particularly when you have multiple gigs across multiple venues), because I’ve had several instances where I didn’t get paid and had to gently remind the school that I was owed a check. The model coordinator at one of the places I work for has me send an email to her after every session just to make sure I’m not overlooked when they do the next payroll run.
Eventually, you may find yourself making several hundred dollars per month (I wouldn’t, ahem, bank on this, but this will often be the case during certain months of the year if you’re reputable) and find yourself wondering what to do with it.
To be honest, I’d treat it as mad money. Easy come, easy go. First off, if you have a regular 9-5 job, gigs will be somewhat harder to come by since you’re only available during nights and weekends. It really isn’t that regular of an income to rely on each month. Some months you may have a gig or two each week. And then several months (typically June – August) you won’t have any work.
What I’m getting at is that it generally won’t be a steady or reliable enough source of income to the point where you know you can set aside X dollars on a monthly basis to pay off credit cards, student loans, rent, or set aside for a vacation, a new TV, etc. I honestly think it’s best to spend it on partying, dating, new clothes, and impulse buying (or what I generally like to call “stupid shit”) so that you can use your regular wages to pay for ordinary crap like rent, bills, etc.
Simply put, I treat my modeling wages like someone might treat finding $20 in a pair of jeans they haven’t worn since last Fall. It’s unexpected money that you can use to buy something you normally wouldn’t want to spend money on.
I once read the memoirs of a soldier who fought in the Korean War. He told stories of how he and his buddies used to gamble, but they never got crazy about their winnings. If they won, they’d spend it on booze. If they lost it during a game, no big deal. What he said next really struck me: the money he earned gambling with his buddies wasn’t the same money earned on the battlefield. Gambling money was easy come, easy go. It wasn’t the same money you took a bullet for.
Think of your modeling wages in a similar light. Perhaps one of the greatest joys I get is getting a last-minute (in some cases, literally last minute. As in, they sent me an email at 4:45 pm as I was shutting off my computer asking me to fill in for another model at 6 pm later that night) booking, and then realizing I can use it to buy a pair of jeans or a video game I’ve had my eye on!
And then it happens: you find yourself getting regular bookings. From different schools and groups. Each of which pays a different amount and has you posing for different amounts of time. What to do?
Now, as I’ve told you time and again, modeling isn’t an easy job, even if you do it part time. So you owe it to yourself to make sure you know for certain how much you get paid for each venue (it varies from group to group and school to school), and if you find yourself working a lot, you’ll find that you may be forgetting how much you’re owed, and by whom.
In this post, what I’d like to do is to give you some ideas on how to keep track of all that money you’re owed, as well as to provide you with some advice on how to manage it.
First off, I recommended in a previous post to mark all your upcoming gigs in a calendar of some kind. What you also want to do, as you book your upcoming gigs, is to confirm how much you’ll be paid. Usually, the people you’ll be working for tell you this up front, but it’s possible they might forget. Generally, the going rate is anywhere from $15 to $20 per hour, at least in an urban area. Frankly, I wouldn’t advise working for less than $15 unless it’s a favor to someone you’ve worked with before and know very well.
Think about it. You’re doing a job that 99.99 percent of people out there can’t or won’t do. And yet, there’s a demand for you. You’re the rare, select few that can take their clothes off for complete strangers. And hold some incredibly difficult (and painful) poses. You’re a valuable commodity. You owe it to yourself to get paid handsomely for what you do. After all, if just anyone could deal with the physical and psychological baggage that comes with the territory, you wouldn’t have work!
What I’m getting at is that, once you get established, you’ll come up with an idea of what you feel is the bare minimum per hour that you’ll work for. Occasionally, you’ll find that sometimes you may end up working for less than you think you’re worth just to establish yourself with a new group, and gain some exposure.
It’s all up to you in terms of marketing yourself and making sure that you work for what you’re worth.
Now once these gigs start rolling in, I’d highly advise you to create an Excel worksheet that lists each place you work for, their hourly (or flat) rate, and the days you work for them, per hour. This way, you have an at-a-glance way of knowing who you worked for, when you worked for them, how much they pay per hour, how many hours you worked for them, and the total that you’re owed.
Most art schools pay via check. Some pay you via direct deposit and take out the necessary taxes. Others have you fill out a 1099 but don’t withhold taxes. It’s up to you to set aside the necessary money (if any—generally if you make under a certain amount, somewhere around $600 per year, you don’t have to file) to pay any taxes owed. Since they’re reporting your earnings to the IRS, don’t think that you can dodge paying them! Other places (generally art groups and private artists) pay you under the table, and it’s up to you to determine whether or not you choose to report this to the IRS.
