On Oct. 18, 2024, the College of the Arts hosted its second ever Draw-A-Thon. This semester however, rather than being hosted at the Hilliard Art Museum, it was hosted at the Visual Art Annex. This event lasted from 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.
The Draw-A-Thon consists of a small collection of nude and clothed models, both male and female. This event was open to not just art students but also students from other majors, from other universities and local artists. At Draw- A-Thon, attendees are given drawing supplies to go and freely draw the models at the event. Pizza and snacks were provided as well.
This semester the Draw-A-Thon was hosted by Kate Gordon, a professor of drawing and visual arts in the College of the Arts. When asked about what made her choose to host the Draw-A-Thon this year, she responded saying how she did this in hopes to bring together art students and artists in a community-oriented setting to figure draw.
Following this, she was asked about what made the Draw-A-Thon so special, and she replied stating, “There are limited opportunities to draw the figure outside of major cities, and accessibility is really important to reach multiple audiences, because it’s specific time that is allocated to focusing on anatomy and perspective outside of just the regular scheduled classes that we have.”
There was an abundance of attendees at the event. Many of them claimed to be having a great time while at the event.
Jo Strain, a sophomore and visual arts major here at University of Louisiana at Lafayette shared, “I love figure drawing, but I don’t get many opportunities to do it in person, so whenever I saw that UL was hosting this Draw-A-Thon, I knew I had to take advantage of it… I cannot emphasize how uncommon this is, so it’s nice that UL Lafayette is able to host something like this that’s both free and I don’t know, it’s good.”
Besides UL Lafayette students, there were also several community artists who attended as well. One of which was Kay Jeansonne, a full time artist in the Lafayette area. According to her, she attended the Draw-A-Thon last semester and enjoyed it, so when she heard there would be another one this semester, she looked forward to attending this semester’s Draw-A-Thon as well.
When asked about her opinion on the event, she stated, “It’s great. I love the energy of so many artists being together, drawing from the model.” In all, this seemed to be a shared theme between many of the attendees.
It wasn’t just the attendees either who enjoyed the event. The models seemed to enjoy the event as well.
One of the models, Linsey Vallot, stated “It’s really fantastic. I find it really good to almost challenge myself to be like, ‘Okay, you have six hours to do a whole bunch of poses, how do you want to do them?’ I even sometimes ask the people who are around, ‘Does anyone have any suggestions for stuff, poses or things I could wear?’”
Overall, everyone seemed to greatly enjoy this semester’s Draw-A-Thon. When asked for any final remarks Kate Gordon expressed thanks to all the artists and models that participated this year, and that she hopes to see them all again next year.