Getting ready for the nude drawing season 2024
It’s the beginning of June and Berlin is having a hard time getting started… A wonderful opportunity for me to review the past summer with my sketchbooks from last year. And – oh dear! – to scan all the wonderful drawings that I hadn’t even published yet. Most of these beautiful nude drawings haven’t even made it into an Instagram story yet. Sometimes you just need a little distance from your own work to get a fresh perspective on it again.
Working against time with my art
When I’m sitting by the lake in the sun and drawing the naked men around me, I’m highly concentrated. And I know one thing for sure – my artistic work here is always a work against time. Against the advancing days of summer: because next fall, and with it the end of the bathing season, is as certain as the Amen in church. But also on a small scale: the interesting posture of a naked man in front of my eyes, which I want to capture in my drawing, won’t last long. The sketch has to be finished quickly, because in no time at all he’s turned around.
Trying to become better with looking at what I achieved
The consequence of this work against time is that I usually turn the page of a finished drawing, however beautiful and successful it may be, and devote myself to a new nude drawing. Especially when I’m in the flow, I usually go straight to the next picture. And that’s until I’m completely overheated in the sun and absolutely have to go for a swim to cool down again.
Drawing naked men in all shapes they come in
Here’s a fresh selection of memories of summer 2023 from one of my favorite outdoor studios: the nudist beach at Kaulsdorfer See in the east of Berlin. The men I portray here in my nude drawings are mostly gay. But there are also a few straight men. Young family men, older, long-established naturist veterans and many more. Have fun with my new group of men!