If you get paid up front, you’ll be paid at the end of the session (usually in cash, but sometimes in the form of a personal check). Even if it’s a multi-session gig, you’ll be paid that day’s wages at the end of the day. If you’re working for an art school, you’ll generally be paid via checks that are cut whenever they run payroll (usually bimonthly). If you’re being paid this way, I strongly, strongly advise you to keep tabs on what you’re owed (and this is where the spreadsheet I just talked about becomes invaluable, particularly when you have multiple gigs across multiple venues), because I’ve had several instances where I didn’t get paid and had to gently remind the school that I was owed a check. The model coordinator at one of the places I work for has me send an email to her after every session just to make sure I’m not overlooked when they do the next payroll run.
Eventually, you may find yourself making several hundred dollars per month (I wouldn’t, ahem, bank on this, but this will often be the case during certain months of the year if you’re reputable) and find yourself wondering what to do with it.
To be honest, I’d treat it as mad money. Easy come, easy go. First off, if you have a regular 9-5 job, gigs will be somewhat harder to come by since you’re only available during nights and weekends. It really isn’t that regular of an income to rely on each month. Some months you may have a gig or two each week. And then several months (typically June – August) you won’t have any work.
What I’m getting at is that it generally won’t be a steady or reliable enough source of income to the point where you know you can set aside X dollars on a monthly basis to pay off credit cards, student loans, rent, or set aside for a vacation, a new TV, etc. I honestly think it’s best to spend it on partying, dating, new clothes, and impulse buying (or what I generally like to call “stupid shit”) so that you can use your regular wages to pay for ordinary crap like rent, bills, etc.
Simply put, I treat my modeling wages like someone might treat finding $20 in a pair of jeans they haven’t worn since last Fall. It’s unexpected money that you can use to buy something you normally wouldn’t want to spend money on.
I once read the memoirs of a soldier who fought in the Korean War. He told stories of how he and his buddies used to gamble, but they never got crazy about their winnings. If they won, they’d spend it on booze. If they lost it during a game, no big deal. What he said next really struck me: the money he earned gambling with his buddies wasn’t the same money earned on the battlefield. Gambling money was easy come, easy go. It wasn’t the same money you took a bullet for.
Think of your modeling wages in a similar light. Perhaps one of the greatest joys I get is getting a last-minute (in some cases, literally last minute. As in, they sent me an email at 4:45 pm as I was shutting off my computer asking me to fill in for another model at 6 pm later that night) booking, and then realizing I can use it to buy a pair of jeans or a video game I’ve had my eye on!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Unexpected Opportunities
4:45 pm: Wait, that can’t be right! An art studio I solicited several times since 2008 replied back to an email I sent out a year ago wanting to know if I can—tonight—fill in for another model who can’t make it. Well, if they need me that bad…
4:55 pm: Hi! I just got your email. Sure, I’d be more than happy to fill in tonight. Uh, but just so you know, I may not be able to get to my apartment and back in time to get my modeling bag, so I might have to be nude the entire time, so I just wanted to make sure that was okay with you first.
5:00 pm: Okay, it was fine with them. But the studio’s not that far from my apartment, so I should be able to make it back in time to change into something a little more comfortable (like shorts and a t-shirt) and grab my robe.
5:30 pm: Great! I can get changed, pack my gym bag with my robe, and head out the door!
5:40 pm: Hi, I’m Jason! P. told me I needed to check in. Oh great, you’ve got an envelope in cash all ready for me! So where do I go from here? Down the stairs and to the front? Great!
5:45 pm: Are you A.? I’m Jason. Okay, I can get changed in the next room?
5:50 pm: A reclining pose? On a chaise? Fantastic! I’d love to tell you how impossible it’s been for me to be offered a reclining pose for the entire class. My ship’s finally come in!
6:10 pm: Time to start! Yeah, I can hold pose for five minutes while people do quick sketches from different vantage points across the room to see what location works best for them.
6:15 pm: Yeah, I can hold my neck in this position for 20 minutes a pop. I’ve done plenty of portrait gigs, so I’m definitely set. I can't possibly convey how good this feels to recline back, completely nude, for the next few hours and totally get paid for it! I feel amazingly relaxed and at peace.
6:35 pm: Wow, I’m getting compliments already! And I’m literally sitting on my ass!
6:45 pm: Okay, you think my leg was moved more towards my right? Over? Over? Over? Over? Ov… okay, right here? Cool. My shoulder was over here? Here? He… right here? Great, let’s get started!
