Expressive life drawing

Develop your confidence in expressive drawing through a series of exercises working with a life model. You will explore how to use dry and wet media to draw and capture the dynamics of the female human form.

Ability: Intermediate/Advanced
The minimum time required to watch and respond to the video content and complete the tasks is 6 hours. The tutor also recommends how you can develop your work further so that you can continue to use the skills acquired on this course for future projects. Six months of online access to all of the course content.

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Introduction to tutor Chris Gilvan-Cartwright and workshop overview

Getting started

Health and safety, tools, materials and set up requirements
How do you approach expressive drawing?

Workshops

Warm-up drawings – working vertically
Sketching movement – working on a table
Expressive drawing with ink – working on the floor
Ideas going forward
Additional notes and ideas

Course includes:

Access to our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) with course content
A series of instructional videos to work through and repeat at your own pace
Practical tasks to complete
Helpful materials suppliers list
Student online gallery where you can post images of your work for tutors to review and comment on
Support from the college and tutors via email should you need it during the course
Additional notes and ideas

You will need:
Materials

9B graphite stick
Compressed charcoal stick
Willow charcoal, thin and thick
Conte pastel stick - either orange, burnt sienna or pillarbox red
6 x A1 Newsprint paper
A roll of wallpaper lining paper
A1 Cartridge 130gsm paper
Black Indian ink
White acrylic or emulsion paint
Selection of paint brushes – wide and thin
Masking tape
Rags or tissues

Equipment

Three different work spaces:

Easel - If you don’t have an easel at hand then work either on your wall (masking tape your paper up) or work on a drawing board and rest it/prop it up against a chair
Table
Flat floor area

Water pot
Water spray
A1 drawing board
Clips for holding paper on to drawing board (or you can use masking tape)
Two bamboo canes (available from most garden centres)

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Nick is a full-time painter living and working on a meander-core island on the River Ouse flood plain near Lewes.

For many years an abstract painter, Nick now increasingly draws upon his past experiences as a farm worker in Sussex and Wales and more recently a small holder, mountain biker and walker to make paintings that reflect both his interest in representational landscape painting and process led abstraction.

Nick has many years teaching experience at a number of UK art schools and universities. He has work in public and private collections – including The Government Art Collection, The Contemporary Art Society, The Landmark Trust, Blackwell Science and the Chichester Medical Education Center. He is represented by the Porthminster Gallery, St Ives and the Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden.

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Expressive life drawing

Tutor

Chris Gilvan-Cartwright

Course content

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