Course Description
Summary
Learning to draw is as much about learning how to use your hand as it is learning how to see. Drawing from observation fundamentally alters our experience of the everyday while also teaching us about ourselves: what we notice and overlook, what we find pleasure in and what we don’t, and so much more. In this course, students will practice and develop their observational drawing skills by using a variety of materials to represent a range of subjects. By exploring various approaches to drawing we will also explore the perceptual, philosophical, meditative, psychological, and embodied/sensory experience that drawing opens up.
The focus of this course is learning to draw from observation and developing close looking skills; to that end you will expand your capacity to see and represent what you see by investigating a wide array of methods, materials, and techniques. We will work with wet and dry drawing materials that may include: ink, charcoal, graphite, collage, and/or oil stick to explore various drawing processes, techniques, and conceptual approaches. Each material allows for a different type of focus and expressive quality to be achieved. The first half of this course is centered on drawing primarily from still life, interior space, and/or landscape; while the second half is focused on drawing the figure (live models, nude models, and portraiture). Class time will primarily consist of drawing and may be supplemented by slide lectures, possible visits to regional museums, readings, and conversations about the process of drawing and its outcomes (critique).
