By tradition, Life Classes start with a few one-minute poses. This is called “warming up.” What does that mean and what are we warming up, exactly?
Warming up is what athletes famously do and have to do so that they will not strain a muscle. Warming up for an athlete means going slow and easy, stretching gently and gradually increasing tension, weight and speed. That makes sense.
But in an art class, warming up means going fast. Drawing a figure in one minute, believe me, is fast. It’s actually a bit scary, anything but slow and easy, as with athletes warming up.
Why, then, do we do it? We do it in order to switch on our heightened seeing, which means seeing the whole figure all at once. Psychologists call it the “Gestalt,” the whole thing, no bit by bit scanning. On the way to class, as we drive and walk, we’re scanning the visual landscape through which we navigate. But to draw, we have to see intensely. To switch on this intensity, we—POW!—we draw a nude body in one minute. Then another and another, all on the same sheet of paper, because, well, because there’s no time to take out another sheet and position it on the drawing board. What we’re warming up is the mind.
The result is a lovely play on lines, creating a rhythm on the page. What’s most important is that we don’t get continuous contour lines when we draw with this speed. The contour lines are interrupted. The drawing breathes. It suggests life and it engages the viewer.
Drawing by Gaby, graphite, December 2012
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 
I agree with what you say about the heightened seeing, but I also think it also does something about the eye-hand connection. ‘Heightening’ doesn’t seem to be the right word–more about ‘dis-encumbering'(not sure that’s really a word)–the speed taking thinking out of the drawing process. Just looking intensely and drawingreallyreallyfastandmoredrawingmoredrawingreallyreallyfast.