Further Material on Drawing etc.

Links

Below are a few more links you might find interesting:

Cumberland Lifers Drawing Group Blog  is a source of information about life drawing groups in the Comox Valley and beyond, with contact emails and numbers on hand.  As well, posters to the blog put up their own life drawings for perusal and often post interesting items to do with life drawing and the figure in art.

Structural Life Drawing Demo with Gary Garaths A very structured step by step video on You Tube that is interesting to watch.

Portrait Drawing by Gary Garaths  Drawing a head with photo reference, muscular reference, and a 'planes of the head' model.

Planes Of The Head  A website from which you can veiw or buy the planes of the head model we used in class.

Ways of Seeing John Berger's startling 70's BBC television documentary (in four parts per episode) on how the western painting tradition has transmogrified under the influence of the camera and moving film and the mass production of imagery. As well, episodes on 'The Female Nude' and property in art and culture. Some of the episodes on YouTube are hard to find, and must be searched, or, because of nudity in the content, you must start an account with YouTube. Might be best just to browse some of the episodes and if you find the documentary interesting, you can probably get a VHS or DVD from the library and watch the whole thing.

Today's Nude On UK's channel four recently, this 5 or 6 part documentary follows artists talking about art and the figure while engaged in life drawing. The episode with John Berger was posted on YouTube but has been pulled for copyright reasons, and, alas, you can't view the episodes (in Canada) on the Channel Four site. But read about it here, and watch for it eventually making it's way across the pond to PBS, Knowledge Network or CBC's News Channel's documentary schedule, or your local library.

Posemaniacs An interesting site where there is a male and female 3d figures that can be click and dragged to hundreds of rotatable poses that can viewed from any angle (click and drag on the image). The models are 'flayed' so that muscle groups are visible on the surface of the figures. The figures, alas, are very 'Manga', quite comic book and freakishly Barbiesque. There is even a way of giving yourself quick gestural random poses and the site might keep you on your toes if you miss your weekly drawing session.

Nicolas M. Raynolds Apparently lived in the Comox Valley a few years back and taught at NIC. Look for his superb sustained drawings; a little complicated to find; go to 'images' and a window comes up; click 'a selection of drawings'.

Gallery of Canadian Drawing Masters This link is to the list of artists; not the home page; you can click on some of the artists and view a couple of samples of their work. If you find work you like you can then Google the artist's name to find a gallery or website

Making a Mark A blog that is an avalanche of information on drawing and painting and visual arts. You will need to clone yourself just to comprehend it all; what is truly incredible is that this is all compiled by one woman who still finds time to publish 3 other blogs, teach and draw!

Bibliodyssey Diagrams, illustrations, maps, cut aways and graphica conjoured up from a twilight zone of old books.

Morbid Anatomy Models, diagrams, graphics, specimens of unusual and pathalogical anatomy from over the ages.

Lines and Colours by (the other) Charlie Parker. A compilation of art posts that interest the author. Be aware that they are all categorized so that you can click and summon all the posts on drawings, for example. There are links to blogs and websites of the featured artists. A great resource/stepping stone to view drawings and art of all persuasions.

Drawn A compilation blog by several illustrators; items that are usually related, directly or indirectly, to the realm of drawing, film, animation, comics, illustration and occasionally fine art.

Things To Draw

After this course is over, you can, of course, repeat all of the exercises we've been through over the six classes.  You can draw boxes or dolls houses, or better still, step outside and draw houses.  You can draw toy cars or better still, step outside and draw real cars.  You can find objects and people and imagine the light playing across their form regardless of local colour and render that form.  You can buy another newsprint pad and start going to local life drawing sessions regularly.  That sketch book that you haven't filled: keep it handy and fill it with repeats of our the exercises we've done and try drawing in other situations from different subjects, applying some of the concepts you've studied when you see fit.  Here are some other suggestions to tweak your interest into making drawing a regular and enjoyable practice.

Drawing from Classical Drawings, Illustrations, Paintings and Sculpture

Drawing from the drawings of well known artists is really interesting to do for several reasons. Firstly you can learn from their drawing style. Even if you draw in your regular drawing style, you may pick up cues from your subject artists drawing style and also discover aspects their own unique ways of costructing and rendering form.  If the drawing is a well known and appreciated drawing, you can be sure the pose will be interesting and visually provocative. When we go life drawing in a crowded room we don't always get the most interesting and dynamic aspect of our model, even if he or she is taking a dramatic and inspiring pose. If you're drawing a drawing, you'll probably have no problem drawing with lines.

after Egon Scheile


after Egon Scheile.

after Barcsay

after Walter B. Gibson

after Aubrey Beardsley

after Deseto after Leonardo da Vinci

after Bronzino


after Michaelangelo

After Gustave Klimt

after Gustave Klimt

Drawing from Personal Photos and Magazine/Advertising/Internet Photos

You can browse Magazines, the internet, advertising and draw from photographs you find there.

When drawing from photos things can get a bit tricky. As you doodle away from photos of sculpture, or paintings or photos themselves, try and look at the modules and anatomy, the negative spaces, imagine the physical three dimensional form of your subject, the weight on parts of the body, and don't think of your subject as a flat piece of paper on the table in front of you. Get beyond the reproduction or photo. Take what you have learned from drawing in life sessions and apply it your drawing from reference. You never have to draw, or paint, what you see. You have the  licence to do that. An artist's licence, possibly in your wallet somewhere between your health card and drivers licence.  If you do shade or hatch, try and do it under circumstances that are uniquely your own. For example, play down the local colour/value. Image/imagine your own light source on the form. Draw the photos in your own style of drawing.

Drawing From Family Members and in Waiting Rooms

Keep that sketch book handy for around the home and at family gathering or in waiting rooms, bars, musical concerts and other public and private spaces.  You can doodle away and still have a great conversation with Aunt Agatha or the Barber.  Television and books are a godsend for sedating subject matter.

Drawing from Television and Film

I hope you were as amazed as I was looking at that film sequence from 'Wings of Desire'. I knew the golden ratio was in constant use in film, but was still shocked to see how widespread it's use is in terms of placement of the figure in the picture frame, something that is of interest to us as drawers because we will be constantly placing figures or objects on the page.

We now live the era of the pause button. We can be watching a DVD and stop the action and draw and study what we see. This can be great drawing practice and also a great way to study composition. You are probably best to just keep your drawing linear and focused on the figures and major props and background elements.  Don't get too detailed.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.


The set up.


The set up.


The set up.

If you do this enough, you will see that there has been an extensive visual language developed around the arrangement of interacting figures on the big and small screen. As mentioned previously, most films, television and television commercials are actually drawn out, sometimes meticulously, before being shot on film. Called storyboards, these probably looked very similar to the drawings that you will make from the paused finished product. Thousands of artists are currently employed to draw for a living storyboarding, and designing sets, props and characters, which is evidence that drawing isn't yet obsolete. Not quite.

As well as developing superb and quick drawing skills, storyboard artists learn to communicate in the language of film, leading the eye fluidly from scene to scene and creating a sense of narrative with cuts, trucks, pans, fades and other visual devices. Below are a few real storyboard panels lifted from the internet as examples of the real thing.

Live action film storyboard for 'Jaws'


1938 animation storyboard.


Recent animation storyboard panels.


Television animation storyboard with a grab of the finished product below.