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6 Pregnant Nudes
Some of my favourite life drawings of pregnancy.
I have had the pleasure to draw heavily pregnant nude models, including my own wife, on a number of occasions over the years. It is invariably a huge privilege to witness the dramatically modified and still changing form the model presents, and I am always deeply grateful for their efforts. There is, of course a trade off, in that the model is limited in her range of movement and also the length of time she is able to hold a pose for. But that is a small price for what is by any measure a very special opportunity.
Most of the women I have drawn have been models, but I was also commissioned to draw a woman in the last stages of pregnancy in Manchester a couple of years ago. I am surprised that this is not a more common request as it is wonderful to have such an intimate record of this most human of conditions.
The latest model I drew was at a life class in the Elysium gallery a couple of weeks ago and it is odd to think that, by now, that baby has been born and the mother’s shape is now totally different to that portrayed.
But then I consider that the earliest of these drawings, from 1988, would mean that the bump I drew back then is now a 34 year old adult, possibly with children of their own.
1 Adele Pregnant 88
This was my first drawing of a pregnant woman, and the first time I had ever seen a pregnant woman nude, in the flesh. It comes from a life drawing session at the old Glasslight Studios in Swansea’s maritime quarter that I attended for a few years after college. At the time I was solely concerned with the quality of my pencil work and shading, and this is evident in the subtle variety of shading below the breast. This is quite a small drawing of about 30cm square which is again unusual compared to my work since. I used a HB pencil on Seawhite cartridge, a paper I still use for my prep sketches to this day although I have moved on to softer, darker pencils.
