Excellent collective brainstorm, thank-you, all. Here's my contribution.
Students draw each other in pairs, I get them to sit with pairs at opposite sides of a long row of tables. Each side of the tables is alternately 'model' or 'active drawer'. I then use a music to time the changeover, each side draws for the duration of one song, then the roles swap. Students maintain concentration well, models have something to focus on, sometimes they sing along, and both sides can predict the duration of the pose if they know the song. It frees me up to circulate and teach instead of the distraction of timekeeping. Models have to pick the same viewpoint to focus on each time. Intense concentration is achieved in this class, no silly embarrassment. In fact the main problem is to get them to stop drawing when it is their turn to model. Sometimes I have solved this by providing
only one pen for each pair, to be swapped with each turn.
As this task is a preliminary drawing for drypoint etching, we use ballpoint pen.
The focus is drawing the face, using short straight lines. I use music with a frenetic rhythm to suit the task, ( Jet 'Get Born' ) but obviously any other aesthetic intention could be matched with different music.
Jan Phillips
Sent from my iPad
Good idea. I do this but have the students sit with a small A3 board and
paper in groups of four, then three then two. If you have people face to face
they fall apart with laughter and you don’t get much done. In a group of four
they get a profile view, in three a sort of three-quarter view and finally in
two face to face by which time they’ve got used to the idea. The pose is for no
more than five minutes, they keep their pencil or biro or whatever in contact
with the paper the whole time and at no time look at the work. Get the students
to move each time to find someone that they haven’t drawn before. Good mixing
session for a first class of the year, semester, term too. Excellent exercise
for a group of experienced people mixed with complete beginners. If they all
follow the process it’s hard to tell who is whom. It is also a good exercise in
looking and one that I come back to with my students quite frequently. The
drawings have a certain ‘je ne sais quois’ but funnily enough are usually
recognisable as the person who has been drawn. The students find it good
fun.
There are some useful books for teaching figure drawing one of which is
Figure Drawing by Nathan Goldstein.
Ronette
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2011 9:29 PM
Subject: Re: Divergent drawing exercises
Hi Mike/Rachel.
Thank you for this. Yes, the continuous line is another good idea. I was
thinking about setting timed drawings too…so for example getting the group to
sit opposite from one another and give them two minutes to draw the other, then
one minute, then thirty seconds, then fifteen etc…I foresee this would start
them looking from the start.
These guys are all animators or illustrators while I am from a fine art
background, so I'm particularly interested in trying to get them to shed any
pre-conceptions of what drawing is for…a tough thing to do, even if it's a year
long module. Most of them I envisage experimenting with media as well as their
execution of drawings; pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, crayon etc…
I know that there is often a deficit from the level of drawing that is
attained at A level/AS level and that at which the students really can benefit
from if they wholeheartedly throw themselves into their 'own drawing
language'.
Dan
I agree
very much with Mike. But not about the Biro. one of the problems with the
humble Biro is that it gives no sense of the potential quality of any marks,
thick, thin, light, dark. The beauty of most simple drawings is contained in the
quality of the marks.
Rachel
On 15/9/11 08:42, "Mike newman" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
Hello Dan,
I find continuous line drawing
takes you away from photorealism. The nature of a start and endpoint and a
confined space such as a4 means consideration is needed for how to realise the
act of capturing what we see whilst at the same time keeping a continuous
movement with your pen. I like to use a humble biro as it dries fairly quickly
allieviating chance for smudges. If using continuous line for life drawing it
is worth spending a few seconds considering the journey your pen may take. I
will start at often at the head oor the foot or at whatever the extreme
is.
couple of links to examples from my website -
http://www.mike-newman.co.uk/section490954.html
http://www.mike-newman.co.uk/section499110.html
thanks
Mike
On 15 September 2011 08:20, Dan Roach <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
Hello.
I was hoping to pick the collective
brain.
I've been tasked with running a series of drawing sessions
aimed at first year undergrads, within an illustration an animation
framework. The brief that I've been given is to 'open up the students
expectations' of what drawing is or can be. Beyond this, the only
stipulation is that the course leaders would like the students to begin
developing a set of skills that will serve them when drawing
representationally later on in their studies e.g faces, the human form,
mass, light etc.
I'm going to factor life drawing into the series of
sessions but I wondered if there were any cornerstone exercises that members
called on to:
- loosen up (or possibly tighten up!) the eye/hand
and
- get
students out of the mindset that photorealistic renderings of a subject
don't equate to the most successful/interesting
drawings
I have two or three ideas that can be varied and
we'll also be going out to different locations to make a series of drawings
at each site.
This is going to be a year long programme and my
initial thought is that the most important factor in the students
development is to get them making as many drawings as they can. They will be
using A4 sketchbooks to gather as much information as they can and then,
seed larger pieces of work when back in the studio. Of course my hope is
that the group will start to formulate their own drawing aspirations and
practices beyond the initial projects and tasks set for them.
Any
thoughts or advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks in
advance.
Dan