I’m in NY, doing a figurative sculpture marathon with Bruce Gagnier at the NY Studio School. I’m three days into a two week intensive, and I’m loving it.
One of the topics my instructor presses is contrapposto. I learned about contrapposto at WWU, but I’m understanding the real value of it now. Bruce Gagnier showed me how exaggerating the tilt of the hips, and then exaggerating a responsive tilt to the rib cage (not the shoulders, as I had previously thought, but the imagined/invisible rib cage) and moving it to the side makes for a dynamic drawing or sculpture. He’s trying to get me to push my drawings more into motion. It’s good.
See how the sections are tilted, but also pulled side-to-side?
For another example, here’s my classmate’s figure drawing. She tilted the hips one way and tilted the ribs the other way, but she didn’t off-set the pieces to the right and left. Gagnier ripped the drawing into 3 pieces so we could move and tilt each section. What a difference the changes make! I’m adding contrapposto paper dolls to my class lessons!
Here is how the pieces can be used to shift the figure’s segments left and right.
Effing Argots
I was slow to catch on to this lesson. Too slow. Gagnier speaks the most stubbornly convoluted art speak I’ve ever heard. For the love of Pete, it took me two days to understand what it’ll take me two minutes to show my figure drawing class. An articulate vocabulary is expressive and delicious, but exclusionary argots have no place in our Seattle Artist League.
Here’s a wee snippitty boob flick from The Patriot TV sequential, to illustriate my tantamount anti-idolatryius, in excelsis deo. https://youtu.be/P5-9Rfrui9A?t=1
Today’s OBSERVATIONAL Challenge: Make a quick gesture drawing from observation without lifting your drawing utensil. Instead of moving around the outline, let your line wonder across the surface of the form. Think about how to translate 3 dimensional form to a flat piece of paper. Post your work To be eligible for prizes, (yes prizes!) …
[image_with_animation image_url=”9700″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Topophilia (From Greek topos “place” and -philia, “love of”) is a strong sense of place, which often becomes mixed with the sense of cultural identity among certain people and a love of certain aspects of such a place. Today is the second of a series of Topophilia Creative Exercises, this …
[image_with_animation image_url=”9625″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] STARTS TODAY. Each day for the month of June I’ll post a creative challenge. Set your own goal for what you’d like to do. Follow the work on Facebook. Creativity is it’s own reward, but participants also enter to win League gift certificates. Does that help with motivation? PRIZES AWARDED WEEKLY: …
The Dynamic Dance of Contrapposto
I’m in NY, doing a figurative sculpture marathon with Bruce Gagnier at the NY Studio School. I’m three days into a two week intensive, and I’m loving it.
One of the topics my instructor presses is contrapposto. I learned about contrapposto at WWU, but I’m understanding the real value of it now. Bruce Gagnier showed me how exaggerating the tilt of the hips, and then exaggerating a responsive tilt to the rib cage (not the shoulders, as I had previously thought, but the imagined/invisible rib cage) and moving it to the side makes for a dynamic drawing or sculpture. He’s trying to get me to push my drawings more into motion. It’s good.
See how the sections are tilted, but also pulled side-to-side?
For another example, here’s my classmate’s figure drawing. She tilted the hips one way and tilted the ribs the other way, but she didn’t off-set the pieces to the right and left. Gagnier ripped the drawing into 3 pieces so we could move and tilt each section. What a difference the changes make! I’m adding contrapposto paper dolls to my class lessons!
Here is how the pieces can be used to shift the figure’s segments left and right.
Effing Argots
I was slow to catch on to this lesson. Too slow. Gagnier speaks the most stubbornly convoluted art speak I’ve ever heard. For the love of Pete, it took me two days to understand what it’ll take me two minutes to show my figure drawing class. An articulate vocabulary is expressive and delicious, but exclusionary argots have no place in our Seattle Artist League.
Here’s a wee snippitty boob flick from The Patriot TV sequential, to illustriate my tantamount anti-idolatryius, in excelsis deo. https://youtu.be/P5-9Rfrui9A?t=1
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