What makes a good foundation figurative drawing course?

[Sharon Knettell]

Hi,

I jumped on a bunch of education threads like an old bat on bugs. Let's do something constructive now.

I would like those of you who have taken art school foundation figurative drawing classes to name your school and give a detailed assesment and description of your course. Examples would be:

A: 3 hours twice a week
B: Learned sight size and relative measurements
C: Learned classical proportions
D: learned how to use a plumb line for measurment
E: Did lots/none of gesture drawing
F: Were told to explore the figure's relationship to negative space.
G: Were taught how to place a figure in space
H: Were taught lighting
I: Were taught modeling
J: The instructor was involved and helpful-or not
H: The instructors figure drawing were amazing or you do not know.
K: You felt that you improved and learned a lot.
L: You felt it was a waste of time and why.
M: how was the class broken down? Did you have some gesture drawing, some 20 minute poses and some longer poses?


This is a list of everything I could think of that could go into a drawing class. You can add others things that you experienced. This does not necessarily mean that your school is lousy if you did not have some of those things on the list.

This was my experience with the foundation drawing class at The Boston Museum School decades ago.

I was 17 1/2 fresh out of a small girls school in Connecticut. I had never seen a nude person except in my mother's nursing school text book. My roomate and I approached the class with trepidation. I had her peek in. I asked her what she saw. She said and old man in a jock strap and he was UGLY. It took us a half an hour to get up the courage to walk in. There was no instructor until the next class. He told us to make up a figure out of spheres and cones. We rarely if ever saw him.

Please share your experiences so we all can get an overview of what's going on out there in art school land. The figure is crucial in illustration, animation and comic books, to name a few.

Here is my portrait web-site http://www.prtraits.com/knettell/knettell.htm

Thanks!

[Sharon Knettell]

HI, I forgot to post these!

Here is some of my past illustrations and presnt painting http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=85936

And my former agent (excellent) of 20 years http://www.rappart.com/index.php

I have worn a lot of hats and know how to survive in the biz. So please contribute your experience to this thread to help yourselves and others.

This is a fact finding mission, I promise I won't diss your replies!

[sweetoblivion314]

well i guess I will tell you about mine since i just took it last semester and its still fresh
class: Figure drawing
School: Academy of Art University
Teacher: Ruben Deanda

5 hours once a week
typically alternated with a male one week female next
supposed to learn Ideal 8head proportions but teacher didnt finish it
learned basic skeleton
learned basic superficial muscles
learned gesture drawing first class
learned how to draw head using planes
learned how to draw hands and feet starting with basic shapes
did almost all 20min poses
last 2 days of class were poses lasting a few hours and we werent taught how to aproach them
learned toned paper
learned forshortening
teachers figure drawing where good, but by no means anything special.
If the teacher remembered we would do 5min poses to warm up.
If we had time we would do a free draw 20min at the end not confined to the area we were studying that day.

all in all i feel the only reason it wasnt a waste of time is because i got to draw the figure. I really did not like the teacher mainly because of his aproach to other student and myself and because he was so unsure of himself and would take hours to lecture and not finish his lecture before class was over (he never finished teaching us the feet and only taught of the top half of the ideal proportions system). Also i wish he had mixed up the length of poses more and taught how to aproach a long pose. He personaly enjoys doing 20 or 40min poses so thats almost the only things we would draw.

All of my problems seem to be with my teacher though. My friends would tell me about what they where doing in Larry Tan or Henry Yan's classes and it seemed really good and they seemed to learn alot more then me.

hope that helps :)

[Maxine Schacker]