6:50 pm: Before we break next, would you be able to mark me? Oh no, don’t worry. I should have said something before I broke pose before the break. Yeah, that’s definitely enough tape. Okay, one more mark by my shoulders, just in case.
7:15 pm: Yeah, I can time my breaks. Uh, didn’t realize you weren’t keeping time. Didn’t really think it was my call as to returning to pose without your go-ahead. It’s really not my place to get back into pose and basically tell you when you should be teaching your class, but if you want me to do so, it doesn’t really affect my pay.
7:55 pm: Yeah, I can hold this pose for 30 minutes straight, no problems!
8:25 pm: Thanks for having me everyone! I really had a great time!
8:30 pm: *opens envelope handed to me prior to class* Whoooo! $40 in cash for 2.5 hours of reclining in the nude. I can definitely get used to this!
8:40 pm: Walk out into the cool evening sky. Swear I’ll use it to pay for that copy of Alan Wake for the Xbox 360. End up using it to pay for food and beer for the weekend. Eh, who cares? It’s emergency modeling money. It’s easy come, easy go. It’s not like the money I sweat for nine to five.
Yeah, it was total luck. A studio I solicited several times since, wait for it... 2008(!) got back in touch with me right before I left work for the day. As luck would have it, I checked my hotmail right before I powered down, and found the golden ticket from the place that, until today, never got back in touch with me. Being a graceful, grateful (and greedy) type, I promptly called them in response to an email they responded to that was originally sent by me a year ago and kindly offered my services. No hard feelings. When opportunity calls collect, you gotta accept the charges! It was a super chill environment, with really supportive and friendly students, and I got to recline on a chaise the entire time. Aaaaand, after sending them a thank-you email, they said they'd contact me in October to formally put me on their schedule.
What I want you to take away from this is that, even though some doors may be closed to you initially, they may very well open to you later on, when you least expect it. It's happened to me several times, and it may very well happen to you too. How you choose to handle it, either gracefully (wow, in their time of need, they remembered me) or with spite (oh, those fuckers, coming to me now, when they can't find anyone!), is your call to make.
Just don't get discouraged if your initial efforts in establishing yourself as an art model get rebuffed. Don't take it personally. Those doors have a funny tendency to get reopened when you least expect it.
4:55 pm: Hi! I just got your email. Sure, I’d be more than happy to fill in tonight. Uh, but just so you know, I may not be able to get to my apartment and back in time to get my modeling bag, so I might have to be nude the entire time, so I just wanted to make sure that was okay with you first.
5:00 pm: Okay, it was fine with them. But the studio’s not that far from my apartment, so I should be able to make it back in time to change into something a little more comfortable (like shorts and a t-shirt) and grab my robe.
5:30 pm: Great! I can get changed, pack my gym bag with my robe, and head out the door!
5:40 pm: Hi, I’m Jason! P. told me I needed to check in. Oh great, you’ve got an envelope in cash all ready for me! So where do I go from here? Down the stairs and to the front? Great!
5:45 pm: Are you A.? I’m Jason. Okay, I can get changed in the next room?
5:50 pm: A reclining pose? On a chaise? Fantastic! I’d love to tell you how impossible it’s been for me to be offered a reclining pose for the entire class. My ship’s finally come in!
6:10 pm: Time to start! Yeah, I can hold pose for five minutes while people do quick sketches from different vantage points across the room to see what location works best for them.
6:15 pm: Yeah, I can hold my neck in this position for 20 minutes a pop. I’ve done plenty of portrait gigs, so I’m definitely set. I can't possibly convey how good this feels to recline back, completely nude, for the next few hours and totally get paid for it! I feel amazingly relaxed and at peace.
6:35 pm: Wow, I’m getting compliments already! And I’m literally sitting on my ass!
6:45 pm: Okay, you think my leg was moved more towards my right? Over? Over? Over? Over? Ov… okay, right here? Cool. My shoulder was over here? Here? He… right here? Great, let’s get started!
6:50 pm: Before we break next, would you be able to mark me? Oh no, don’t worry. I should have said something before I broke pose before the break. Yeah, that’s definitely enough tape. Okay, one more mark by my shoulders, just in case.
7:15 pm: Yeah, I can time my breaks. Uh, didn’t realize you weren’t keeping time. Didn’t really think it was my call as to returning to pose without your go-ahead. It’s really not my place to get back into pose and basically tell you when you should be teaching your class, but if you want me to do so, it doesn’t really affect my pay.
