Women have been admired for their bodies since time immemorial and for good reason. A womans' body is one of the most symmetrically pleasing objects in nature, and has been sculpted from marble,cast into bronze, painted by almost every great master and photographed by amateur and professional alike.

So maybe you saw Di Caprio draw Kate Winslet in The Titanic and ever since you have wanted to try your hand at sketching a lovely nude?

Well if you have the will than there is a way. Sketching a nude woman is not as hard as you might think and it is fun as well. Just follow some simple guidelines and you will be on your way to drawing a nude in no time.

The first thing you will need is a willing subject. This might be either a paid model or if you are lucky, a friend or lover who wants to pose for you and is willing to 'bare all'. Alternatively, you can use photographs. However only do this if you can't find a live model, because the subtleties and delicate shadows and soft skin of a 'real' woman can never be quite captured on film, no matter precisely 'digital' or HD the camera may be.

Just ask anyone who you think would make a good subject. Most women, so long as they trust you and know you to some extent, are surprisingly pleased to be a nude model for a 'serious' artist, (or someone who hopes to be one) and if you are serious they just may accommodate you. A healthy-minded woman is proud of the gifts she has been blessed with and not as shy as you might at first think. It never hurts to ask, and even if they say no, they will be honestly flattered that you thought they would make a good subject for your drawing.

Next you will need some simple supplies...

• charcoal or pastel,
• a large sheet of drawing paper,
• some kneaded erasers
• some source of adjustable light (optional)

Finally you need something which is equally important and that is the willingness to 'see'. Looking is not enough, you really must be able to 'see' what you are looking at, and for that there are a few pointers to set you on the right track.

Pose your model in an interesting and artistic pose.

It is up to you what you want to sketch but remember to hide some things and expose others--to simply show it all is amateurish and will not create a great drawing no matter how sexy or 'endowed' your nude model is.

To help you with the posing remember to use light and shadow. That's very important because your goal here is to illuminate what you want to emphasize and cast in mystery what you want the viewer to wonder about.

If you are going to light a breast, try setting the lights so that the other is hidden in a gradual shadow. If you are going to highlight the buttocks, perhaps you want to try letting her hair (if is long enough) obscure them partially. You can also use some soft drapery to do this, but remember if you add anything to your nude you will also have to draw it, and something like the folds of drapery can be a real challenge for beginning artists. The best advice is to use light and shadow for your first attempts as they can be most easily duplicated with your charcoal and smudge eraser.

Try posing the nude standing, laying on couch, as well as in various states of movement. When you see the pose that excites you, that gets your creative juices flowing, you will know it and that is what you want to have her 'hold' for your sketch.

When you look at your nude model, you need to remember one thing: like snowflakes, no two women are alike.

Just try and find a pair of identical breasts. You never will. They come in so many variations it is remarkable. Small, and large are just too simple to describe these wonderful 'accoutrements' that women have and they are all interesting to the artist...no matter what category they fall into. This is so because all breasts have great meaning on many levels, from motherhood to erotic objects, and everything in between. So, as an artist it is your job to really look and really see the unique breasts that are in front of you (providing you are posing your lady front-on) and to bring out what is wonderful about them.

If you are posing her from the rear? Again the same principle holds. Booty is fascinatingly varied and there have been just as many great drawings and paintings done with emphasis on both front and back...not to speak of the ever-popular side-view, which accents both the breasts and the butt equally.

There are advantages as well as disadvantages to this fact, of course, for the artist.

The advantage is that his drawing will be fresh and interesting because his model is new and individual.

The disadvantage is that there are really no standard, paint-by-numbers rules that you can follow if you really want to capture what you are looking at in all it's diversity of shapes and curves.

When it comes to drawing what you see, there is nothing so handy as using the rule of head.

Once you have how many heads tall your model is, and how many heads wide, you will have a good rule of thumb to go on.

To get the head measurement simply stand back about six or ten feet and hold up your pencil. Now slide your thumb down the pencil and when your eye lines up with her chin, stop your thumb and place the measurement on your sketch pad. This is the rule of head you will use for the rest of your sketch.

Thus, how many 'heads' wide are her shoulders? Probably two or two and a half. Her neck ? One half head long. Her torso? Four? Five? It will vary with your model. So will the legs and other parts.

The idea here is to find a standard by which you will put your model into proportion for you sketch.

Remember never to ignore what is most effective in charcoal sketching in particular, and that is the use of the smudge technique. If you rub the dark areas of your sketch, where you have indicated shadow, and blend them into the light areas, where light hits, you will achieve a wonderful 'graduated' effect which, in the case of a nude woman, is most realistic, by the way it mimics the softness of the skin and smooth curves of a woman's body.

Women are above all, at least for the artist's eye, a collection basically of circles and rounded shapes. Keep in mind the idea that her breasts are basically balls, or melons, and her nipples are smaller circles. Her buttocks are two larger circles (in most cases) than the spheres of her breasts. Her eyes, her lips and her calves are more or less 'elliptical' based shapes, which are variations of circles.

Broken down into it's most fundamental shapes, the woman's body is a collection of circles and spheres of varying size and variety, and hence her beauty is largely the lovely symmetry of these pleasingly rounded shapes.

You will find your drawing much easier if you visualize in it's overall layout, the general shapes and shadows of the whole body. Then you can refine and tweak these basic shapes with shadow and light, skin tones and details.

Now it's time to get down with that sketch pad and give it a go!

Have fun and find your 'inner artist' with one of the most popular and awesome subjects known to art--the female figure.