Mosaic Dish by Lena (Student)

We have recently had a large number of mosaics being created in the studio. The children especially have shown a real appreciation (and surprising patience) for the ancient art form, creating some fantastically detailed  pieces on wooden boards and clay dishes.

Working with colourful glass tiles it is inevitable that, every now and then, they do actually bleed for their craft but this does not deter them one bit! It’s wonderful to see their fearless creativity and determination to get their pieces perfect.

For adults and kids alike mosaic is a wonderful art form to try and to develop further. It’s takes a bit of patience but if you found you had a true passion for it, the possibilities are endless. From hand-making your own tiles to covering a whole floor or wall in an elaborate design.

We often walk right over some of the oldest and most beautiful pieces of art without even realising it.

For further Mosiac references and inspiration, please browse the following links and explore the internet yourself. There is so much out there.

National Gallery

Sonia King – Mosaic Art

Mosaic Art Gallery

Attic's mosaic corner

Mosaic workshop

When drawing a portrait from life, you don’t want to just jump-in and draw. I always walk around the model to get a better understanding of the model and plan out my composition.

In addition, whenever I do a head study, or a portrait, I don’t start out by trying to capture a “likeness.” Instead, I try to construct a solid head, focusing on the volumetric forms. By constructing the underlying forms first, you’ll be more able to achieve a credible likeness in the end.

Here is my process for drawing portraits:

1. Establish the over-all volume of the head

Mark the top of skull, not the hair, then locate the line of the chin, mark the back of the skull and two lines for the angles of the front of the skull.

Look for the bone structure of the skull not the features of the face—that will come later. Your initial lines just need to accurately depict the volume of the head.

2. Position the features to resemble a realistic head

Divide the head into thirds: one third is from the top of the head to the top of the eye socket; the second is from the top of the eye socket to the base of the nose; and the third is from the base of the nose to the bottom of the chin.

Next, locate the position of the eyes and the middle of the ears. Add the structure of the nose and lips, based loosely on your model.

3. Outline shadow shapes to refine the structure

Make use of the shadow shapes to define the structure of the eye socket. Important: find the over-all structure—don’t worry about drawing in the eye lashes or any other little details at this point.

Locate the shadows down the side of the head, down the forehead, past the zeugmatic bone, down the cheek to the jaw. Also, find the shape and structure of the hair (as though it’s solid too). Keep the drawing simple!

4. Loosely fill in all the shadows

Now it’s time to mass-in all the shadow shapes together, including the hair. This shadow will define the light structures of the head. Already you will have a credible solid head with simple well defined shapes that should begin to resemble the model.

5. Create different values within the shadows.

In step 4 you simply found the differences between the light and shadow. Now you can start to develop different values within the shadow shapes, separating hair from skin, and dark shadows from lighter ones.

As you can see, the drawing is well on its way to being finished.

If you want to improve at drawing from life, you will progress more quickly by drawing basic block-ins over and over until they become second nature.

Practice these five steps until you can consistently draw the volume of the head—then move on to the finer details. Your completed drawings will be much better for it.

Drawings and tips by H. Edward Brooks.

Like any other art process, figure drawing is a fluid activity and impossible to pin down with exact rules—but if your goal is to create a more convincing life drawing, then these next few ideas will help.

Here are nine common figure-drawing mistakes, along with their solutions:

Mistake #1 – Drawing without a goal

More often than not, people immediately begin sketching without establishing some kind of intention in their mind first. You’ll find that a well-thought out drawing always seems more focused, and clearer than one that isn’t.

Solution: Pause for a moment before beginning your drawing and to look at what you see in front of you. Keep your mind open for ideas to pop up—a moment of reflection and stillness will allow creative ideas to reveal themselves. Once you have a plan, begin drawing!

Mistake #2 – Cutting off limbs and heads

It’s always shame when heads, arms or feet get unintentionally cut out of a drawing, just because the artist has run out of room on the paper.

