An Introduction to Drawing - Freshers Week at The Royal Drawing School
It felt rather surreal walking through the door of The Royal Drawing School not as a member of the public, but finally as a student on The Drawing Year. The gallery space on the ground floor is currently home to the work of Jack McGarrity, winner of the Sir Dennis Mahon Award, and was an inspiring welcome to what’s going to be a very busy year.
Jack McGarrity at The Royal Drawing School
So here’s a reflection of my first week on The Drawing Year. Throughout my time on the course I’m going to be sharing valuable lessons, thoughts, challenges, ups and downs, and of course my work as my practice evolves into something I hope I’ll be proud of by the end of the year.
Your Ability Grows only when you Find your Limitations
(positive encouragement from tutor Dilip Sur)
Above, you can see a drawing I completed during one of the many life drawing classes we dove into immediately within our first few days. As we all created our first drawings of the year, we were all given some important aspects of drawing and materials to think about:
What size paper are you using and why? What is the shape, texture and quality? Torn edge? Straight edge? Thinking about the materials we are using and the surfaces we are working on top of is an important step towards making thoughtful, powerful work.
For future classes think about the context of the class and whether you might want to prepare materials in advance. This could be priming paper, sizing paper, preparing a wash or as I find extremely helpful; preparing some references to guide me during class.
Respect and protect your work, EVEN IF YOU HATE IT. It’s unlikely that everything we make as artists will be loved by us. Sometimes we make terrible work but it’s important to keep that work because even though it might not make sense in the present, you might make sense of it further down the line.
Question the “identity” of the materials you are using. For example, if you are using a certain kind of pigment how is that pigment made? Does the colour have any historical significance? Does it suggest certain things because of its history?
Hang your Personal Practice up on the Wall
Putting your own practice aside (at least in lesson), was an excellent piece of advice given by Fraser Scarfe and is something I’m certainly going to try and follow throughout my time on The Drawing Year. The incredible number of tutors, classes, perspectives and drawings we’re going to produce will be a lot to process, and an open mind is needed to do so effectively.
One of my favourite exercises from the week was a series of 6 minute drawings we did from the film Taxi Tehran. Personally I enjoy sketching at a smaller scale, and 6 minutes was long enough to get down the main elements of the composition, but too short to focus on much detail. This resulted in quick, energetic drawings that provided a great insight into the thoughtful construction of each scene.
Drawing from Film
Learn the Rules to Break the Rules
(Straight talk from Tutor Ann Dowker)
Sitting down for hours on end and studying from the insanely rich collection at The National Gallery is something every artist should do at least once. Spread out across 4 rooms with already too many works to choose from, I sat down to draw from the works of Titian and Bronzino soloing out a couple of figures that caught my attention. As someone who usually works quite quickly, I found myself moving at an incredibly slow pace as my eyes darted around the busy, complex compositions trying to process how they were even put together in the first place.
Valuable lessons and questions from The National Gallery:
“Today is not about copying, but rather about constructing.”
“Why is there a horse here (pointing towards the edge of the painting)? It’s there because it’s a painting.”
Many of the works are far too complex to draw in one session, so focus on a section of a painting and pay attention to the different elements (height, flatness etc.).
It’s painful and slow to study these works, but it’s necessary to really start building a meaningful foundation. Take on board what’s relevant to you and leave out the rest.
Taking a break every 40 minutes or so is important, you need to peel your eyes away from what you’re working on or you’ll stop looking properly.
When learning from complex paintings, you don’t want to “illustrate” them, rather try to really understand the form, composition etc. and find your own way around the work.
What is Convincing?
(Drawing around London with Cherry Pickles)
We concluded the week drawing around Embankment and by the River in Southbank that was crowded by those waiting to pay their respects to the Queen. The atmosphere was rather unique, with ethereal music playing in the background as the class spread out in different directions to draw.
Valuable drawing advice from Cherry:
Think about having large areas of colour or tone and contrasting it with more detailed sections.
Look at the relationship between figures and the elements around them. Foreground, mid-ground and background. How do they all connect?
Regarding trees, notice the depth of the foliage and how it can relate to figures that are placed around the foliage.
Figures are a way of leading eyes around the page. You can alter the way people look at work if you have figures moving or looking in different directions. If you have everyone facing the same way the eye will just travel in one direction.
(See drawings below for reference) The figure with the hard outlines doesn’t work as well as the figure that is built up from tone. Line and tone will have a place, but always think about where and when to use it.
You can exaggerate certain elements of the drawing to really define the perspective and make the space well defined. This could be making elements in the foreground larger and playing around with scale etc.
Ask yourself, what is convincing about this?
The Next Step
Come next week, my chosen courses Gardens and Greenhouses, Enduring Images and Drawing at The British Museum will begin, and I’m sure this blog will be flooded with more valuable lessons, drawings and questions relating to drawing.
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