- Teacher: Ruthie V.
- Course Length: 8 sessions
- Class Days: Saturdays, starting February 8
- Time: 1:00pm – 4:30pm
Artists have always borrowed and transformed ideas. Rodin studied Michelangelo’s sculptures, dissecting their forms and spatial relationships to discover his own new creative possibilities. In this course, you’ll be riffing off great works. In each series, you’ll play with essential sculptural elements—form, balance, movement, texture, and energy—through focused studies of great sculptures.
Each week, you’ll hone in on an element, uncovering the choices behind forms, proportions, and structure. This isn’t about following rules, or making copies. This is the way artists learn from and enjoy inspirations that guide great sculptors. Your responses can range from lifelike, stylized, or abstracted forms. By isolating and reinterpreting what excites you, you’ll simplify complex ideas and create space for deeper creativity.
This method has helped many artists find their voice—not by copying, but by isolating one aspect of a sculpture and creatively reinterpreting it. Your single-element studies will become original works of art, offering rich material for further exploration. Whether you aim to produce standalone pieces or develop a larger series, this approach provides tools and inspiration to sustain your practice for years.
You’ll work from 360° views of images of sculptures, blending observation with abstraction and artistic play to develop your ideas further. Personal interpretation is central, encouraging you to expand your skills and challenge familiar boundaries.
Prerequisites:
This course builds on skills from SAL’s Figure Drawing classes. If you’ve taken Beginning Figure Drawing (or have equivalent experience), you’re in the right place!
Materials:
Please bring something to draw with, and something to draw on. 11×14″ Strathmore 400 sketch paper is nice. Vine charcoal or 6B pencil and plastic eraser, also nice.
Pictured: Brancusi’s Sleeping Muse