Solution: Sketch in the underlying body structure first, before committing to the entire drawing. Be sure to mark where the top of the head and the bottom of the feet will go in your initial rendering, along with some extra space for the margins. It sounds simple enough, but many people still forget to do this important step.

Mistake #3 – Creating stiff, robotic figures

Angles in a figure drawing are very important because they show us how much the model is leaning, where their weight is resting, and the extent of their range of motion.

We tend to straighten out our figures unconsciously and must deliberately compensate for it. Because most people aren’t aware of this tendency, the problem never gets addressed resulting in a stiff, robotic figure.

Solution: Start drawing the curves and angles of your model just as you see them, but then exaggerate the angles further to compensate for your innate tendency to straighten things.

The effect is that your drawing will appear to be more accurate. You have to go out of your comfort zone and force things a bit, but to the viewer the drawing will look even more believable.

Mistake #4 – Equalizing the proportions of the model when they are not equal

Irregular proportions are the norm. Nothing is truly equal or symmetrical in nature, even though it may appear that way upon first glance.

Solution: Observe something very, very closely and you will see the many uneven proportions that you didn’t see the first time around. Just being aware of them is already a step in the right direction and will help the quality of your drawing.

It may also help to measure the length of various anatomical proportions on the model and compare them with what you have drawn—you will inevitably find places where you have “equalized” measurements that need to be changed.

Irregularities are what make the drawing interesting and demonstrate the artist’s ability to observe closely. Nature and life are full of surprises; your drawing should be as well.

Mistake #5 – Ignoring the figure’s environment

In life drawing, figures can easily appear to be cut out or “floating” in space. This is quite distracting, no matter how well-drawn the image is.

Solution: Include a bit of the environment in the drawing. The smallest line can help the figure look more solid and more grounded.

In the example above, there are a few small horizontal lines under the back heel to suggest the floor. Smudges and scribbles around the figure suggest the space that it inhabits – it’s as simple as that and works like a charm!

Refer to the old masters for more ways to integrate a figure and environment.

Mistake #6 – Working on the details too soon

It is very easy to get lost in the details, but all that work goes to waste unless you have the proper larger forms in first. The temptation is to start “finishing” off the drawing too fast, resulting in some beautifully rendered areas that have to be erased later.

Solution: Get the drawing laid in correctly from the start, always remembering to work from large too small. The main forms go in first, followed by the details that can be considered icing on the cake.

Mistake #7 – Expecting the model to be “perfect”

You will often end up with a model that moves around a bit, gives you a difficult foreshortened pose, or doesn’t have the appearance you are looking for.

But believe it or not, the success of your drawing has very little to do with the model and everything to do with you, the artist.

Solution: It is your job to bring the beauty, proportion, and interest to the model in front of you, and not the other way around. You can make a model into whatever you desire with some creativity—do not rely on the model for your inspiration. Picasso is an excellent example of an artist who could take an ordinary model and turn her into a compelling work of art.

Of course, some models do have special qualities and can be so wonderful you can’t help but do one of your best drawings. But you should not rely on having a perfect model to make a successful drawing—you can do it anyway regardless of what you see before you.

Mistake #8 – Not spending time on hands and feet

Both beginners and professional artists have trouble drawing hands and feet. If you actually take the time to make the hands and feet as good as the rest of the drawing without fudging or trying to cover them up—well, then you are in the top ten percent!

Solution: Work longer on the hands and feet and study them thoroughly. Drawing from the old masters (who offer many solutions) will help. Also, draw and redraw the hands and feet until they appear to be done with ease.

All of this will take time, but it’s more than worth the extra effort. A great work of art is like a chain: it is only as good as its weakest link. If you “screw up” on one part (i.e. the hands and feet) it will weaken the entire work.

Mistake #9 – Thinking that you have learned enough

In art, as in life, ideas unfold as you progress. As Picasso once said, “Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.”

Solution: Make a decision now to keep learning, and to keep your mind open for new ideas. Forget being “right” all the time. Instead, search for new artistic discoveries and always look for ways to learn from your mistakes.

