Take a leap into the art of anatomy

By Chris Wells, Staff Writer

Once a month on Fridays, art teacher Mike Eich has been hosting anatomy classes after school to improve art students’ work and advance placement portfolio grades.

When Eich began teaching art at FVHS, he noticed that the AP art test scores were not as high as he wanted them to be.  After investigating, he learned that the College Board marked down the students’ portfolios for lack of human anatomy. Thus, Eich started the anatomy class to help his AP students improve their skills in anatomy so they could increase their test scores.

Eventually the class branched out to the animation classes who also needed knowledge of the human body so they could create their animations. Now the class is open to all students interested in learning anatomy. The class has had as many as 45 students and as little as 10 students during his 15 to 17 years of teaching it.

Anatomy is the ability to draw the human body using live models. Eich’s class shares many similarities with a regular college class, but the only difference is that the models have to be clothed with a bathing suit or leotard. Students who choose to model for the class must be able to stand in a certain stance for at most three hours and have small breaks in between.

Eich charges each student $5 to take the three hour long class. The money is used to pay the student models for their time and the rest goes towards pizza for the class. Thirty minutes before the class ends, the pizza arrives, students clean up and take their best pieces of art, best jester drawings and best long pose drawing to critique them.

“The students talk about their art; right and wrongs, good or bad all of that,” said Eich. ¨I don’t keep any of the money; that goes all back to the kids, either to food or back to pay the model.”

Eich believes students do not need to be an artist to take the class; just faith in themselves.

“Well, you have to have the belief in yourself and ability to draw and willingness to listen,” said Eich.