Online Drawing Class in October (Tacoma Art Class)

Hello, and hope this post finds you well!

I will be teaching an (online-Zoom) drawing class coming up in October.

Drawing Foundations Class

*5 week class, Weekly on Wednesdays (Starts October 13)

*Online (Zoom-please download)

*Register/Pay at https://www.timothymansen.com/workshops

*$250 for 5-week class (Early Bird Discount if paid by October 1)

*All Levels Welcome

*Rigorous, yet enjoyable class; Homework assigned each week

Please consider joining. For more info, and to register/pay, please go to the following link...

https://www.timothymansen.com/workshop/28277/drawing-foundations-fall-2021-5-week-class

The Abstract in Representation

At Tacoma Academy of Fine Art, the goal of our studies is to produce competent and beautiful color figurative paintings. Each quarter students focus on a different step toward this goal, starting with drawing and culminating in painting. During the first quarter, entitled 'Beginning Drawing', students focus on the practical elements of drawing, with a focus on materials, methods of blocking-in and rendering a drawing, and an emphasis on proportion and measuring.

During the second quarter, in our 'Design Drawing' class, elements of design are introduced, and the student moves from a copying mindset to one of composing. A constructive 3-D apporach is taken and the visual world is broken down into it's most basic elements of shape, and then into volume.

During previous quarters, value (light and dark) was considered for it's role of representing light and form. But now, in the third quarter, another aspect of value is considered, that is: abstract 2-D design, also called graphic pattern. Here the work of Caravaggio, Vermeer and Sargent are emphasized for their ability to place a beautifully rendered form into a pleasing pattern, able to draw in the viewer from a distance. This is the final step of the drawing course, and the one that transitions the student into the medium of oil painting. (For a great analysis on a constructive vs. an abstract approach design-based drawing, read Harold Speed's great book entitled 'The Practice and Science of Drawing'.)

Drawing Bottles

Hitting the Bottle. A designer's approach to drawing:

While there are various ways to learn to draw, the approach we are taking in this Design Drawing class is with... bottles.

Wha?! 

Hear me out here! By studying bottles, it give students a chance to analyze a simple object for it's underlying structure. When you look at a Michaelangelo drawing it's remarkable how he was able to see and draw the simple, most essential elements in his figures. Through our study of bottles, we will learn to do the same. In doing so, with simple objects like bottles, it will help us to eventually see the structure within more complex objects, like cast statues, the human figure, trees, etc. But it all starts with bottles!

Approach: First off, I should mention that as you begin this drawing, it is recommended to start by drawing and finishing one bottle, just to get familiar, then using that as a basis for the bottles next to it. As you begin your bottle drawing homework, start the bottle drawing as you would any other of our class drawings: that is by first deciding on the initial height of your drawing, and marking that off with a top and a bottom point. This forms your first constant. Next, draw in the center-line, then the mid-point, then measure (using knitting needle/ skewer) the bottle to find the relationship of the width to the height (this is called comparitive measuring). Draw this in to determine your notional space.

Now start to identify the basic shapes that compose these bottles (triangles, rectangles/squares, circles) and measure to find the key transition points. An example of this on the above illustration is the point on the left-most bottle where the circle in the center transitions into the triangle.

Start with the one bottle, then draw in the other 2, forming a composition. Keep this drawing. Next week we will learn to make an overlay, using tracing paper, analyzing spatial elements (perspective) of the bottles, taking them from the realm of 2-dimensions to the world of 3-dimensions.

So find a quiet spot, put on some good music, and enjoy the process. And if you get stuck feel free to contact me. tim.mansen@gmail.com

Bargue Plates

At Tacoma Academy of Fine Art, we do a lot of drawing from cast statues. Along with this, we draw from a collection of academic drawings called the 'Bargue Plates'. While it sounds like an obscure term out of a medical book, a Bargue plate is a reproduction of an academic cast drawing from a 19th century art educator named Charles Bargue. This collection of plates became the standard of art academia 19th century Europe and were studied by artists as varied as Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and William Bougereau.

You may wonder what's so special about these plates and why spend all the time studying them? Isn't art supposed to be original? Why would a student want to copy them?

First off, it helps to see what we're learning as a language, a visual language.  When we're in school, we learn the alphabet, sentence structure, grammar, etc with the goal that we may express ourselves, through speaking and through writing.

In a similar way, in this drawing course we learn a visual language. The Bargue plates are part of learning this language. The goal is to absorb the principles displayed in these plates, to incorporate them into our own language, so that we may be effective communicators. So, no matter what you hope to communicate (by this I mean to draw and paint), whether realistic or fantasy, or abstract, we will be in a better place to reach our goal.

Consider a few of the benefits of copying the Bargue plates:

-These Bargue plates reveal that a finished drawing is actually a series of stages. Most of these plates represent 2 stages: The 'Block-In' and the finished stage, where shading was applied on top of the block-in. (*Remember that by 'Block-In', I mean the initial stage in a drawing, where proportion, shape and line are considered. Once the block-in reads as accurate, then we start our shading, filling in our shapes with value. 'Value' means the lightness or darkness of an object).

-The study of these Bargue plates help develop a sense of proportion, harmony, and beauty. It is important as artists to surround ourselves with objects of beauty and to continually refine our taste. Think of the food that we eat. The things we choose to eat effect us, our appearance, our minds, our emotions. Therefore it is a good idea to eat a good, balanced diet. In the same way, viewing objects of beauty will effect us positively.

Similarily, I would recommend studying and sketching from master drawings, by Michaelanelo, Leonardo, Del Sarto, Pontormo, etc. There is a great book called 'Drawing Lessons from the Old Masters', by R.B. Hale, with images of master drawings, with accompanying text on how to study these master pieces.

So choose some Bargue plates that you like, and ones that are similar to your class project, and copy them into your sketch book.

Thank you for being consistent with your homework. Doing so will help expedite your growth as a draughtswoman / draughtsman.