Drawing people is one of the most natural things humans do—most young children naturally draw a giant head atop two sticks! 

 

For many artists, figure drawing can be daunting. It may seem like your drawings never really get any better, and that learning from books and videos doesn’t always translate into improvement. 

 

Drawing is the foundation underlying all other representational arts. In the classical western tradition, figure drawing is built on techniques passed down since the Renaissance—knowledge that almost disappeared entirely from artistic training during the mid- 20th century’s move into abstract arts. 

Many of today’s artists in their 50’s – 80’s came through American art training at a time when figurative knowledge was at its weakest.

 

Fortunately, there were a few places where that knowledge was preserved while much of the world forgot it, and I was lucky to be in some of those places. Today, there is a renewed explosion and elevation of that knowledge, and the evolution of new representational art that combines figure with abstract and decorative elements.

 

In this workshop, we go back to basics: introducing some of the classical figure drawing approaches that allow you to elevate your work through focusing on four main elements of figure drawing: Structure, Line, Form and Gesture

 

We will practice:

• Rendering human forms with strong structural building blocks, 

• Studying the work of masters

• Experiencing the difference between using photo reference and working from life 

 

Special Opportunity!!!

Drawing from male models with defined musculature is a rare opportunity to understand the figure as all great western artists have. Our final afternoon will be a special guided zoom session just for us with internationally known artist’s model Mariano DaMonte.