Drawing Basics The Landscape And Figure - Artist's Network

Special Section ■ Drawing BasicsJuliette AristidesFigures“It was understood in earlier centuries that theartist needed to be trained thoroughly as adraftsman before moving on to painting,” saysJuliette Aristides, who has her own atelier,modeled after 19th-century French ateliers, atthe Seattle Academy of Fine Arts. The three traditionalways to achieve proficiency as a draftsmanare to copy master drawings, to drawfrom plaster casts of antique statues and tosketch the model from life. Students in Aristides’first-year class draw for at least threehours every day.Copying master drawingsDrawing is a discipline that teaches you how tosee and how to translate what you see into volumeand line. There’s no better way to get intouch with a master artist’s way of seeing andthinking than to study a drawing and endeavorto reproduce it. Among the many astonishingdraftsmen in the history of art, Rubens (Flemish,1577-1640) has a secure place. The figurestudy at bottom was reprinted from one of theartist’s sketchbooks. (Dover has reissued copiesof master artists’ sketchbooks that you maywant to check out.)The figure in motionRubens copied drawings andcartoons by Leonardo daVinci (1452-1519) for thesame reason artists copydrawings today––to penetratethe mystery of mastery.Juliette Aristides, payinghomage to that tradition,studied one of Rubens’ drawings(at left) to create herown version (above).DemonstrationLearn to draw the figureby drawing casts“Historically, art students were expected to study idealform and exquisite design before attempting their ownstudy of nature. There was no better place to turn than todraw classical sculptures; there’s no reason not to learnto draw today the same way,” says Juliette Aristides.Once you have a plaster cast, you need to learn how tolight it well and begin as follows.1 21Getting situated. It’s important that you choose acast that you find inspiring. Next, light it with formrevealinglighting (two-thirds light, one-third shadow) soyou have a simple and clear flow of light and strongshapes of shadow. Be sure to set your easel far enoughaway from the cast so that you can easily see it in its entirety.Leonardo da Vinci recommended standing backthree times the height of the object. Place several piecesof newsprint under your drawing paper so it’s wellpadded. Make sure your charcoal is very sharp. Onceyou’ve set up the cast and the lighting, your goal is tocreate the scaffolding or structure for your drawing, as Idid above. Ask yourself repeatedly: Am I making the initialrelationships as accurate as possible?2Getting the proportions. Make a line on the top andbottom to show the limits of the cast and pedestal.Drop a vertical line between them on which you will lateranchor the figure. On the vertical measure, mark thehalfway point and determine the height-to-width relationshipof the cast. This step will give you an accuratelyproportioned armature on which to build your drawing.• Your goal is to simplify the forms so that you’ll establishaccurate relationships. Ask yourself: How can I identifythe gesture of the pose using the fewest number ofangles? What are the dominant angles and how can I repeatthem?• The drawing process, in a nutshell, moves from thegeneral to the specific. The more you’re able to simplifya complex image into a few, unified lines, the stronger52 The Artist’s Magazine www.artistsmagazine.com