7:55 pm: Yeah, I can hold this pose for 30 minutes straight, no problems!
8:25 pm: Thanks for having me everyone! I really had a great time!
8:30 pm: *opens envelope handed to me prior to class* Whoooo! $40 in cash for 2.5 hours of reclining in the nude. I can definitely get used to this!
8:40 pm: Walk out into the cool evening sky. Swear I’ll use it to pay for that copy of Alan Wake for the Xbox 360. End up using it to pay for food and beer for the weekend. Eh, who cares? It’s emergency modeling money. It’s easy come, easy go. It’s not like the money I sweat for nine to five.
Yeah, it was total luck. A studio I solicited several times since, wait for it... 2008(!) got back in touch with me right before I left work for the day. As luck would have it, I checked my hotmail right before I powered down, and found the golden ticket from the place that, until today, never got back in touch with me. Being a graceful, grateful (and greedy) type, I promptly called them in response to an email they responded to that was originally sent by me a year ago and kindly offered my services. No hard feelings. When opportunity calls collect, you gotta accept the charges! It was a super chill environment, with really supportive and friendly students, and I got to recline on a chaise the entire time. Aaaaand, after sending them a thank-you email, they said they'd contact me in October to formally put me on their schedule.
What I want you to take away from this is that, even though some doors may be closed to you initially, they may very well open to you later on, when you least expect it. It's happened to me several times, and it may very well happen to you too. How you choose to handle it, either gracefully (wow, in their time of need, they remembered me) or with spite (oh, those fuckers, coming to me now, when they can't find anyone!), is your call to make.
Just don't get discouraged if your initial efforts in establishing yourself as an art model get rebuffed. Don't take it personally. Those doors have a funny tendency to get reopened when you least expect it.
Monday, July 19, 2010
A Photo Finish
Something happened to me last Friday that I wanted to comment on. It never really came up before, but it’s not exactly unheard of either. And if you model, chances are one day it may happen to you. So I want to take the opportunity in this post to discuss it and tell you what your options are.
What happened is that someone took a photo of me while up on the podium. While nude. That’s never happened to me before, and I was a bit unsure of what to do.
You see, sometimes (especially during a multi-session engagement) an artist isn’t able to finish their drawing of you, so they’ll ask if they can take a photo of you to use as a guide while they finish it on their own.
The first place I interviewed for way back when told me that an artist or student asking to take a photo of you isn’t unheard of, so I’m lucky in the sense that I knew about this sort of thing going into my modeling. I was also advised to charge $20 per photo and get the cash up front (which in retrospect sounds kind of like someone wanted me to pose for a sleazy magazine, heh heh!). But it’s entirely possible someone new to modeling might not know if this sort of thing is kosher or not, and I’d like to be able to provide some advice.
The case I’m blogging about is different than what I described above. For starters, this particular person didn’t ask me for permission. I wasn’t even facing in his direction, but I noticed in the corner of my eye that he seemed to be aiming something in my direction. Sure enough, a few seconds later, I saw the tell-tale camera light. He wasn’t being sneaky like he was trying to take a quick nudie shot using a cell phone cam. But he didn’t ask me if it was all right, either.
Here I was, stuck in the middle of a pose, and someone took a photo of me! Nude. Several thoughts crossed my mind.
1. I could have stopped the session and confronted him immediately. I opted not to do this since it wasn’t as if he was going anywhere anytime soon. The dude was also in two previous sessions and never gave off any weird vibes before, so perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor.
2. Do nothing. After all, people have already seen me nude and like I said, he wasn’t giving off any sort of weird or creepy vibes. I opted not to do this for the simple reason that he didn’t ask my permission. To me, it’s a matter of respect, especially if the subject of your photo is nude. I’m in a vulnerable state as it is, and you’re already drawing me, and now you want to take a photo of me? Without asking me?
3. Say something during the first break. This is what I opted to do. I was still willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.
So fifteen minutes later, I get into my robe, take a few sips of my soda, and quietly walk over to him. In a low voice, I cheerfully say,
“Hey, I couldn’t help but notice while I was up on the podium that it looked like you took a picture of me. Did you?”
I said it gently and softly. I made sure my face was neutral and free of anything that might be construed as anger. But I also looked him directly in the eye and was a whopping two feet in front of him when I said it.
