Notes From Dan Thompson's Workshop
Thursday, August 2, 2007 at 12:20AM Dan's Painting Demo on AmericanArtist.com
I've had three days in Dan's 2-week class, and we've been learning his method for capturing the proportions and values of a figure. We've mostly done drawing exercises, no finished drawings and no paintings yet, so I don't really have anything visual to post.
A few notes, links, and ideas from Dan's class:
"The Human Figure" by Vanderpoel (Google Book link)
Dan recommends the 1920's version for better reproductions of the drawings.
UPDATE: Ebay got too expensive, but I found a reasonably-priced copy of a 1920's edition on Biblio.
Myron Barnstone
Both Dan Thompson and Juliette Aristides studied drawing and the Golden Section at the Barnstone Studio in Pennsylvania.
Reiley Lines
Six codified lines for defining a figure in any position. As his student says at the above link: "The six line figure is not the way to draw, it's the way to think"
Goldstein: The Art of Responsive Drawing
Steps for drawing the Figure:
1. Gesture
2. Proportion
3. Envelope
4. Light/dark block-in
5. Orientation: x, y, z
Balance the conceptual (what you know) with perceptual (what you see).
Tonal Relationships, 1-5 tonal scale
1. Block in only two tones, light and dark, for the entire figure
2. Tone all the light areas with a 2-value tone
3. Sketch in the darkest tonal accents ith a #5 value
4. Only apply #3 values at the end. Keep major tonal relationships constant.
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Oh and a neat forum I found digging around online:
Society of Figurative Arts
Reader Comments (1)
this is AWESOME! I know some of these, but others like Riley...had no idea...but great informative insights! =)