Lesson Info
1. Class Introduction
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Lesson Info
Class Introduction
I'm Amy Lynn and I'm an artist living in Rhode island. I'm inviting you today to my home to draw the figure and I've been drawing the figure for several decades. It's one of my absolute favorite things to do. When I was in art school in new york, we drew the figure eight hours a day from the model and it was an incredibly intense and wonderful practice. But here's the thing, you don't necessarily have to hire a professional model to practice figure drawing. In fact, a lot of people find it much more organic to just draw on location in everyday life. Whether you live with people who might, you know, be sitting on the couch and and you can just sketch them that way or doing something in the backyard or gardening. There's so many different ways that you can work with figure drawing without the formality of being in a drawing group, without the formality of hiring a professional model. I mean that's a wonderful way to work and there's lots of options for that in your community. Perhaps the...
re's a life drawing group that you could become part of. Um but I think that sometimes drawing on location and drawing people, you know whether it's friends or family can be a deeply connective process and actually can replace some of those things that we might just do habitually like at night sitting on the couch, just turning on the television, watching a show. So you could do that. But you could simultaneously have a sketchbook in your lap and sketch your partner or sketch a friend, you could be at a cafe, you could be on a commuter train, you could be in a park, you could be anywhere on location and practice drawing the figure. Sometimes it can be a little daunting to think about being out in the public and drawing. So well in this course, talk about stealth ways to draw on location. I'll be showing you some materials and some options for different kinds of sketch surfaces. And we'll talk also about how we might approach figures moving at different speeds. So we can move in slowly, maybe starting slow motion, medium motion and fast motion. This has been practiced for centuries. Drawing on location by many artists in art history. You can see many examples of that. So I wanted to share with you some of my favorite ones. So this is a mary Cassatt image and it's you know, of a woman in an interior, it looks like she's just about to sit down or maybe she's just gotten up out of this chair. But it's very much everyday life, right? There's nothing fancy about it. It's just a moment in time. And I love that. And that's what you get from drawing on location. It's a moment in time, it's not scripted, it's not something that you need an actor for it's just just human. So this is a beautiful example of a drawing of a figure in an interior which will be practicing. But here's an example of a figure drawn by Toulouse lautrec on location out in the street, right figures crossing the street. She's sort of looking to one side, there's a lot of movement, There's a lot of gesture. It's really captured the moment in an exterior situation. So we'll be working with interiors, will be working with exteriors to see what those sorts of variables are. Like. The other thing we'll be working with is asking ourselves about the speed at which we would be drawing. So we'll be working from one of our situations is someone sitting in a chair and reading a book or having a sip of coffee, which reminds me of this wonderful Degas sketch where the musician is sitting in the chair, pretty stable the body. But then you can see the motion of the legs and the motion of the instrument and how that sort of more slow motion, almost sedentary sort of situation is a really nice place to start. So, drawing musicians. Absolutely a great thing to try then perhaps working with medium speed motion. So this melee drawing the sewer. I love this drawing. You get a sense that they're not moving super fast, but they are moving through space. Um, and there's a stability to the body, but also a sense of motion. So we'll be working outdoors. Uh drawing. Um somebody planting things and planters and that's medium motion is the next step after the slow motion that we'll be working with. And that's a wonderful challenge, as is the opportunity to draw somebody moving very quickly. So, this sergeant drawing is I think so beautiful. And it's this beautiful example of the figure, the dancer moving very fluidly, just trying to track them as they move quickly through space. That is like an incredibly challenging opportunity, but we'll be working with that as well. So all of these muses that will have in this course will be examples of ways that you can practice drawing on location and over time. This will really benefit you because you'll build the bravery to try it out at home or try it out in a park. And you could ultimately fill sketchbooks with really quick fluid process based sketches which will build your confidence. And over time I think it will become a practice where you could just carry your sketchbook with you wherever you go and just pull it out in a moment where you feel inspired. And that's really where the drawing process gets integrated into everyday life. So let's get started
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