He immediately apologized, and it seemed sincere. He told me he thought it was okay and that he didn’t need to ask. Just to be sure, I decided to do the following:
I called out to the woman coordinating this session and asked her in a voice loud enough for the others to hear what this particular school’s policy was on taking photographs of the model. And I made sure my tone of voice conveyed a sense of general curiosity. Now, a woman asked in front of the class during the first session if she could take a photo of me, and the coordinator immediately detailed the school’s policy ($10 to take a picture, in cash). But I figured asking the coordinator again would serve two purposes:
1. He’d be getting the official policy, something he didn’t get (or chose to ignore) the first time
2. It served as a reminder to the other students as well.
So she reiterated the policy and also added something I didn’t pick up on the first time—that the fee entitled the person to multiple photos. Sure enough, he declined, and even let me watch as he deleted the photograph. And I made sure that I wasn’t acting rude to him. While I think it was honestly a bit generous on his part (to say the least!) to think that asking my permission wasn’t needed, maybe he’s done this during other sessions for other schools and it was included in the price of the class (disclaimer: I do NOT think this line of reasoning is kosher by any means… I’m just trying to come up with some sort of excuse as to why he might have thought what he did was okay).
Would I have done it if he (or anyone) asked and offered me the money? The truth is, I don’t know. I’m fairly certain I’d say no, especially if multiple shots from different angles were permitted. There are a handful of exceptions I’d be willing to make—mostly people I’ve worked with multiple times over the years and trust.
The decision to let yourself be photographed is yours, and yours alone. What I’d like to do, though, is offer you some advice to prepare yourself if the situation ever comes up.
• Ask yourself how badly you need that extra $10 or $20.
• Consider that, with digital photography and the Internet, once that photo is taken, it has the potential to be sent anywhere. And posted anywhere. And there’s a 99.9999999yaddayaddayadda percent certainty that you’ll never know about where that picture goes once it’s taken.
• You’re not getting royalties or additional pay if that person chooses to use the photo(s) he or she has taken multiple times for multiple projects. A lot of artists will have you sign a disclaimer form saying that whatever art they create from your modeling belongs to them and them alone. You have the freedom to agree and to sign that form, or to not sign it and walk away. By letting someone take a photo of you, you’ve carte blanche signed one of those forms whether you actually did, or not.
• You have the right to refuse that a photo be taken of you. And if you catch someone trying to take a photo of you, surreptitiously or not, and without your permission, you have the right to confront them over it. The vast majority of artists are very, very appreciative of their models (face it—without their models, they don’t have a whole lot to draw or paint). And my guess is that someone caught red-handed trying to sneak a nude photo of you would probably find themselves blacklisted and disgraced in the local art community.
To sum up, it’s your body. And you, and only you, have the right to determine under what circumstances your body will be captured outside of a session. You have the right to decline, and you shouldn’t let yourself feel guilty about it. And if someone does try to make you feel guilty, I personally think you have the right to walk out right then and there.
What happened is that someone took a photo of me while up on the podium. While nude. That’s never happened to me before, and I was a bit unsure of what to do.
You see, sometimes (especially during a multi-session engagement) an artist isn’t able to finish their drawing of you, so they’ll ask if they can take a photo of you to use as a guide while they finish it on their own.
The first place I interviewed for way back when told me that an artist or student asking to take a photo of you isn’t unheard of, so I’m lucky in the sense that I knew about this sort of thing going into my modeling. I was also advised to charge $20 per photo and get the cash up front (which in retrospect sounds kind of like someone wanted me to pose for a sleazy magazine, heh heh!). But it’s entirely possible someone new to modeling might not know if this sort of thing is kosher or not, and I’d like to be able to provide some advice.
The case I’m blogging about is different than what I described above. For starters, this particular person didn’t ask me for permission. I wasn’t even facing in his direction, but I noticed in the corner of my eye that he seemed to be aiming something in my direction. Sure enough, a few seconds later, I saw the tell-tale camera light. He wasn’t being sneaky like he was trying to take a quick nudie shot using a cell phone cam. But he didn’t ask me if it was all right, either.
Here I was, stuck in the middle of a pose, and someone took a photo of me! Nude. Several thoughts crossed my mind.
1. I could have stopped the session and confronted him immediately. I opted not to do this since it wasn’t as if he was going anywhere anytime soon. The dude was also in two previous sessions and never gave off any weird vibes before, so perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor.
2. Do nothing. After all, people have already seen me nude and like I said, he wasn’t giving off any sort of weird or creepy vibes. I opted not to do this for the simple reason that he didn’t ask my permission. To me, it’s a matter of respect, especially if the subject of your photo is nude. I’m in a vulnerable state as it is, and you’re already drawing me, and now you want to take a photo of me? Without asking me?