Sharon, I really believe: 1) everything can't be taught in one class 2) many of the skills you list can be taught in a course using still life, casts and drapery 3) not enough attention is given to basic Nicolaides exercises (suggested by Disney years ago)- it's just as important to get students to use all their senses, to feel the movement through the body, to get a feeling for thinking transarently, to develop coordination between the eye, hand, and sense of TOUCH , to feel weight and mass,as it is to teach the "classical" approach. I put classical in quotes, because Michaelangelo and most other "classical' artists did not work like Bougereau. Their work has a sense of life force and individuality (Reubens, Pontormo, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Daumier...one could go on and on). All of them could really draw, knew their anatomy and much, much more. In my view, drawing is a high skill and can't be taught properly in one or two classes. At Max the Mutt, first year courses reinforce each other. Perspective and structural drawing , a double course in life drawing plus practice session, a course in principles of drawing which deals with planar construction, measuring, point-to-point, seeing shapes, positive and negative space, modeling and tonal pattern, drapery etc. are ALL first year courses. Students also study design and composition and rep painting. Every instructor knows what every other class is doing, and the principles are reinforced. In painting, students are using skills acquired in the principles class and the design and comp class etc. etc.

I think we have to allow time for development, and I think the genius of Nicolaides is that he understood what Piaget, the famous swiss psychologist proved: we need visceral experience using our senses first. Then we can intellectualize.

We need to teach the language, and the choices- not ONE way of working. Although the work can be beautiful, the new "classical" method is a method and often one can't tell one artist from another. I know a Goya when I see one, and I know a Rembrandt drawing when I see one. Our training should set us free, not teach us one way of working. I see value in the "classical" approach as part of a larger course of study.

My first course was at The Art Student's League of New York. The class met 5 nights a week and the instructor was present two nights.I think this was a good plan since it gave us time to do some work before he returned. I studied with Gregory D"Alessio and later realized he had been a student of Nicolaides and was following those exercises. It was an exhilarating, addicting experience,but eventually I needed more and I went as a scholarship student into Robert Beverly Hale's class (days). He taught more principles and lectured on anatomy twice a week. I was happy that this followed my Nicolaides experience. I felt, and still feel, that both are necessary. Overall, I believe the program we've put together at Max the Mutt is better than the education I received. It definitely took me longer to put all the pieces together than it takes our students.

[Sharon Knettell]

sweetoblivion314,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write down your experience. It will give those who are looking at your school some idea what to expect and be able to compare it with other schools.

Maxine,

I absolutely agree with you. There is a danger in that approach as well. My list was simply all of the things I could think of that could occur in a figure drawing class. It would be impossible to do that in a beginning course. I just wanted to see what was out there good bad or indifferent.

I am not classically trained, or for that matter trained at all. I totally agree with you that they are all starting to look alike and these artists are unfortunately are dominating the burgeoning figurative fine arts movement, dead, colorless and humourless.

So let's see what's out there guys. Help your fellow artists!

[dorian]

Sharon invited me to post here, so there we go:

Maxine: I agree with you! Good thoughts there! I'm in a strongly classical institution now and while it's helping me a lot and I get good results it's also very limited and there's very little room for creativity. I make an effort to balance it with work outside of school, drawing from imagination, reading the books, loomis, edwards, hale, bridgeman, oh there are so many... Sounds like I should get the nicolaides!

All right:

School: Angel Academy of Art (http://ww.angelartschool.com)
Location: Florence, Italy
Instructor: Jered Woznicki (extremely sharp eye in all areas and very diplomatic and precise in his critiques)
["Maestro" Michael John Angel for figure painting.]

Figure Drawing:
Structure: the whole course is built in 3 levels of media: pencil, charcoal and oils. When you get to the next medium with your project (bargue drawings, cast drawings, cast paintings, still-lifes) you change the medium in working with the figure as well. I'm now in charcoal. In pencil it's 2 or 3 week poses, in charcoal 5 or 6 and in paint 6 to 8 weeks I think, not 100% sure about the last one.


3 hours a day, 5 days a week
learn relative measurements (sight size with casts & still-lifes)
learn how to use a plumb line for measurement
did lots of gesture drawing in the beginning, now do short poses every second wednesday
explore the figure's relationship to negative space, did "draw negative space only" exercises
do memory drawings - 5minutes of looking time without drawing then 10minutes drawing without model, 2 rounds, then 15min. drawing with model - once every term
usually draw the full figure either seated or standing. (now one from the legs up, very interesting!)
paper is about 60x45cm, warm off-white (we use "umbria" or "roma" paper)
get one critique every day
the instructors figure drawings/paintings are strong - have seen only few, though. But I think knowledge and the skill to point out weaknesses and give helpful directions goes over actual ability or the level of work produced
I feel I learn and improve with every drawing
while we're very good at what we're doing and the course is very specialized, that very fact makes it a little limited. Not much creativity. The focus is 99% on technique and principles of successful "picture making". The goal is to achieve beauty not originality. While you can alsways balance that on your own to a certain degree I would love a class on design and drawing from imagination.

