ART CLASSES: Principles of Constructive Figure Drawing

This drawing workshop teaches students an interpretive array of structural tools as elements of close observation. All skill levels are welcome. With lectures on the use of perceptual drawing information, and demonstrations on developing structural shape in graphite, students apply these and additional, anatomical insights to a figure posed in an environment. A long pose drawing exercise supports the learning objectives of the workshop.

Principios de Construcción de la Figura con Dan Thompson

29 abril—30 abril, 2023 | 9:30 a. m. a 4:30 p. m.

(Con una demostración la noche del 28 de abril de 2023)

Costo: $399

Propósito del curso:

Este taller de dibujo enseña a los estudiantes una matriz interpretativa de herramientas estructurales como elementos de observación cercana. Todos los niveles de habilidad son bienvenidos. Con conferencias sobre el uso de información de dibujo perceptivo y demostraciones sobre el desarrollo de formas estructurales en grafito, los estudiantes aplican estos y otros conocimientos anatómicos a una figura colocada en un entorno. Un ejercicio de dibujo de pose larga apoya los objetivos de aprendizaje del taller.

Clases de 3 hrs (cada modulo son de 4 semanas)

Cuatro módulos en Total : 48 horas 

Fecha: Abril - Julio 

Modulo 1: Abril - Martes 4, 11, 18 y 25

Modulo 2: Mayo - Martes 9, 16, 23 y 30

Modulo 3: Junio - Martes 6, 13, 20 y 27

Modulo 4: Julio - Martes 11, 18, 25 y Agosto 1

Hora: 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm 

Numero de estudiantes: 15 max. 

Costo: $450 cada modulo 

Curso completo $1440

Materiales: Estudiantes necesitan traer sus cuadernos, libretas 

de dibujos, lápices, marcadores y tintas. Otros materiales

serán explicados en clases. 

Nivel: Conocimiento de dibujo basico

This is a two days workshop, 6 hours each day with live model.

You will learn:

- How to position drawing in the paper.

- Gesture.

- Proportion and alignment relationships.

- understanding shadows, lights and transitions.

- Rendering. Accents and hilights. 

- Edges.

Este curso es la continuacion de la serie de mini workshops de Milixa, el objetivo es aportar a las construir unas bases solidas en la construccion de retratos.

Este es un taller de dos días, 6 horas cada día con modelo en vivo.

Aprenderás:

- Cómo posicionar el dibujo en el papel.

- Gesto.

- Relaciones de proporción y alineación.

- comprensión de sombras, luces y transiciones.

- Representación. Acentos y realces.

- Bordes.

This oil painting class will be a four day long pose with the live portrait model. Everyday the instructor will demonstrate in order to lead students with what they will work on for the day. 

For our start, students will learn how to get better structure and likeness through the practice of abstract angle relationships as our drawing foundation. Students will then build upon this by modelling the surface of the face etc with a basic fleshtone value range. 'Form modelling' is a concept of using tones ranging from dark to light to record and understand what happens when light hits a 'form'. This is the basic method upon which more elaborate portraits can be developed. 

Also discussed will be adding color to our fleshtones, how to start this process and how to think about it based upon classical formulas and also pure abstract color perception.  We will end the class with developing the features further to create a focal point for the portrait. 

Students will leave this workshop with one fully realized portrait and a more thorough understanding of how to build a painting from start to finish.

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Esta clase de pintura al óleo será una pose de cuatro días con el modelo de retrato en vivo. Todos los días, el instructor hará una demostración para guiar a los estudiantes con lo que trabajarán durante el día.

Para comenzar, los estudiantes aprenderán cómo obtener una mejor estructura y semejanza a través de la práctica de las relaciones de ángulos abstractos como nuestra base de dibujo. Luego, los estudiantes se basarán en esto modelando la superficie de la cara, etc. Con un rango básico de valores de tono de piel. El modelado de formas es un concepto de uso de tonos que van de oscuros a claros para registrar y comprender lo que sucede cuando la luz incide en una forma. Este es el método básico sobre el cual se pueden desarrollar retratos más elaborados.

