Drawing and form

Member lesson

Life drawing

Lesson 5 of 14 in Drawing and form.

Gesture Drawing I With Chris Warner | Otis College of Art and Design · Otis College of Art and Design
Lesson

Life drawing is the oldest training exercise in Western art and it remains the hardest observational problem available, because the body is complex, asymmetrical, and moving slightly even when still.

gesture · the line of actionfirstconstruction · boxesafter, never beforestart with the movement · the anatomy hangs on it
A thirty-second gesture line beside the same pose built from boxes.
Students at easels around a draped model standing on one leg, their sheets covered in quick charcoal figures, with a sand timer nearly empty beside the platform.
A life class draws a model in quick poses timed by a sand glass. Short poses make you catch the action and the weight before any detail.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Which leg carries the body and where the centre of gravity falls. What makes a figure stand rather than float.”

    • Memory and invention
    • Unit
    • Weight
    • Vanitas
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Drawing from a living model, usually nude, usually in timed poses.”

    • One-point
    • Terminator
    • Life drawing
    • Quantity first
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A limb pointing towards the viewer, compressed by perspective.”

    • Value block
    • Contour versus cross-contour
    • Negative shape
    • Foreshortening

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