Bust Studies and A Cure For The Blues

We all have bad days and sometimes those bad days turn out to last an entire week. Last week was like that for me. It was just several days where I felt like doing nothing but sitting in sweatpants on the couch and eating whipped cream straight from the can with reckless abandon. The only problem was, I was out of whipped cream. Of course. This weekend I tried to raise my spirits by going to a yoga class but at the end of it instead of feeling refreshed, I had the semi-violent urge to smash all of the salt lamps in the room with my new 6 pound eco-friendly natural rubber mat. Maybe it was the instructor rapidly telling us to change from one position to another while walking around the room…thereby not physically showing what pose she wanted us to twist ourselves into. Maybe it was the lady five feet to my left breathing in a very x-rated way every time she went into Adho Mukha Shvanasana. Maybe it was the fact that I now smelled like a rubber tire after 45 minutes of stretching on my new stupid heavier than lead rubber yoga mat that I paid way too much for. I don’t know.

So after trying to stretch myself to a blissful state of mind and failing at that I decided to go to the cafe down the street for tea and a cookie. A very, non-gluten-free tummy busting cookie. My stomach swelled out like I was six months pregnant and I was wearing brightly colored tight yoga pants. So…I had that going for me. And I was still in a lousy mood.

After that I decided something had to give. So this morning I decided to put on my Happy music playlist as loud as I could stand it while working on a classical bust study. And I must say that I am in a fantastic mood after doing this.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term “bust study” it’s a drawing or painting of a sculpture, usually of the head and upper chest only. Artists have been using busts to practice drawing the human head for a very very long time. It’s helpful to be able to study the features of the face and head from different angles without the distraction of color or the flatness that can come from studying a photograph. So if you can get your hands on a bust sculpture to practice drawing portraits with, I highly recommend you grab one. You can often find them cheaply online, at flea markets, and occasionally big box stores will have them in the home decor section. Just make sure that the features are well defined.

This sketch is of a little resin bust that I keep on my work desk but I modified it a bit. The bust that I have actually is an anatomical model that shows the muscles, veins, and cartilage of the face. So I decided to take artistic liberty and draw it as though it had a layer of skin covering everything. It was so much fun that I wasn’t even concerned if it came out perfectly or not.

So the next time you are in a funk, try putting on music that makes you want to get up and dance. Half of the time while drawing this I was dancing in my seat and mouthing the words to songs like Uptown Funk. It was the best…until an unsuspecting family member walked in and caught me busting a move while I worked. That part was awkward.