This course is used in most Classical Ateliers and Academies to teach classical drawing and painting techniques, and this is a style which I am highly attracted to as a foundation from which to build my artistic practice. I have worked my way through the copies of casts of faces and body parts from antiquity and I am aware that my own drawing of the human form and faces has improved dramatically through a better understanding of the planes of the face and form. This book like many others shows the reader how to break the subject down into simple shapes and build up the detail and form from the simple shape.
KEY LEARNING POINTS FOR ME
Working my way through this book alongside this module has helped me to inform my own practice, it was kind of like an itch that I had to scratch before moving on. I used the information provided to give a scaffolding of an understanding about the human head/body from which I could then apply my own technique and allow my own expression and influences to emerge from – notably Rembrandt/Auerbach/Caravaggio/Hook.
Drawing the human head need not be so scary, learn to look at an object in an abstract way by simplifying it’s shape to it’s most basic form.
Thick lines can indicate shadow, while thin lines can indicate areas of highlight on the chosen subject, this shows the importance of line in drawing, this can also be built up through cross hatching to indicate tone, the cross hatching can indicate form by following the shape it is depicting rather than a right angle to the other strokes. Good example of this was the plate of ‘The Strong Arm of Moses’. This proved a catalyst for me to follow the relationship between line and tone for the critical essay.
Neil C Drawing 2 