This course will show you how to draw the figure quickly and efficiently while maintaining good proportions, elegant gesture and good tonal relationships.
You’ll start by learning how to see and draw the balance between the weight line and the flow of energy animating the pose. This will form the basis of all your drawings as they incorporate progressively more complex concepts.
For the first two days with you’ll focus on gesture and proportion using line. You’ll look at ways to get good proportion with minimal measuring. This will give you a solid foundation for the second part of the workshop dealing with mass drawing. Mass drawing involves using tonal value to describe the figure based on chiaroscuro principles. You’ll cover everything you need to build up to a long pose on the final day.
The emphasis to begin with is on fast sketching which will be invaluable in creating lively, dynamic figure studies. As you progress into longer tonal studies you’ll be encouraged to hold onto the dynamism of your initial sketches. The aim of this is to help you combine disciplined classical principles with the rhythm and life of a sketch.
Drawings by tutor Christopher Clements
- Seeing and capturing dynamism of the models pose and energy
- Using Flow Through & Gesture Lines to simplify the figure
- Articulation of Gesture Lines to construct a solid sense of form
- Overlaps and Line Weight to create a finished line drawing
- Mass drawing using Chiaroscuro and Tonal Families
- General to Specific rendering
- Different Drawing Mediums and Papers
Student Work
Throughout the workshop you’ll work with different length poses to get practice using the principles covered. You’ll also try various drawing exercises designed to improve your observational drawing.
By the end of the course you’ll have developed your ability how to analyse a pose, pick out the important information and build your figure drawing around it. You will also have an understanding of line and tone and how they can be used to create a sense of three dimensionality. Finally you will know how to apply a general to specific principle so that the small forms and texture in your work won’t disrupt the big picture.
Course Details
- Date: TBC, please use the inquiry form if you’re interested
- Location: Northern Realist Studio, Manchester – Map
- Materials: Drawing Media – use contact form / email info@northernrealist for full list
- Course Length: 30hrs Hours over 5 Days
- Hours: 09:45-16:30