Drapery-Figure Study

Every Wednesday i have my favorite class at PAFA, my drawing class with Scott Noel. I have to say I learn more in his three hour class than all the other classes combined. Scott's a very energetic teacher and his enthusiasm is infectious, his knowledge and skill of drawing and painting...and more importantly his ability to communicate and teach it is fantastic. I don't use that word much and I am not easily impressed with anyone or anything, espcially with reguards to art and art schools.

This class is a challenge and fun at the same time so I alsways feel charged up when I leave and wish it was a six hour, not three hour class.

the last several weeks Scott has had us doing drawings where we would emphasize drawing the figure from the inside out, feeling the internal masses that will be reflected from large to smaller masses on the outside. he also sits and draws with the class doing a demo, so he draws what we draw and has us all gather around as he explains verbally and visually that weekd lesson. Some things can't be just explained verbally, they have to be shown visually, and this is actually also how I teach, so I feel very much in sink with Mr. Noel.

This week we started by drawing the model who was draped, then after the model took a break we then drew over the drawing we had done and drew the figure on top to draw home the idea that the draped figure inhabits real space under the drapery, supports it and the goal was to try and state the change of planes on the masses in a more analytical and lyrical sense, not a photographic sense. To use one of Scott's analogies " We can adjust our phrasing of something, since drawings are vessels of organization." Or as Rico Lebrun stated in his book on drawing, "The vessel is the structure; the interval, the span the physiognomy and the coutenenance".

It's easier to read than do as I am used to drawing what I see in a very value based way, so having to really alter that for what the drawing needs isn't so simple.These drawings are about form, not about rendering local color. The drawings are not "pretty" in the way we are used to trying to do in most life drawing classes. The underlying theory is to draw the figure well you have to draw it from the inside out.
I am progressing week to week and Scott has been very encouraging. I always take extra work for him to critique as well as books on favorite artists to discuss with him. This drawing is very large 30 x 24 on Reeves BFK paper in pastel.