Drawing for the Terrified

DRAWING FOR THE TERRIFIED
Tutor: DAVID CHANDLER

Course description:
Drawing is not a hobby. Being able to visualise our ideas and thus communicate them to others is an essential life skill, of equal importance as reading, writing, and arithmetic. The desire to depict our world and our relationship to it is natural to us all and has been so since early man first smeared wet earth onto the walls of his cave or traced a finger in the sand. Through drawing, we are able to possess beauty, assimilate challenge and ameliorate trauma. This is how the child negotiated his or her world, before the sophistication of language is acquired and self-consciousness sets in. Regrettably, for many of us, those childish scribbles, executed in innocence and freedom are the last time we have anything to do with pencil and paper. The lucky ones, however, realise that to sit with those two magical items before a man, a mango or a mountain, is an act of intimacy, contemplation and study that repays the effort a thousand fold.

Drawing is not a magical art to be practised by a gifted few; it can be taught. Working with a variety of subjects (working from life; still, figure and landscape) David will reveal basic drawing skills and techniques. He will cover the following topics:
How to use line
The importance of measurement and proportion
Line versus tone
Suggesting light and depicting texture
Perspective
Accurate versus expressive drawing
Composition

Materials required:
Charcoal sticks (medium and large)
Pencils (HB and 6B)
Conte sticks (Black and White)
Kneadable Eraser
Scalpel or sharpener
Sketch Book
Rough sketching paper available from the studio