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Course Title: Drawing and Composition I Course Description: Drawing plays a primary role in the development of an artist or designer. This course is an introduction to the principles and techniques of representational drawing. Students will develop their drawing skills through weekly studio exercises using direct observation. Instructor: William Donovan Course Goals: Students will develop the ability to see more thoroughly, and describe what they see through representational drawing. Students will develop the ability to speak about their drawings and two dimensional art in general. Course Objectives: * See the world more thoroughly and accurately * Improve ability to draw representationally * Understand major drawing concepts * Explore art historical precedents for drawing Suggested Texts or Readings: * Master Class in Figure Drawing (paperback) by Robert Hale and Terence Cole * Many books will be presented in class when relevant to the studio work period; you may borrow books from me or photocopy interesting sections. Outline of Course Activities and Schedule: Week: 1 Topics: * Syllabus * Materials List Tasks: * Buy Materials before the next class Comments: Get ready for an exciting semester! Week: 2 Topics: * Ink drawing * Linear elements and contour lines * Brush marks and washes Tasks: * Make drawings during class time using ink, and both a nibbed pen and your bamboo drawing brush Comments: Ink drawing is a great way to start a drawing course, because you are capable of making a huge range of marks, but you can also limit yourself to one or two types of marks. With ink you may make extremely precise lines and dots, and you may also use ink to deliberately make uncontrolled marks like pours and splashes. Week: 3 Topics: * Reductive Drawing using smeared charcoal, a chamois cloth, and an eraser * Using the observation of light to create the illusion of form Tasks: * Create a reductive drawing during class time Comments: When you first begin to draw it is hard to think in terms of form and light. Reductive drawing concerns itself primarily with form and light, and gives you an excellent tool to make effective illusions, because reductive drawing forces you to make marks which appear to be light bursting out of a dark field. Week: 4 Topics: * Additive Drawing using charcoal and pencil Tasks: * Create an additive drawing during class time. Comments: This is the last of three classes dealing with basic drawing techniques you will use throughout the semester. Additive drawing is the type of drawing most people consider when the topic of drawing comes to mind, and it includes making marks that indicate the edges of forms – called contour lines, and making marks to indicate shadow – the range of shadow is discussed with something called the Value Scale. Week: 5 Topics: * Working with multiple drawing techniques to make one coherent images Tasks: * Create a drawing using Ink, Reductive, and Additive drawing techniques * Use all three techniques in a complimentary way Comments: Color is a rich topic that continues to amaze me, and has become more complex and beautiful the longer I have dealt with it. Week: 6 Topics: * Still Life * Basic Composition and Pictorial Space Tasks: * Create a still life drawing during class time. * Be able to briefly present your drawing to class. Comments: Still life drawing is a fun and interesting way to break into the different genres of drawing. Try to capture the still life into the most beautiful and dramatic picture you can think of. This may mean you invent some colors or change the play of light over the objects, this is a powerful use of your imagination. Week: 7 Topics: * Portraiture * Proportions and measuring distances with a pencil/pen/brush. * What can you do to record another person's personality? Tasks: * Draw a portrait of a classmate, during class time. * Be able to briefly present your portrait drawing to the class. Comments: Portraiture is a challenging type of drawing that sometimes takes years to get the hang of. Two of the most important pieces of the puzzle are being able to accurately judge proportions and understanding where the light sources are. Week: 8 Topics: * Figure Drawing * Good manners and etiquette when drawing a live model are important * Demonstrating presence, and the ability to solve visual problems comes into play when drawing a live model who undertakes multiple poses. Readings: * If you purchased the suggested reading, Master Class in Figure Drawing, it will be extremely valuable for this class exercise. Tasks: * Create multiple figure drawings * Use proportions and pictorial space to help make your drawing convincing. * Group critique towards the end of class. Figure drawing is a great introduction to group crit, because you will instinctually know if a drawing of a body is a convincing representation of the body. Comments: Figure drawing is a very old and culturally rich genre of drawing. There are probably millions of examples of figure drawings, and all the "Old Masters" had a thorough understanding of how to draw the figure, often to the point where they could make up a figure from their imagination that you would be convincing as a drawing of an actual person. Week: 9 Topics: * Pictorial Space * Sub topic - Perspectival systems * Sub topic - Depth of field Tasks: * Create a drawing using one point perspective * Create a drawing using observation * Be able to briefly present the drawing to the class. Comments: This is a huge concept, and one that many artists concern themselves with for their entire lives. Pictorial space is a complicated subject because there is a substantial amount of base knowledge – like perspective – which must be employed with savvy, and experience plays a large role in its effective use. Often you hear someone speak about a game as taking a minute to learn and a lifetime to master, pictorial space is very similar in the regards that some of the fundamental concepts are totally straightforward, but that the effective use of the concepts grows steadily over many years. Week: 10 Topics: * Figure, Objects, Space - Combining the Genres. Tasks: Create a drawing using Still Life, Figure, and Pictorial Space drawing. * Be able to present the drawing to the class. Comments: Up to this point, this class has prepared you for more creative work, because you should now understand how to make a picture. After today’s challenging session the rest of the semester deals more with creativity and imagination! Week: 11 Topics: * Image Based Writing as a method of content development * The artist Lynda Barry Readings: * The book "What it is" will be passed around during the start of class time. Tasks: * Create a list using image based writing techniques * Develop a drawing from your list * Unlike other class periods, we will need complete silence during the work period, as you will be “listening” to your creative imagination. Comments: Being truly creative is sometimes intimidating. Image Based Writing is the best method I have found to help construct very powerful and interesting content for use in image making. Week: 12 Topics: * New York Center of the Art World * Art Historical Lecture Tasks: * Lecture on New York City Art World * Take notes on things you find interesting. * Be able to join in discussion at end of class Weeks: 13 to 15 Final Project: This is a student driven project. Please do your best to make something interesting to you, and try to ignore what you think may be interesting to me. All the drawing concepts and creative concepts we have covered during the semester are fair game. |