Life drawing is like an exercise - when you don't do it, you lose it. To be in a decent shape, you have to do it regularly. But, like any exercise or obligatory task, it can become tedious.

This week we had an excellent model, with a beautiful body and inspiring poses. All of us were scribbling feverishly on our papers, trying to put down the lines and capture the exquisite, fleeting beauty in front of us in less than 2 minutes. Then the model took a 10 minute pose that I drew in 2 minutes and I got restless. Of course, it was not a good drawing but instead of trying to get better at it I got bored. As an animator, I am mainly interested in a gesture, not in making pretty pictures. I also don't have a lot of patience. So I stopped at this:

- What else is there for me to draw? - I thought. I had 8 more minutes to look at this pose until change to another. Suddenly, I saw the object the model'd body was resting on. It was alive! With renewed vigor I started to sketch this:

Then of course, I started seeing things every time the model took a pose:

The moral of this story: a little boredom can spur something new into existence.