While here in Berlin, I’ve been attending a weekly figure drawing group offered at Village Berlin, a gay community center which offers a wide selection of events and activities. The facilitator/instructor does a great job of suggesting a variety of approaches to the figure, and gives guidance to anyone who welcomes it. Drawing the figure is and always will be a huge challenge, but once in a while you get a good one! The act of figure drawing – seeing, analyzing, editing, and finally representing those feelings, thoughts, and decisions onto a piece of paper, requires one to gather what you’ve learned from previous drawing mistakes and successes, focus on the task at hand, step out into the unknown, and just go for it! It can be a very exciting experience, peppered with defeats – also known as “teaching moments!” It’s been good to have this opportunity to do some drawing "calisthenics" while in Berlin. The learning never stops!