3. Say something during the first break. This is what I opted to do. I was still willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.
So fifteen minutes later, I get into my robe, take a few sips of my soda, and quietly walk over to him. In a low voice, I cheerfully say,
“Hey, I couldn’t help but notice while I was up on the podium that it looked like you took a picture of me. Did you?”
I said it gently and softly. I made sure my face was neutral and free of anything that might be construed as anger. But I also looked him directly in the eye and was a whopping two feet in front of him when I said it.
He immediately apologized, and it seemed sincere. He told me he thought it was okay and that he didn’t need to ask. Just to be sure, I decided to do the following:
I called out to the woman coordinating this session and asked her in a voice loud enough for the others to hear what this particular school’s policy was on taking photographs of the model. And I made sure my tone of voice conveyed a sense of general curiosity. Now, a woman asked in front of the class during the first session if she could take a photo of me, and the coordinator immediately detailed the school’s policy ($10 to take a picture, in cash). But I figured asking the coordinator again would serve two purposes:
1. He’d be getting the official policy, something he didn’t get (or chose to ignore) the first time
2. It served as a reminder to the other students as well.
So she reiterated the policy and also added something I didn’t pick up on the first time—that the fee entitled the person to multiple photos. Sure enough, he declined, and even let me watch as he deleted the photograph. And I made sure that I wasn’t acting rude to him. While I think it was honestly a bit generous on his part (to say the least!) to think that asking my permission wasn’t needed, maybe he’s done this during other sessions for other schools and it was included in the price of the class (disclaimer: I do NOT think this line of reasoning is kosher by any means… I’m just trying to come up with some sort of excuse as to why he might have thought what he did was okay).
Would I have done it if he (or anyone) asked and offered me the money? The truth is, I don’t know. I’m fairly certain I’d say no, especially if multiple shots from different angles were permitted. There are a handful of exceptions I’d be willing to make—mostly people I’ve worked with multiple times over the years and trust.
The decision to let yourself be photographed is yours, and yours alone. What I’d like to do, though, is offer you some advice to prepare yourself if the situation ever comes up.
• Ask yourself how badly you need that extra $10 or $20.
• Consider that, with digital photography and the Internet, once that photo is taken, it has the potential to be sent anywhere. And posted anywhere. And there’s a 99.9999999yaddayaddayadda percent certainty that you’ll never know about where that picture goes once it’s taken.
• You’re not getting royalties or additional pay if that person chooses to use the photo(s) he or she has taken multiple times for multiple projects. A lot of artists will have you sign a disclaimer form saying that whatever art they create from your modeling belongs to them and them alone. You have the freedom to agree and to sign that form, or to not sign it and walk away. By letting someone take a photo of you, you’ve carte blanche signed one of those forms whether you actually did, or not.
• You have the right to refuse that a photo be taken of you. And if you catch someone trying to take a photo of you, surreptitiously or not, and without your permission, you have the right to confront them over it. The vast majority of artists are very, very appreciative of their models (face it—without their models, they don’t have a whole lot to draw or paint). And my guess is that someone caught red-handed trying to sneak a nude photo of you would probably find themselves blacklisted and disgraced in the local art community.
To sum up, it’s your body. And you, and only you, have the right to determine under what circumstances your body will be captured outside of a session. You have the right to decline, and you shouldn’t let yourself feel guilty about it. And if someone does try to make you feel guilty, I personally think you have the right to walk out right then and there.
Monday, June 14, 2010
It Figures--Gesture Poses
Okay, so you’ve read through all my advice on how to network to land your first gig. And you know what you should (and shouldn’t) do up on the podium. So now there’s only one biggie left. Knowing the different types of poses, and how to make these poses work for you.
Poses for a model are like a construction worker’s tools. You need to have a good assortment of them to do your job right. Your first few sessions are going to be trial and error. You may get overly ambitious and strike poses that your body may not want to hold. Or the pose you get into gets vetoed by a professor.
The more you model, the better you get at it (and if people want you back time and again, you know you’re getting better at it). But just like riding a bike, you’re going to have to expect to fall down (figuratively, and in one case for me, literally!) one or two times along the way.
There are two main categories of poses: gesture poses and long poses. We’re going to talk about gestures in this post.
Gesture poses are most likely the first poses you’ll do in a given session. They’re warmups for the artist, and they can run anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes in length, though one minute is usually standard. You’ll generally do 10 one-minute poses or 10 one-minute poses followed by five two-minute poses, though there are some exceptions. Some places don’t bother to do gestures and go straight into longer poses. In fact, they may have you sit in one pose the entire session. Other places will have you go straight into some five- and 10-minute poses after the gesture poses (so you might want to think of one or two seated five-minute poses you can get into to rest some of your more active muscles). For the sake of this post, let’s assume someone wants you to do 10 one-minute poses.
