In my drawings, I want to work out the expression of the pose. The act of looking consciously at a yogapose can show you a lot about a pose. You can develop a deep feeling for the pose a shape your pose, the way you want to improve your pose and your expression. Working on expressions is something neglected, but it is very useful for understanding deeper a yoga pose. Therefore, in my drawings I try to look, see and draw the right and typical expression. Drawing and Painting is art, but observing can be an art as well.
I began to draw, because I began learning yoga poses. Inspired by a book from the Sivananda Yoga Centre I develloped my first interest on yoga. Most interesting for me was the fact, that yoga does create poses. Other sports create beautiful movements, but yoga creates single poses.
By studying and drawing pictures of yoga poses, I discovered, that I could develop a better unterstanding for a pose. Looking at a professional pose of BKS Iyengar or Heinz Grill consciously, makes you see the pose in a deeper way. No I try to study poses, pictures and videos of yoga asanas and try to learn about a pose by looing consciously and drawing it. I don´t do only Sivananda Yoga, but I study different people and styles and by this, I began to treat the pose like an object of art. My vision for yoga is, to be able to work on the expression of a pose – and treat the body like a skulpture. With my drawings, I want to make visible different expressions of yoga poses done by yoga professionals. Especially drawings are a great possibility to make visible a quality of a yoga pose. I want to share ideas of the poses and inspire other people, who do yoga no matter what style, to work on their yoga expressions.
By looking a yoga pose, you can really learn a lot about the pose. It gives you a new understanding and feeling for the expression. I developed the Dynamic Brush Drawing, a kind of expressive Gesture Drawing. By drawing with a brush, you can directly create and recreate a pose with it´s movement. You don´t draw the pose but you draw the inner, abstract movement. There are many ways how to draw a yoga pose. But if you try to draw it, you have to look at it first. Therefore I recommend pictures with a vivid and professional, deeper expression and compleat harmony. The yoga poses performed with aesthetic and passion, create a beauty and harmony of the body. Done with profession and passion they remind of sculpures, or like a drawing teacher of me once said, compositions of the body.
By studying these poses I pay attention to the individual expression. I wanted to make visible the individual look of it´s creator and I want to create a feeling for these variouse qualities. The poses are performed differently, depending on the person. Not only the technic and the position of the parts of the body but also the expression varies from person to person.
The expression of a pose relates to the way how the body and the movement is individually coped with, it gives a pose it´s significance and it´s life and face. That is what I am interested in and that is why I call my drawings also yogaportraits. On the internet I found a lot of different poses of several persons that caught my interest.
My vision for art is, that art can create deep feelings and real qualities and makes them visible, so the person, that loos at a drawing really feels the qualities of a yoga pose. Art can create real feelings for an object. It can give live to all things. This is a great possibility for all artists as well as for all spectators. Art can trasmit feelings and create new possibilities to learn.
Camilla Carlens
Yoga Drawings 