12/09/18
Workshop 2
Observational
Drawing – Figure
Figure Drawing was never my favourite part of the art class.
However, at the outset we divided up into groups and my classmates introduced
me to gesture drawing. I loved it and
was quickly participating in both
drawing and modelling, ranging from 20 seconds to 20 minute poses. The gesture
drawings were a brilliant way of warming up the whole class and reintroduce
someone to the discipline of life drawing.
During this exercise in my school placement, I quickly
observed that the pupils aren’t the biggest fans of life drawing, which was
challenging for me during my first weeks of teaching. Initially, I worked hard
to get them to like this, but it did not work and the negative response was
alarming. However, I soon worked out that the pupils were nervous because they
feared that their drawings were going to be sub-standard and they would see
that as a failure. However I explained that gesture drawings are not meant to
be beautifully finished drawings, and once they relaxed and started to draw, we
stood back and looked at the all the drawings and the pupils started to
appreciate their efforts whilst realising the concept of gesture drawing. Soon
the pupils started enjoying the exercise, but most important of all, started to
understand how to approach the task.
I did however notice, that for the longer poses pupils
struggled. Often, I could see them drawing what they think they could see
rather than looking at what is directly in front of their eyes. In order to
counter this challenge, I introduced the group to monocular and spatial
measurements. Monocular drawing is used with one eye closed and the pencil as a
unit of measurements to map out the correct dimensions of the figure or object.
Spatial measurement is mapping the surrounding environment in order to
understand dimensions of the given object or figure. Personally, I prefer using
the surrounding as a measurement guide, but monocular is ideal for a close up still
life setting. Not surprisingly, the pupils in the class tended to prefer
monocular.
Comments
Post a Comment