Watercolour, pencil and coloured pencil on paper, A1, February/March 2019

“Akt einer Frau” shows a collection of nude studies and sketches, which all centre around the female form.
It includes one head in a profile view, two sketches of the same hand and six live studies of a woman in various sitting, lying and standing positions.
Every drawing has blue, purple and pink tones. In most of the nude studies, very concentrated aquarelle paint accentuates the central shapes and lines of the body.
In the upper-left-hand corner, the woman is seen sitting on a stool facing away from the viewer, leaning slightly forward with her hands gripping the edges of the stool. She is painted in different shades of purple and a simple scribble, painted over densely with dark aquarelle paint, which represents her hair, tied up in a bun.
Just above the centre, the first of the two hand sketches can be seen. Here, pale red and blue outlines create an organic feel. This effect is amplified through the shadows which are filled in with light stripes of the same red pencil, while the highlights – as in the rest of the sketches – are left paperwhite. The veins are suggested by thin blue outlines.
The drawing in the upper-right-hand corner shows the woman standing upright, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and resting her head on them. She is outlined and shaded in with various shades of pink. She is slightly bending one leg, while balancing her weight mostly on the other, facing towards the right side of the frame.
In the second picture from top on the right, the woman is shown sprawled on the floor, with her arms and head resting on a stool. This piece puts more focus on the flow of the outlines, rather than their accuracy, capturing the atmosphere of the scene while maintaining simplicity.
The second picture in the middle column from top depicts another pose of the woman sitting on the stool. She has one leg reaching out of the frame onto the floor while the other is bent, allowing the heel of her foot to rest on the stool. She is holding her arms behind her back, assisting her balance while emphasising the curves and flow of her body.
At the center of the bottom half of the collage, the second hand sketch can be spotted, this time with bolder outlines, a brighter shade of red and a more subtle approach to shading. By slightly altering the position and angle of the wrist, the form and flow of the lower forearm is more present and prominent.
In the center left hand picture, there is a side profile of the woman facing left. The subject is outlined with a mixture of lines, and scribbles fill the entire background, getting denser as they near the edges of her face.
The image in the lower-left-hand corner shows the woman standing, facing left. There are two sketches of the same pose, one in blue and the other in purple. Although less contrasted, the shading stands out among the other pictures for having a more natural and accurate flow, giving the shapes a more tangible sense of volume. The woman is standing on her left foot, which is closer to the viewer, bending the other leg and gently placing the ball of her foot on the ground. She has her shoulders hunched over forwards, her hands on the back of her head with her elbow to the front.
In the lower-right-hand corner the woman is portrayed lying on her side with her head resting on one arm folded underneath. Her other arm is mostly behind her, only showing her wrist and the tip of her shoulder. She is resting on a vaguely outlined mattress, facing the viewer. The perspective is slightly foreshortened with her head on the right a little closer to the viewer than her legs on the right. Her surroundings are subtly sketched with a pencil and only her watercolor-shaded figure stands out amongst them. She has one leg stretched out while the other leg underneath is bent at a slight angle.
I very much enjoyed the work environment in which nude studies are conducted because everyone is focussing on the same thing at the same time, only paying attention to the shape and structure of the model’s body.