Pathways are directional marks and shapes for our eyes to follow across a 2 dimensional artwork. They are a powerful compositional tool to keep the viewer’s eyes engaged and moving around a composition. They’re also great for artists to practice, because they emphasize that if we’re to think compositionally, each part must play a role …
Most of the time when people draw something such as a still life, they draw the objects and then neglect everything around the objects, like the table holding it up, and the wall behind it. A drawing like this shows us a thing floating in nothing instead of an interaction of depth, volume, and surfaces …
Tone to color in Portraits
- Teacher: Ruthie V.
- Fee: Model fees included in course price
- Class Length: 8 week session
- Class Days: Fridays, beginning April 21
- Time: 6:00 – 8:30 pm PDT
Friday evenings have become “hang out and draw” nights, with a live model joining us online, and a quickly moving sequence of lesson, extended drawing or painting time, and feedback. This class series will start with inspirations in tone, then expand into sketching in warm & cool grey-tones, dip our toes in a limited palette, and then drop us all into a pool of color.
In preparation for my Tone to Color in Figures class, I’ve been looking at figure drawings with charcoal, ink, even a bit of paint in them. Below are some of Henry Moore’s figure drawings. Henry Moore was an English artist who produced most of his best known work in the early to mid 1900s. As …
“I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing.” – Vincent van Gogh
- Teacher: Lyall Wallerstedt
- Class Length: 8 Weeks
- Class Days: Mondays, beginning April 17
- Time: 6:00-8:30 pm PDT
We use the Zoom platform for online classes. Login codes are sent prior to the first class only. Some email systems such as Hotmail block our emails to you. Please check your junk folders, and if you have have not received your class info, please contact us (contact@seattleartistleague.com) 15-30 minutes before your class begins so we can reply with the login codes. We will get you into your class.
Drawing is at the heart of everything we do at the League. The process of drawing is how we develop our artistic sensibility, and leads us to see the world in new ways. Everyone draws differently, because no one’s hand moves the same way, no one’s perception matches any other’s. With daily exercises and personalized feedback, this class will cover the basics of line, form, tone, perspective, proportion, composition, gesture, movement, and expression.
Though challenging, there will be ample room for personal expression. This is a drawing class designed to allow you to sample a wide variety of artistic styles and approaches, so that you can develop your observational skills while also discovering your own personal voice. As you develop, you will gain greater confidence in your abilities and deepen your artistic perception, as well as foster a new appreciation for the world around you.
We will work from observation (looking at stuff) and work with various styles and approaches for discovery, exploration, and expression. There will be homework, but if the only time you have to draw is during this class, you will be fine.
NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. This beginning drawing class is a great primer for figure drawing, beginning painting, printmaking, or anyone who wants to get past the intimidation factor of drawing and increase their basic skills.
Suggested Materials:
Bring what you have. The list below is suggested, but not necessary. Pencil and paper will always be fabulous.
- Soft Willow Charcoal
- Pencils: HB and 6B or 8B
- Charcoal pencil: 6B or 8B / soft or super soft
- Strathmore 300 series drawing pad (yellow pad with top spiral bind, product code 340-318). At the school studio we use 18×24″ but home studios can be a bit less spacious. Get the largest size your work station will accommodate. 14×17″ is great.
- Newsprint. Get the largest size your work station will accommodate.
- Drawing board may be helpful to hold paper at an angle while you sit at a desk
- White vinyl/plastic eraser
- Chamois cloth- small
- Pencil sharpener
Optional:
- Conte stick – brown or black
- Sketchbook (optional)
- Large kneaded eraser (optional)
- Pens
- Ruler/triangle for perspective drawing
- Blades and 240 paper for sharpening pencils, charcoal
Drawing by Lyall Wallerstedt
The League has two different Friday portrait classes this summer. Which one would you rather be in? Would you rather…. Combine drawings from live models with studies from art history? …or study a variety of ages, expressions, and faces? Would you rather…. Add meaningful elements from imagination and intuition? Or measure and exaggerate to pull …
Synthetic Drawing
- Teacher: Fran O’Neill
- Fees: Model fee included in course price
- Class Length: 8 Week Class Session
- Start Date: Wednesdays, begins April 19
- Time: 6:00 – 9:00 pm PDT
The term synthetic in this case is used to refer to elements that do not exist together in nature, combined in a way to create a drawing that simulates a natural, real experience.
This class will draw from live models, play with scale and point of view By melding various visual experiences such as imagination, memory, dreams, and other inspirations together, you will learn to create imagined drawings that feel like a natural occurrence, grounded in real life. You will learn to make the unattainable feel as if it was experiential.
In Friday’s post I bragged about the drawings created in my recent Painterly Figures with Tone class. The earlier post shared how beautiful a drawing can be when the figure is sketched with no more or less attention than the wall behind it, with no outlines or delineations of form, only scribbles of tone. Today’s …
Painterly Figures with Tone was a 4 week shortie art class, snuck into November/December. This post includes some of my favorite moments from that class. Please kindly overlook any flaws in the photography. A Sunday evening class, the images were taken on the fly, and in the dark. A word about working from photographs… Typically …