Gesture

Contour

Weighted Line

Value

Detail

Portrait drawing is different than any other form of drawing. Portraiture serves the need to capture a likeness of the subject. In conventional drawing, the drawing is all-important.

An overview of the class would be that we work to learn accuracy and once that is achieved to move on to expression. But the way we go about that journey is to use the tools in reverse. We begin with gesture, which is an inherently expressive form. We refine the drawing with contour and weighted line, establish a range of grays with value drawing and finish with fine detail.

Learning perspective means gaining a skill designed to check proportional values in a drawing. There are many forms or short cuts to establish proportion and develop accuracy: circles, cylinders, squares and ovals. Anthony Ryder uses triangles in a similar way. It is easier to match angles in a triangle than proportional distances in any other form. This is easier for determining scaleable proportion. Using a gridded photograph and matching the drawing to the grid is another commonly used short cut for proportional accuracy. These imposed forms are artificial learning tools to help you evaluate and correct a drawing while your eye hand coordination and accuracy improve. Once your skills are developed, these aids usually become liabilities that you will move beyond, but knowing about them gives you tools to rely on when you encounter a problem. Perspective lines assume a plane with straight lines and vanishing points, yet we live on the surface of a sphere and no lines are straight. Gridded photographs presume a single eye viewpoint and a static pose with fixed positive and negative relationships, yet in the real world our view point changes and we see with two eyes, making choices based on ‘double-vision’. This is the major reason that a drawing made from life offers so much more than the static pose of the photograph.

Value drawing without line, offers a way to match gray scale values in the drawing. Some value drawings are almost photographic – without line or detail.

I would like you to produce two kinds of homework: a drawing outside of class, and sketches in the sketchbook. Try to do the drawings and sketches every two or three days to develop your eye-hand coordination – rather than doing them all at once. Someone who draws every day or two will accrue twice the benefit of the person who does them at the last minute before class.

As your first homework, I want you to produce three drawings to act as a reference, or starting point – a base line of comparison: a hand, a face and a standing figure. You can put them in your sketchbook