Beginning Drawing
This is my first drawing class in my Certificate Quest for Printmaking. This is one of the required courses. I also need to take the Intermediate Drawing class.
Since this class was fairly structured, I am placing course syllabus on this page, with individual links to my work for each class or a short discussion on the class. As I recall, we did not follow this to the letter, but we were pretty close.
Beginning Drawing
Instructor: Ellie Clough (eclough@nhia.edu)
The Community Education program at New Hampshire Institute of Art is dedicated to providing community access to a broad range of professionally led classes and workshops that encourage learning and appreciation in the visual arts.
Beginning Drawing:
Learn the basic rules and techniques that lead to the completion of a successful drawing. Classes will focus on such subjects as contour line, negative space, creating form through Chiaroscuro, figure and facial proportions, perspective and value drawing.
Materials List:
- 18 x 24 Newsprint Pad
- 18 x 24 Drawing Pad (such as Strathmore 400)
- 1-2 pieces of 18 x 24 Mid-toned (gray, tan or blue) paper
- Drawing Board with clips large enough to fit the above drawing paper
- 1 white eraser
- 1 kneaded eraser
- ruler
- Graphite pencils in H, 2B, 4B, 7B Pencil Sharpener
- Hard, medium and soft compressed charcoal or charcoal pencils
CERTIFICATE and HIGHSCHOOL STUDENTS needing to be graded will be required to produce out of class assignments following the process we covered during that week's class. Assignments are required to be passed in at the next week's class for full grade.
HEALTH AND SAFETY - Rules for the Drawing Studio
It is necessary as an artist for you to be aware of safe studio practices and follow these procedures in NHIA classrooms.
Food is prohibited in the classroom due to the risk of ingesting hazardous materials. All drinks must be in a closed container. Washing your hands before eating after using materials is highly recommended.
The use of spray adhesives and fixatives is not allowed in the building.
If you are pregnant or plan to be pregnant, please consult with your doctor and obtain written permission to continue attending this class.
Initial Handouts:
This schedule and List of Materials
1. September 10: - "Fun With Contour"
Imagine your eye as a virtual drawing instrument. Now, without looking at the paper Use your eye to draw the contour of the object you are looking at. Without looking at your paper!
Now, take your pencil and as your eye scans the object, have your pencil follow on the paper what your eye is seeing in front of you.Now do your own portrait in blind contour. Do your hand, foot, drawing materials or whatever you would like. Follow the contour lines of the still life in blind contour "Learning to Look with Line"
The foundation of good image making is the ability to see what you are looking at. With the study of contour line, students will recognize shape, space, placement and weight of the objects as seen in a still life.
Our teacher, Ellie, brought is a bunch of old tools: hammers, wrenches, pliers, hand drills, etc. We attempted to draw some of these objects without looking at the paper, needless to say the results were quite funny. was able to draw a pair of pliers that sort of looked like a pair of pliers. But I will refrain from showing any of my work for this exercise.
2. September 17: - "Working With The Negative Is A Positive"
Using the contour line we will investigate the interesting shapes and patterns created by the negative spaces between items in the still life. We will fill these outside spaces with ink to
create an interesting pattern leaving a bold negative shape to our objects.
Ellie, arranged a bunch of easles and tri-pods in the center of our class room, then using a small view finder we chose a section of the arrangement to draw, and filled in the negative space with ink.
Since I am taking the class for a grade, I did a second picture I created at home by arranging a chair, table and ceramic vase.
3. September 24: - Gridding
Learn to use the process of gridding a picture and enlarging the image with near perfection through the use of the gridding system.
Ellie brought in a selection of black and white pictures of famous people, we each selected one to draw a picture of. But rather than a straight copy, we created a grid, and copies square by square.
This exerise actually spanned several weeks.
4. October 1: - Chiaroscuro: Hatching and crosshatchlng
With a still life we will explore the technique of using line to create value and texture with the use of hatching and crosshatching. Thin point sharpies will be provided.
The class, as a whole, spent several weeks on the Gridding exercise, so the Chiaroscuro class was pushed out a week or so, I really can't remember.
5. October 8: - Chiaroscuro: Putting it into practice
With a still life we will explore the technique of Chiaroscuro in blending from highlight to dark shadow.
Ellie setup a table containing a variety of "white" objects, with a strange directional light source. Using Chiaroscuro techniques, we made several drawings.
6. October 15: - Second class used to punch up lights and darks in our first still life
Using Chiaroscuro and it's six distinct sections to create an image that has form and texture. No better way to explore the Renaissance technique of Chiaroscuro. Through this technique we will learn to control our drawing materials to create highlights, deep and gentle shadowing.
We continued working on the "Chiaroscuro" pictures. The table Ellie setup was preserved during the week.
Chiaroscura Exercise Continued
7. October 22: - "Face It"
Using the proportions of the human face we will draw a self-portrait in charcoal with chiaroscuro.
We skipped this until the very last class
8. October 29: - "Female Model Based Portraiture"
With our knowledge of facial proportions and chiaroscuro we will create a portrait from a seated female model.
9. November 5: - "Male Model Based Portraiture"
With our knowledge of facial proportions and chiaroscuro we will create a portrait from a seated male model.
10. November 12: - "Female Model Based Figure"
With our knowledge of human proportions and structural drawing we will create a figure drawing from a female model.
All figure drawing classes begin with a number quick figure drawing sketches which state posture, weight and movement of model
11. November 19: - "A Brush with Perspective"
Items that we will be working with need to be translated with the use of perspective. We will visit perspective as it pertains to our still life. We will be using single as well as multiple vanishing points. We will look at the objects from a bird's eye and worm's eye view.
12. November 20: - "Using Chiaroscuro with Drapery"
Students will study the gentle change of gradation from lights and darks as caused by a draped cloth with dramatic lighting.
I missed this class, but was able to incorporate this into the final project
13. December 3: - Toned Paper (Drawing with charcoal on a mid-tone paper) "Still Life"
Students will use a toned paper in the next two classes to create darks and lights as seen in the still life presented to class. Highlights will be created with the use of white charcoal.
14. December 10: - Continuation of Still Life
Students will use a toned paper in the next two classes to create darks and lights. Highlights will be created with the use of white charcoal.
15. December 17: - "Final Class"
Finish Still Life. We will finish 30 - 40 minutes early so that we can have an extended critique. Please bring in two pieces to class to talk about in class that you feel were most successful. What "aha" moment did you reach in these piece?