Drawing is the backbone of all representational art. J. D. Ingres said, "Drawing includes three and a half quarters of the content of painting... Drawing contains everything, except the hue.”If you are interested in sharpening your drawing skills and/or improving your portraits, this workshop presents an opportunity to gain the kind of strategic thinking and technical know-how that great master artists have used for centuries. You will gain insight into achieving better accuracy, greater solidity and a life-like essence. This knowledge is not style or subject specific. When you incorporate what you’ve learned into your existing working method you will notice a big difference.
I believe the way art is taught today limits all but the most precociously talented from succeeding. The majority of realistic art instruction is rule oriented. That’s why so much work is easily identifiable by school or instructor. As a result, many potentially good artists are thwarted because they are not provided with the proper understanding and training necessary to seek their own paths. I want my students to fully understand all the options they have at their disposal. It doesn’t make sense to mandate a specific action for each particular circumstance. That kind of rigid thinking is the antithesis of the creative process.
Whether drawing or painting is your end game, a deeper understanding of the drawing process is the most crucial part. The essence of draftsmanship is having a well-trained eye. If you want to learn how to draw well, the first step is to transform the way you see. The ability to faithfully represent what lies before you is the major factor in achieving long-term success as a realist. When approached logically, mastery over your drawing is far more easily attainable. There is more to drawing than mindlessly copying and obsessively rendering what you’re looking at. Drawing is having the ability to understand what you see and the skill to clearly convey it's essence.
We will be working from live models under ideal lighting conditions, the most effective way to learn how to represent the illusion of three-dimensionality. I will demonstrate and explain every step of my method throughout the workshop. I work one-on-one with each of my students during the times I’m not demonstrating.Here are some of the key points of what I’ll be teaching:• Achieving accurate drawing and values - which also happen to be the two most crucial aspects of representational painting.• Creating the illusion of form and atmosphere.• Varying edges intelligently (not formulaically) so that your drawing has more vitality.• Understanding how to achieve pictorial unity.
Marvin Mattelson is now conducting both these workshops online in Full HD 1080p through his Fine Art Portrait Academy. For further information, or to register for an upcoming offering, please follow this link to his teaching page.
Until next time...
