THE ART OF LIFE DRAWING - 2 of 4
Line, Line and more Line
Saturday 22nd May, 2021
9.30am - 4pm
Curra Community Hall
with Halina Paterson
Line, Line and more Line
Continuous line, Gesture line, Contour line, Blind Contour line, Semi Blind Contour line, Investigative line, Variable line, Straight line, Minimal line.
Halina Paterson has been creative all her life and has been teaching all her working life. After taking up visual arts seriously 11 years ago, she has won several awards across various media. She now has regular classes and individual students, as well as running workshops in watercolour, charcoal and graphite, book binding and mindful line art and life drawing. She is equally at home with the minute detail of laborious line art as she is with a quick sketch in any medium. Asked which is her favourite…her response is ‘whatever I am doing in the moment.’
Have you ever wanted to try Life Drawing but weren’t quite sure what goes on behind those closed doors? Or did you finally muster the courage and all the materials, then attend a session only to find there was no tutor and everyone there seemed to know what they were doing but no one was telling .
Life Drawing is a wonderful process involving mindful perception. Halina's workshops teach many observation skills. There is not just one, or ‘right’, way of representing the human body in an artistic manner.
Your own creative style of representation will emerge and develop after learning basic, thorough observation and drawing skills, using a variety of mediums.
In the workshop on 22nd May you will learn how to draw quickly and accurately with the use of line . Shapes emerge with blind contour, semi blind contour, continuous. investigative, and variable line drawing. Fun exercises train your brain to gradually see differently.
The day will end with a live model for three hours using the format of a typical life drawing session, but with instruction and guidance. Subtly throughout the process you learn to ‘draw what you see not what you think you see’.
This is the second workshop in a series of four with Halina Paterson in 2021 and follows a beginner's day where there was hardly any line at all. 'No lines!' echoed through the hall all day lol. In that workshop we focused on portraying the whole gesture with broad strokes and modelling the form with tone using the sides of broad pieces of charcoal. Even though it is helpful to have attended all workshops, each day stands on its own as a learning pathway.
In this workshop that focuses on line there will be many techniques to measure and transfer the 3D image we think we see in front of us into the 2D on our paper with various measuring, angles and perspective exercises.
Line is the 'normal' way of portraying the human body. This is most often the outline. In this workshop we will be finding different 'lines' on the body and using different styles of lines to portray the tone and the feeling of the pose. Different lines can not only suggest different feelings, but also can portray tone and gesture by using, for example, variable or investigate lines. You also will discover that by leaving out lines that you do see on the body you can emphasise what you choose to focus on. By learning so many different ways of drawing a line you may even find your own preferred ways of making marks, your own style.
Halina has a thorough knowledge and experience of the techniques and has won prizes for her drawings. Her classes and workshops are informative and thorough. As well as learning a lot you are very likely to have fun.
Come and change your brain.
Materials needed are simply a graphite pencil 2B or softer (4,6,8), a charcoal pencil or long charcoal pieces and anything else you have that can draw a line.. A sketchbook minimum size A3 (one size larger than A4). A kneadable eraser. These are all available from cheap shops.
If you don't use an easel a stiff board with which you can create a firm surface behind your sketchbook. The board can also be tilted at a small angle using anything available. Bunnings sells small sizes of MDF boards.
Many examples are on the website halinasart.com and many more will be shown on the day. Cost for the day is $95 with morning and afternoon tea provided. Venue is the beautiful spacious Curra Community Hall in Curra just north of Gympie. Arrive at 9.30 for morning tea and meet and greet, with teaching beginning at 10am.
Contact Halina 0437454545 or Ronelle at The Scrappery on 0488409479 or email scrappery@gmail.com. Payment of $95.00 can be made to The Scrappery BSB: 084-691 ACC: 75-685-3978.
This is what participants had to say
about the workshop in 2020:
“Fun!! Challenging!! I learnt new skills and changed my thinking!
Very Good. Appreciate the many examples.
Amazing day of learning.
Fun and valuable.
Challenging, taxing and asking me to see differently.
I booked into this workshop because I learnt so much at the first.
Liked the focus on observation and freeing my eye/hand
Good. I was surprised by how much I improved.
Halina was very well organised and giving. Liked the demonstrations.
Day went too quickly. I have a different insight into life drawing now.
Yes!! Learnt new skills and changed my thinking
Loved trying all the different ways to use just line.
I did not enjoy Saturday, my brain went weird but my art is going in leaps and bounds
I have a different insight into life drawing now.
The frame for noticing inaccuracy of angles was so obvious once applied
I was surprised at how close to a proper drawing the blind and semi blind exercises were
I am learning to let it flow with Halina’s beautiful patience and encouragement.
From the model: Halina took each artist on an individual challenging journey, pushing them to master new skills and techniques. As the model for the day, we worked as a team to provide the artists with ample poses. Halina demonstrated and taught, I listened and held still to suit the moment. Food was nutritious, breaks were had when people needed them. Halina set the scene with her own work, posters of important tips and everyone left at the end of the day inspired, up skilled and satisfied. Cant wait for the next one.”
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