One thing that drawing a painting does is to force you to look much more
closely and intensly at the painting than would perhaps occur normally. From
this may follow some insight into how the artist worked and the intentions
behind the painting. Leon Kossof, Frank Auerbach and other artists have
spent considerable time drawing from paintings at the National Gallery.
The idea itself is exploited by the National Gallery's free Talk and Draw
sessions at 1pm every Friday which seem to be quite popular. The sessions
last one hour and consist of two parts. First there is a talk of 10 minutes
or so about a particular painting by an art historian. The rest of the time
devoted to drawing it or an some aspect of it, led by a practising artist.
Materials and drawing boards are provided and details of which painting is
featured each week can be found in the What's On section of the National
Gallery Website.
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