How to go about finding a Figure Drawing class

[J2 Cool]

Hi, I'm looking for open studios for figure drawing. I live in the south suburbs of Chicago. Taking a train to the city right now, and from bus there on out to The Palete and Chisel dowtown. Quite the convenient place if you live down there. $10 a session, $75 for 10 sessions, and a bit more for a membership. Great stuff, but the problem is it's not very convenient.

I've been emailing closer local colleges trying to get information on open figure drawing classes but usually get no reply or simply general information. Any suggestions on how to go about finding something more convenient? Especially with portfolios to make, I think more than once a week is necessary. Should I just hound the schools like crazy? Maybe talk to models at the current class?

[thesinfulsaint]

I'm not sure how to get more information about a local college besides just hounding them. If you can, you can always just take the figure drawing class that the local college offers. Most of them have one, and they can be 2 or 3 times a week, depending on how long you want your class to be. If Illinois has a program like my state does, you can take college classes while still in high school for high school credits. You might want to go for that option if it's available to you.

If that won't work, heck, I'd go for the inconvenient stuff. If you're just in a suburb, it shouldn't be more than an hour drive, right? For 10 sessions, you can probably handle that. You'll thank yourself later.

I guess you could also always try talking to a model from a figure drawing session and seeing if you can work something out privately, but I warn you, that would be extremely expensive. Think about it... if 5 of those 10 dollars goes to pay the model and there are 30 people in a class, that's 150 dollars a session. You'd be better off going for the inconvenient route.