Live Study: Drawing Light, Shadow and Drapery from Life

Some lessons can only be learned in front of a living, breathing figure. A model doesn’t hold perfectly still, the light shifts, the cloth settles differently each time you look — and that is exactly the point.

This Live Study came together with the help of the Delhi Collage of Art — the place I studied at, and taught at for a few years — and the wholehearted support of our young well-wishers who helped make the evening happen. Our model for the session was Yashaswina, who held her poses with remarkable stillness and grace.

The heart of the session was understanding volume. We slowed down to see how light and shadow work together to create the illusion of a solid, three-dimensional figure on a flat sheet of paper — the lit planes, the turning edges, the core shadow, and the reflected light that quietly brings a form back to life.

From there we turned to drapery: how fabric falls, gathers and wraps around the human body. A saree is a wonderful teacher — it reveals the figure underneath while folding into rhythms of its own, each crease a small lesson in how cloth responds to gravity and the body beneath it.

By the end of the evening, every easel held a study — some tight and observed, some loose and searching, all of them a genuine step forward. We closed the way we like to: drawings up, chai and snacks out, and everyone looking at what everyone else had seen.

This is what Live Study is meant to be — fundamentals learned in good company. It continues as a bookable session, so you can join us in front of the model and learn to draw what you actually see.