También se discutirá cómo agregar color a nuestros tonos de piel, cómo iniciar este proceso y cómo pensar en él en base a fórmulas clásicas y también a la percepción puramente abstracta del color. Terminaremos la clase con el desarrollo de las características para crear un punto focal para el retrato.

Los estudiantes saldrán de este taller con un retrato completamente realizado y una comprensión más profunda de cómo construir una pintura de principio a fin.

The Academic Method, we had decided to run a new course introducing more advance techniques and longer time for poses, This will allow the student to develop his hers technique repertoire and a deeper knowledge of the complexities of the human form. 

The figure in the academic training is considered the heart of the pupil’s daily routine. It is probably the hardest assignment in the whole painting curriculum and the one that the professional artist should return to from time to time. It comprises in one single exercise the whole complexity of nature’s forms.

Methodology:

I learnt the Sight-size method at the Florence Academy of Art and I still refer to it today and use it when working on portraits, figures, interior compositions and even landscape painting. 

In my class the students will be encouraged to learn and use the sight-size method of measurement, which trains the eye to view the subject with accuracy in order to reproduce it successfully. Throughout the course, students will apply primarily this method of measurement but not only, also the traditional comparative method can and will be used. I believe that our intuition is the most important impulse when confronted with nature. The students will sketch the whole figure based first on gesture, then will focus on correct accuracy of shapes and proportions by slowly studying the figure from inside out, following all the nuances of the center line and body type to create a solid out line. Also the student will be asked to identify and establish crucial anatomical landmarks necessary to produce a strong believable figure. If students have no previous artistic anatomy knowledge, this won’t present a problem as I will introduce slowly and with ease the main bones an d muscles with out getting too clinic about it. 

I believe this hybrid method allows the student the certainty of proportion through measurement (sight size-Comparative method) and construction (center line) while giving them the freedom for expression (gesture).

The same methodology will be applied in (for) figure painting even portraiture.

Procedure Painting:

Underpainting: Establish the drawing with Grisaille. Wipe-out.

Block-in: separate light and shadow and background

Planes: introduction of values. 6 values from white to black. 

Rendering: Edge quality, color and sense of light. 

For Figure Painting students will need a (wood) palette. Limited color palette: White (Lead or a mix of Zinc + Titanium), Yellow ocher (not Old Holand), vermillion (Cadmium Red) and Ivory black.

A more advanced palette can include Naples Yellow (Michael Harding), English Red, Transparent Red Oxide, Cobalt Blue and Alizarin Crimson but they are not required for the elementary workshop

Brushes, Mirror, plumb line, Linseed oil, etc.

This oil painting class will be a four day workshop in which the student will learn how to approach a portrait painting using the same methods and techniques used in the 19th century but with the use of pictures as references. We will learn how to interpret, simplify, and enhance the information on the photograph, in order to make the painting look as if it was done from life. Everyday the instructor will demonstrate in order to lead students with what they will work on for the day. 

Students will learn hoe to organize a light and shape pattern. How to block-in the head, avoiding common mistakes such as diving into small details to early in the process. We will learn how to prioritize big form modeling and the hierarchy of forms to get better structure. How to relate abstract forms in order to achieve the likeness. 

The student will also learn how to mix convincing flesh tones, the importance of the “arrangement” of colors on the palette. The importance of cool and warm colors, and how to interpret them from the photograph.

One of the most important parts of this course will be the understanding of edges as the can be seen from nature, and how to apply this knowledge when painting from pictures.

We will also emphasize the concept of focal point, and the different techniques to achieve it.

The students will send the Photograph to be painted to be approved, or they can come to the school to take the picture under supervision.

Students will finish the course with a completed portrait, a certificate of completion, and all the knowledge that will help them on the future to paint better and more convincing portrait using photographs as reference.