ABSTRACT
Chapter 11 addresses the experience of drawing the body. In the context of the life-drawing studio, practitioners experience a tension between observing the model as an object to draw and regarding the model as a person. Using accounts drawn from my own and others’ experience, I describe some of the emotions practitioners feel when, in the midst of drawing from a model, they are suddenly aware of the body as an embodied person. An imagined sense of touch helps artists, hobbyists, and students to gain an empathic understanding of their subject. In the sheer effort and attention required to draw the body, practitioners sometimes feel they are inhabiting the body they draw.