Note: The two life drawings in this article are by figurative artist Harry Carmean, and are excellent examples of “mistake free” life drawings.

Casts are a wonderful tool for drawing the human form and practicing the essential principles of shading and tonal value. It is a practice that has been used to teach drawing and painting since the 19th century, which focuses on mastering realism.

Drawing from the cast enables beginners to analyse shape and proportion, and to render the effects of light and shade without the complication of colour. It encourages a methodical approach from the start, and remains the best way to learn the ‘language’ of seeing.

“…The goal of learning how to paint a sculpture, reducing a complex three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface while re-creating the illusion of depth and volume, helps us distill and master essential principles. The cast, usually depicting a full figure, or parts of the human form, provides an entrance-way into painting without the difficulties associated with working from life – as the cast is a completely stationary, uniformly colored object seen under consistent lighting conditions…”

- An excerpt from the book ‘Classical Painting Atelier’ by Juliette Aristides.

For all you studio members: if you come in and we’re not here, get one of the heads down and try the following:

Setting up:

1. Place the cast head on a darker surface and background. If you choose to use drapery, secure it behind the cast and gather it as you feel fit.
2. Direct a light source, window or lamp, in a visually pleasing manner on the cast and drapery.
3. Pay careful attention to the tone of the background, value of the ground plane, and the shapes of the shadows that are cast upon the background or ground.

Creating your cast drawing/painting:

1. Mark in the big measurements and overall proportions of the cast on your paper/canvas.
2. Begin blocking in the large shadow shapes.
3. Block in the shadows and drapery in the background. By opting not to concentrate on line, you will create a drawing/painting that more closely resembles what you actually see.
4. After placing the overall tones in the shadows and surrounding environment, begin modeling the big forms of the lights.
5. Next, work in the smaller forms within the context of the big shapes, working from dark to light.
6. Finally, examine the edges of your forms. Some edges should be so soft that they are lost entirely, dissolving into adjacent forms, while others should be strong and sharp and there should be every variation in between.

“When I first began painting, I asked everyone I could harass what was their “secret formula” for painting flesh.  (A college professor had told me I had horrible color sense because I used brown in the painting of a costume, and my fragile ego had me very uncertain about color for years).  One artist told me he used nothing but cadmium scarlet, cadmium green, and white.  Another, mars orange, Winsor orange, sap green, dioxazine purple, and titanium white (I used this for a while, over a burnt sienna underpainting-  I sometimes got good results, and other times it looked like “TheLand of the Sherbert People”).  A different artist recommended cadmium orange, titanium white, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, and ultramarine blue.  I never liked any of the results I achieved, so I stuck to the basic yellow, blue, red recipe, and fiddled with the hues now and then.”…

To read more of Mathew D. Innis’ blog, click on the following link.

http://underpaintings.blogspot.com/2008/06/mattelson-palette.html

Check out this video for a little drawing inspiration!

So, if you want to step out of your own little world and broaden your artistic horizons here are a few websites to get you started:

• www.dailypainters.com – Updated daily, this site features the work of various artists who produce a painting a day. You can subscribe to the site and have that day’s artwork sent to your inbox for daily inspiration. Perfect for anyone feeling bogged down or in a rut. Finishing a painting in a day forces you away from detail and into simple shapes, colour and light. These paintings, although small and fast are beautiful all the same.
• www.artcritical.com – is an online magazine of art and ideas. Most of the work featured is Contemporary American art.
• www.Juxtapoz.com – Art & Culture Magazine. Juxtapoz’s monthly publications can also be purchased in Bangkok at most book stores (eg Asia Books, Kinokuniya, B2S). The art featured in this magazine ranges from street art, illustration, and computer-generated art to fine art, photography and sculpture. On the site you can read Artists’ blogs, take part in various forums and create your own profile.
• www.artspan.com – Artspan is home to 3,000 artist, artisan, photographer and other art websites. Use the search functions and directories to see thumbnail images and access the individual websites – to view or buy work.
• www.theartnewspaper.com – exactly what it sounds like.