Exciting News At The New "Students' Art Blog"

I have moved this Basic Drawing Skills blog over to my own web site rexbeanland.com.  Two important reasons why you should follow the link below to visit the new student blog is that 1) you can see the incredible improvement in the work of the drawing students when you compare the first and last portraits they did and 2) the student blog now features paintings from the students in my new Mastering Colour class.  Click here to go directly to the new student blog.

New Class - Mastering Colour

My new class, Mastering Colour, will be starting April 5, 2011 and will run for 6 weeks.  This is a  class for people who are intimidated by colour and colour theory or  feel they would like to be more confident in colour choices.  The demos will be done in watercolour and acrylic though painters in all media can equally benefit from learning to master their colours.  Each class will involve 2 sections, 1) studying some aspect of colour and 2) doing a painting based on our knowledge of colour.

A supply list and further information will be available shortly at the Calgary School Of Art web site.

For information or to register for this class please contact me.

This And That

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker was a musical giant who had a fatal character flaw but with his music he was focused and passionate.  I feel that all of this comes through in his portrait.  Technically speaking this is a worthy final portrait since it takes good drawing for granted and asks us to take the shading to another level.  Excellent work from everyone.

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Profile #2

This image seems to exemplify wholesomeness.  Technical it was a little bit harder than last week because of the downward gaze.  It was a real treat to draw her particular mouth.

Just In

William Haines

William Haines was an actor from the silent movie era.  He has a classic, handsome if slightly uncomplicated look but the portrait has an interesting feature with the narrow strip of light along the edge of the forehead, nose, and chin.  It makes his face stand out from the background.  Doing profiles challenges us to use our developing drawing skills because simple measurement doesn't help completely in doing things like the profile of the nose.

Sylvia Sidney & King Tut

Sylvia Sidney

Sylvia Sidney was an actress in the 1920's and 1930's.  She worked with Alfred Hitchcock and often played the penniless orphan girl.  This portrait was the first time we had to deal a lot with hair.  It was also the first real workout with shading.

Upside Down Stravinski

This is the first exercise in the class.  It's intended as an initial introduction to the right brain drawing experience.  What usually happens is that people tend to draw harder things more easily when they are working upside down.  It's a very interesting question why that is.

Double click on any of the images to see a larger version.

Self Portrait

This last assignment, for me, is by far the most important in the entire course. I call it the Post Test and for this assignment the students do a self portrait from real life by using a mirror. It's the culmination of all the activities and skills we have practiced. All along the way we have all worked on the same subject in a guided and structured way using photo reference material. Now for this last activity each student is on their own to capture a likeness from real life. To dramatically show how each student has improved I have them compare this last exercise with the very first assignment we did 12 weeks ago. That assignment was to do a portrait from memory, from a picture or from looking at someone. This drawing was done before any instruction and without any help. Now we can compare that drawing which I call the Pre Test with this last drawing and then each student has a very real indication of exactly how much they have improved. So the following posts present each student's work.

Rex Beanland