Wenlin's Blog

I opened up an old sketchbook and found some figure drawings I did back in 2004 with the Charlottesville art community. We had weekly drawing sessions with interesting models and other artists working with various medium. I always learned so much from observing different approaches to the same model. My favorite models are dancers and theater actors, because I like their exaggerated expressions and gestures. Their bodies are unique and very elegant. I’d like to capture figure in motion in my future drawings.

I have a rare opportunity to be working with a theater group as an understudy for a minor role in the past few weeks. I get to observe closely how a theater performance come into being. In the director’s words, “the birth process to a performance”. After knowing that I am an architectural designer, the director asked me to bring my sketchbook and drawing tools to respond to whatever resonates with me in the rehearsal process, choreography, dance, characters,etc. The main dancer Tom is also a sculptor and writer. During the scenes that he’s not acting, he sits down as an audience and makes clay models of the characters in the play, while carefully observing the rehearsal. I feel very inspired by the free flowing and open process of performing, and reflecting, people feeding creative energy off each other…There are many great dancers in the crew. I’m mesmerized by the spontaneity and the elegance of the main dancer who plays a spirit. His dance feels light as feature, yet filled with energy and tension. It’s definitely a great place for me to explore my ability to draw figures in motion. It’ll be a great opportunity to exercise how I see things, too.