Ok, all this are just my personal thoughts! Everyone has different priorities and goals. I love the school, the people there are the nicest folks I've ever met, from all age groups and every continent, the teachers are competent and the complete course prepares you for a career as a professional painter. Of course success depends on individual determination, your personality and goals, etc. It's not a miracle factory but I have seen some people improve pretty dramatically.
Enough advertising! :D I'm interested to learn about other people's experiences!

Here are my last two charcoal figures, to illustrate and loosen up all the text :)

http://www.dorian-iten.com/images/dorian-charlotte.jpg

http://www.dorian-iten.com/images/dorian-tobias.jpg

[artmessiah]

Beautiful work Dorian ^^

[Maxine Schacker]

Art, messiah, tell us about your drawing class. I gather that you'll be attending Ringling. It will be interesting to hear how they teach drawing. I've seen your drawings. Are you self taught, or were you in school this past academic year?

Dorian, had you studied drawing before attending this school?

[artmessiah]

Although I won't be going to Ringling College of Art and design until this fall, I did take figure drawing classes at Manatee Community College a local junior college which has Drawing and Figure Drawing professors with ties to Ringling. If anyone is in the local area of Sarasota/Bradenton and can't afford a major college right away but needs to gain training in figure drawing, I highly suggest taking a session or two at Manatee.

School: Manatee Community College (Drawing and Figure Drawing Professors teach at Ringling College of Art and Design)

Location: Sarasota/Bradenton Florida

Instructors: David D. Kinsey (teaches drawing, and painting - very talented and knowledgeable about old master's artwork and theories)

Joseph G. Loccisano Jr (Incredible figure artist, very passionate about fine arts and classical study)



4 hours twice a week
We learned sight size and relative measurements (using our pencil for measurements or shape/line relations to various parts of the body)
We learned classical proportions - Studied everyone from Da Vinci to Klimt and everyone in-between ;)
Learned about center of motion or action curve
Did TONS of gesture/warm-up drawing
We were taught how to explore the figure's relationship to negative space and how to use positive and negative space to our advantage
We were taught the importance of composition (the cross method, horizontal method, etc)
We learned about lighting
We explored sculpture/modeling (using super sculpy and or clay)
The instructors were involved and helpful for the most part. Creativity was encouraged, but within the boundaries of classical style
Both of my instructor's figure drawing and still life drawings were amazing.
I think I improved, but I think I learned more to think outside the box and explore different ways to approach drawing the figure. For example using grayed backgrounds and working dark to light with charcoals and keeping loose lines to render a finished piece, etc.
Our general days consisted of 15 to 30 second, and 3 to 5 min gestures. From there we mostly did 10 to 20 min studies, nothing over 30 minutes.
My General complaint is that we didn't do anything over 30 minutes. I would have like the opportunity to do stuff like Dorian ^^ did.


Alrighty - that's my breakdown, hope it was helpful to someone. Wish I could talk about a more established college (In a few months I can), but this is my experience with figure drawing classes thus far. A fairly good experience. Here are some examples or my gestural work. Most were 30 seconds or less and the last two were 20 minute poses.

[DavePalumbo]

Ah, I was asked to post mine here, just remembered to come do it.

Like it was said above, no one class can even set you straight on drawing. In the right direction maybe, but there are so many things...

These are the drawing classes that I recall from my 1st year at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia:

(all classes were 3 hour sessions)

Life Drawing (with Homer Johnson)

This class was mostly focused on the gesture and the movement of the figure. We'd typically start with 30 second or 1 minute poses and work our way up to 20 minutes. Open media, the instructor encouraged the students to try different materials and strive for a loose and natural feel in the work.

