Drawing Studio Week 2 Review

This week the class started with the usual lecture on drawing.

5 major factors in executing a decent work of art were discussed.

1. Composition

  • Choosing the composition, rather than having the composition choose you. Doing thumbnails and creating a balance (notan) is key to any design.

2. Line Quality

  • Mark Making
  • Weight of Line
  • Selection of Materials
  • Blind Contour
  • Contour
  • Cross Contour
  • Block out
  • Reverse Block Out

3. Perspective

  • Background elements that recede
  • Using one point Perspective
  • Using 2 Point Perspective

4. Tonality

  • Hatching
  • Shading
  • Tinting
  • Hues
  • Value as it relates to temperature

5. Inspiration

  • Adopting a master artist
  • Copying works of masters
  • Museum visits and collecting material for inspiration
  • Muse
After the hour and a half lecture, a break was given and I then went over sketchbooks, welcomed the new students who had not yet been in class – and prepared them for drawing from the live model.
Before we started drawing, we sat down for our first official critique of the self portraits assignment.
We discussed composition, which seemed to be a major problem for many of the drawings – technique and style is not something I expect from first-time portraits – so  I was lenient. I expect as the class moves forward, the project outcomes and executions will be more astute. For now, I wanted to get  general idea of the students effort, ability and intention.

We had a great model that gave us 1 -3 minute poses, some under 30 seconds – all drawn with left hand, then embellished with the right – on newsprint paper using charcoal.

For some it was the first time using charcoal, or drawing from the model.


I discussed the principles of nature, how it relates to art and creativity.

Next week we go to the Museum of Natural History to find objects relating to our unique cultures.