Explore the human form

Week 5

Wow – What a way to complete the 5-session course! I’m so impressed by how my students tackled the processes during this session, held their nerve and arrived at their completed drawings. It was a tough session and everyone worked really hard – but I really believe that’s the only way to enjoy greater rewards. Everyone was smiling by the end, and from the comments I received on the evaluation forms I reckon everyone felt they had gained and learnt a lot from the course.

During the session we revisited most of the techniques I had introduced during the course and worked through them once again – however this time all in the one drawing. We started with a charcoal dust under drawing to generate energy and dynamic marks and the chance to block in the main areas of light and shade. This initial burst of mark making is so important and gives the drawing life and a chance to establish its own identity. We quickly progressed to adding in blocks of acrylic colour, collage and finally, after about an hour reached the point of adding line and contour.

I think using line finally gave the students a chance to relax a bit using a more familiar technique as line drawing is usually peoples most comfortable way of working. Those students who were struggling to see where their drawings were going and thought things looked a bit of a mess finally realised that the line work was helping the drawing make sense, and how all the stuff they’d done before helped to give structure, and the chance for them to work more intuitively and creatively with the images that were appearing on the paper in front of them.
So – here are the results of 2 hours work by a group of students of mixed drawing experience. I’m impressed – and I hope you are too!
If you’re inspired follow this link to www.creativeartcourses.org for up to date course information.