Life Drawing (with Peter Paone)

The polar opposite of Homer's class. Students were given a list of specific materials (down to the type of paper, a brand the school store carried specifically for his class) and for the first 6 weeks we were only allowed to draw from the shoulders of the model down to the waist. Each class was one drawing (so a 3 hour pose minus breaks). Obviously, this also meant that the model was posed in exactly the same pose every class: arms at her sides facing straight ahead. After the 6th week, poses became more interesting and students were allowed to compose them as they pleased, though still had to work in charcol on Peter's paper. Theoretically, this was to teach the student about describing form in tones without the distraction of difficult anatomy and foreshortening. It's also been said that Peter may have just had a thing for boobs. I'll go with the first, but it may have also been a little of colmun B (nobody I know ever had a male model in that class).

Cast Drawing (with Oliver Grimley)

Oliver Grimley is 300 years old and this is very apparent in his approach to cast drawing. Each student selects a cast in the cast hall (I did Brutus) and is expected to spend the next 15 weeks, two sessions a week, doing one perfect drawing of that cast. Most do not complete their drawing. The drawing was to be done in pencil, but with a soft touch so that Oliver would not be able to see any "lines" in your shading. Oliver hated to find "lines". If you do the math, this breaks down to potentially an 87 hour drawing (the first class was a lecture period) which, quite honestly, is insane. Everyone hated cast drawing, and they learned to deeply hate their cast of choice. What I realized about 6 months after I had said goodby to cast drawing was that Oliver had taught me a very early and very important lesson in being patient with my work and the value of not avoiding what may seem tedious if it would serve the greater good of the drawing (or painting). Whether that was his intention, I have no way of knowing.

Perspective (I couldn't remember the instructors name to save my life)

This was to get across the basics of one and two point perspective. It was pretty dry, and I've ended up in recent months reteaching myself a great deal of it because I guess I didn't pay close enough attention in class. For my entire school career, I had a horror of doing any architectural work in my paintings, much prefering organic subjects and forms. I'm trying to catch that up. Don't be a slacker like me, learn your perspective!



I don't have any of my life drawings on hand, maybe I'll remember to shoot some next time I'm back home.

[Sharon Knettell]

Thanks to all who have participated, Sweet Oblivion, Maxine Schackter, Dorian, Art Messiah and Dave Palumbo.

People PUHLEEZE post your first years art school or college drawing program.

This is not for me but for the confused young artists who need guidance.

I appreciate the time the above took, but now school is out, it's your turn!

Oh Seedling, \w/ where are you! :xpld:

[nilaffle]

Okay, adding another perspective. I took two drawing classes with this school: Basic Drawing and Life Drawing. The notes below pretty much cover both.

School: Art Institute of Washington
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Instructor: Karen Jelenfy

4 hours twice a week (10-week course)
Learned sight size and relative measurements
Did not study classical proportions. There wasn't much emphasis on master works.
Studied the skeleton for one class.
Did not learn how to use a plumb line for measurement.
Our drawing sessions typically began with gestures, from 1 to 5 minutes, then moved into longer poses ranging from 20 minutes to a full hour.
Learned how to explore the figure's relationship to negative space.
Learned composition, briefly touched on perspective and how to place a figure in a 3D space.
Did not really review the fundamentals of light and shadow. Our media comprised of white paper, graphite, charcoal, and ink. No toned paper, no color.
My first professor was attentive and made time for each student. In the Life Drawing class that proceeded this the professor was less involved and offered little instruction.
I think I improved; this was my first experience with figure drawing, so the practice alone was very helpful.

I can't say the class was a waste of time, but looking at the experiences of students above, I feel like I've been missing out. :) I've really only had about two years' worth of college-level art, so I don't have much of a frame of reference. We'll see how it goes at Ringling next month.

I've got my drawings from this class around somewhere... if I'm able I'll shoot 'em and add them to this post later.

[Sharon Knettell]

Thanks Nilaffle!

Anyone else out there willing to post their course.

Desperate minds wanna know!!