You won’t need a timer for gesture poses. In fact, constantly having to reset the timer will be a distraction. Keep the time in your head with the old “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” action. Just don’t find yourself silently mouthing along!
Gesture poses are all about the action! You can do a lot in a gesture pose that you just can’t do in a longer pose, particularly in terms of keeping your hands and legs extended, and doing some off-balance poses. So feel free to get creative.
You really don’t want to do any relaxed or reclining poses, at least not without including a particular twist to make it interesting. For example, laying down on your side and propping your upper body up isn’t very exciting for a gesture pose, but doing something like taking that pose and extending one of your arms out like you’re a second baseman stretching himself out to keep in contact with the base and catch the ball is definitely acceptable.
Speaking of which, thinking of athletic moves is a good start if you’re looking to come up with gesture poses. Getting into a track runner’s stance, pretending to throw a ball, making it look like you’re in midstride—these are all fairly easy poses to hold for a minute. They’ll accentuate your muscles (particularly your legs and glutes), and they’ll give something interesting for people to draw. Since the poses are so short, there’s not much that’ll limit your creativity. Still, like anything, you’ll occasionally come up with a pose that looks great in your head, but is far harder to hold in practice.
Since these poses are shorter in length, you definitely want to be sure you face different spots in the room in each pose, even if it’s only a few degrees off from the preceding one. Give as many people a chance to draw you head-on as well as in profile (from one of your sides). And be sure to incorporate negative space and foreshortening into your poses unless you’ve specifically been told not to (like the first day in a beginner’s class).
Negative space. Take your hands and put them on your hips like you’re angry with someone. See that triangular space between your arms and your sides? That’s an example of negative space. While you don’t have to make every space incorporate negative space, you want to make sure at least some of them do. Many artists find drawing the negative space first helps them draw the rest of you.
Foreshortening. Look at yourself in the mirror. Now point directly at your reflection with your arm straight out. Now imagine trying to draw someone like that. If you’re pointing straight ahead, you can see your torso and your hand, but the arm isn’t that visible. It’s much, much different than if you were pointing straight up into the air. This is a difficult technique for artists to learn, but it’s a vital one. Take a look at pre-Renaissance art. Doesn’t a lot of it look flat and lifeless? Foreshortening is a perspective technique to breathe life and action into an artist’s work. Unless the room is filled with complete novices, you want to incorporate some foreshortening into your poses. Just note that what’s foreshortened for one artist will be in profile for another one depending on where they’re seated.
One thing to keep in mind, especially for more dramatic, stretched out poses, is the firmness of the podium. Some places put a few blankets on the podium. That makes it more comfortable, but it also makes it a bit harder (for me, anyways) to maintain my footing if I have my feet and legs more than a few feet apart. It also makes it a bit tougher to me to do any poses where I have only one leg on the ground (like putting one foot on the floor and the other on a chair). It’s trial and error, and you’ll learn what, if any, limitations the podium puts on your poses in short order.
Don’t be surprised if you start to feel a little warm during gesture poses. I was talking with a model friend and we both agreed that even if the room temperature isn’t particularly warm, given that the lights are on you, the fact that you may be a little nervous, and the fact that you’re holding pretty dynamic poses and then quickly shifting into new ones, means you may find your body warming up. In fact, you may start to break a little sweat even though you’re the only person in the room not wearing anything! Don’t be tempted to break pose, even though I find it sooooooo freaky feeling to have a small drop of sweat trickle from the back of my head down my back and not being able to do anything about it.
Most sessions will usually do 15-20 minutes worth of gestures and then give you a small break to rest up for longer poses. Put on your robe and shake out any soreness. If you’re in a class setting, this is the time where I’ve found that a lot of housekeeping and briefing for the day’s class goes on. So don’t be surprised if what you were told would be a five minute break turns into 15 minutes.
Next up: longer poses.
Poses for a model are like a construction worker’s tools. You need to have a good assortment of them to do your job right. Your first few sessions are going to be trial and error. You may get overly ambitious and strike poses that your body may not want to hold. Or the pose you get into gets vetoed by a professor.
The more you model, the better you get at it (and if people want you back time and again, you know you’re getting better at it). But just like riding a bike, you’re going to have to expect to fall down (figuratively, and in one case for me, literally!) one or two times along the way.
