The Nude in Art

Nude Day is not exactly an International Day, although it should be. It falls quite close to Skinny Dip Day, so I thought I’d focus more on nude art, instead of trying to convince you – again – to live your lives naked. 😋️

Nudity is art’s oldest muse. From ancient times to present day, the nude body has never stopped being one of the main subjects of art. And it sure is my art’s main subject. I draw and paint other things, too, occasionally, but, honestly speaking, I don’t think I would have ever put the effort to learn how to draw and paint if it wasn’t to depict the beauty of the naked male form.

My Journey with Nudes

I’ve previously talked about my early journey with art and nudes in this post: “A bunny tries to draw… I said, ‘tries’!” So here, I’ll only talk about my experiences in more recent years.

Until that post I was using almost only graphite pencils. I had bought charcoal, colour pencils, watercolours, oil pastels, dry pastels, acrylics and oils to try my luck with all of them – but for quite some time I was only experimenting on how they work. I had done a bit more than just that with the very friendly-to-me oils. No classes, whatsoever, because lockdowns came.

Lockdowns reduced my ability to concentrate on writing, which was very unpleasant. But! Because of that, I concentrated on my art. Obsessively so, I must say. This obsession supported my sanity (or half-sanity, because no self-respecting loony bunny should ever be fully sane 😏️😇️😁️), and also helped my artistic abilities to improve.

This beautiful walking-pose nude drawing was done about a year and a half after my second effort to draw the “squid”. Neither fingers (or tentacles) nor face in this drawing for comparison, but even from the body alone, I think, it’s clear that I was getting better.

Although, “I was lucky enough to draw this good enough,” was my way of thinking, at the time. Still is. 🤫️

Originally, I intended to draw “the squid” every six months or so, to keep track of my progress. But every time, I put it off – afraid I might draw him worse than the previous time. So, I haven’t done that until today. I intend to. I need to muster the courage.

Anyway! Not long after I drew this, a crazy idea popped into my head, and I did an experiment with some of my mediums. (A Drawing Experiment)

Compared to the walking guy, the results of that experiment don’t look like much, but detailed depiction was not the goal, to begin with. On the other hand, that experiment opened my mind in many different styles and possibilities, and I played with those. Some I still use; some I don’t.

Those few-tones pencil drawings I posted for Skinny Dip Day are practically direct evolutions of the idea that started with “A Drawing Experiment”. But the most valuable lesson I got from that experiment – and all those that followed it – is that trying different things, mediums and styles can help your usual ones improve.

So, a piece of friendly advice:

If you ever feel like you’ve hit a bottleneck with what you are doing, play with something different. However unrelated it may seem, it just might be what helps you break through.

Busting Myths about Male Nudes

Just like what I did with my Skinny-Dipping rant, let’s bust some myths about male nude art.

People often think that a male artist focusing on creating male nudes, or a guy who enjoys the view of such art must be gay. I don’t think so! I have a painting – made by me – of the breasts of a woman on my wall. Does this make me straight? Similarly, female artists who create female nudes as well as women who admire such pieces of art are not considered lesbians. And they shouldn’t be.

Personally, both for my writing and for my art, I get inspiration from love and feelings-filled lust. So, of course I concentrate on male nudes and sensual scenes. But that’s not the only source of inspiration for artists. I assure you, most landscape artists are not plant-sexuals 😏️. Artists focus on what moves their souls and what they find beautiful. Okay, not all artists are fond of beauty, but let’s forget those, for this subject.

We can all see beauty in a plethora of things and subjects. The question is if this beauty we see motivates us enough to create a piece of art, or if it puts our souls at peace and, hence, we enjoy looking at such art. Once again, there are probably as many variations as there are humans, but, overall, what we find interesting and beautiful, even if this is the naked human body, doesn’t necessarily excite us sexually. Please keep that in mind.

Myth #2! Nudes, or sensual nudes is porn. That’s an exaggeration, by all means. I consider porn a form of art. If you know me from Twitter, you have probably seen me at times speaking favourably about porn. And I have drawn dick close-ups, ass close-ups and sensual, or sexual scenes. I also write such scenes. I’ve never written, or illustrated porn, in my honest opinion.

Not only me, but other artists, much more famous and well-appreciated – like Man Ray who took close-up photos of penetrations – have depicted sensuality and sexual acts in their art, because, you see, sex is natural, beautiful, interesting and human. If I need to prove that statement to you, you probably are not reading this post, or you are blocking me right about now. So, for the rest, we at least agree on this point.

Okay… This post has gotten much more serious than I like, so let’s end it, right here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on nude art. Don’t worry, I won’t try to persuade you that you have to have nudes all over your walls. We are different people and, therefore, we have different tastes. And that’s a good thing.

Have fun, play naked and always be happy!