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It’s a hot summer day in Bangkok and the studio is open and hosting a couple of students quietly getting their weekly creative fix. *Sigh* I love Sundays!
If you’re making up excuses as to why you’re not in here, stop it. There is no such thing as “can’t”. Whatever level you think you are, it makes no difference at Attic. Here we believe anyone can draw and learn how to paint. It just takes a bit of practice. We have proof!
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.
The most important part of a drawing is the start, not the finish. This tutorial will focus on how to start a portrait drawing, using basic blocking-in techniques.
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.
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.
A couple of weeks ago Elsie went on a head hunt and came back with two plaster cast heads…
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.
Besides art websites, there are an assortment of blogs out there on the world wide web written by artists themselves. The following is just one example:
“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.”…
Ok people…if you want to be any good at art, you have to put the ego away and be prepared to learn a little something. Chances are you don’t know as much as you think you do and somebody else probably knows more or has done something you never thought to try. Taking advice, trying new techniques, finding inspiration in somebody else’s brush strokes are all part of the process…it is not copying, it is learning. If you have only ever painted with a certain kind of brush, try another one. You can’t know your style if you have never actually tried anything else – your style doesn’t exist yet – you’re just being stubborn. I know because I am guilty of the same thing.