There are two main categories of poses: gesture poses and long poses. We’re going to talk about gestures in this post.
Gesture poses are most likely the first poses you’ll do in a given session. They’re warmups for the artist, and they can run anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes in length, though one minute is usually standard. You’ll generally do 10 one-minute poses or 10 one-minute poses followed by five two-minute poses, though there are some exceptions. Some places don’t bother to do gestures and go straight into longer poses. In fact, they may have you sit in one pose the entire session. Other places will have you go straight into some five- and 10-minute poses after the gesture poses (so you might want to think of one or two seated five-minute poses you can get into to rest some of your more active muscles). For the sake of this post, let’s assume someone wants you to do 10 one-minute poses.
You won’t need a timer for gesture poses. In fact, constantly having to reset the timer will be a distraction. Keep the time in your head with the old “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” action. Just don’t find yourself silently mouthing along!
Gesture poses are all about the action! You can do a lot in a gesture pose that you just can’t do in a longer pose, particularly in terms of keeping your hands and legs extended, and doing some off-balance poses. So feel free to get creative.
You really don’t want to do any relaxed or reclining poses, at least not without including a particular twist to make it interesting. For example, laying down on your side and propping your upper body up isn’t very exciting for a gesture pose, but doing something like taking that pose and extending one of your arms out like you’re a second baseman stretching himself out to keep in contact with the base and catch the ball is definitely acceptable.
Speaking of which, thinking of athletic moves is a good start if you’re looking to come up with gesture poses. Getting into a track runner’s stance, pretending to throw a ball, making it look like you’re in midstride—these are all fairly easy poses to hold for a minute. They’ll accentuate your muscles (particularly your legs and glutes), and they’ll give something interesting for people to draw. Since the poses are so short, there’s not much that’ll limit your creativity. Still, like anything, you’ll occasionally come up with a pose that looks great in your head, but is far harder to hold in practice.
Since these poses are shorter in length, you definitely want to be sure you face different spots in the room in each pose, even if it’s only a few degrees off from the preceding one. Give as many people a chance to draw you head-on as well as in profile (from one of your sides). And be sure to incorporate negative space and foreshortening into your poses unless you’ve specifically been told not to (like the first day in a beginner’s class).
Negative space. Take your hands and put them on your hips like you’re angry with someone. See that triangular space between your arms and your sides? That’s an example of negative space. While you don’t have to make every space incorporate negative space, you want to make sure at least some of them do. Many artists find drawing the negative space first helps them draw the rest of you.
Foreshortening. Look at yourself in the mirror. Now point directly at your reflection with your arm straight out. Now imagine trying to draw someone like that. If you’re pointing straight ahead, you can see your torso and your hand, but the arm isn’t that visible. It’s much, much different than if you were pointing straight up into the air. This is a difficult technique for artists to learn, but it’s a vital one. Take a look at pre-Renaissance art. Doesn’t a lot of it look flat and lifeless? Foreshortening is a perspective technique to breathe life and action into an artist’s work. Unless the room is filled with complete novices, you want to incorporate some foreshortening into your poses. Just note that what’s foreshortened for one artist will be in profile for another one depending on where they’re seated.
One thing to keep in mind, especially for more dramatic, stretched out poses, is the firmness of the podium. Some places put a few blankets on the podium. That makes it more comfortable, but it also makes it a bit harder (for me, anyways) to maintain my footing if I have my feet and legs more than a few feet apart. It also makes it a bit tougher to me to do any poses where I have only one leg on the ground (like putting one foot on the floor and the other on a chair). It’s trial and error, and you’ll learn what, if any, limitations the podium puts on your poses in short order.
Don’t be surprised if you start to feel a little warm during gesture poses. I was talking with a model friend and we both agreed that even if the room temperature isn’t particularly warm, given that the lights are on you, the fact that you may be a little nervous, and the fact that you’re holding pretty dynamic poses and then quickly shifting into new ones, means you may find your body warming up. In fact, you may start to break a little sweat even though you’re the only person in the room not wearing anything! Don’t be tempted to break pose, even though I find it sooooooo freaky feeling to have a small drop of sweat trickle from the back of my head down my back and not being able to do anything about it.
Most sessions will usually do 15-20 minutes worth of gestures and then give you a small break to rest up for longer poses. Put on your robe and shake out any soreness. If you’re in a class setting, this is the time where I’ve found that a lot of housekeeping and briefing for the day’s class goes on. So don’t be surprised if what you were told would be a five minute break turns into 15 minutes.
Next up: longer poses.
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