SCAD DRAW 100 Class
My morning class it the SCAD Rising Star program was Drawing 1 taught by professor Terry Moeller. Every assignment we had was to draw from real life and I was surprisingly better than I expected that I'd be.
There were 5 major sections of the class with different assignments. We had 4 full assignments which included many sketches, the final piece, and a 'master's study.' A master's study was when we reproduced a piece of art done by a master artist. Professor Moeller gave us several master choices for each assignment.
In the first assignment, we focused on proportion, contour lines, and angles. There was a table in the center of the room covered in objects such as bird houses, shells, flower vases, pottery, etc. Everyone was positioned at an easel surrounding it, so everyone had a different perspective and we were also expected to switch seats every so often. In the final piece, we were supposed to use the thickness and darkness of the line to convey where the object was in relation to another (stuff up close is dark and stuff farther away is light). I did all of this using a regular pencil. The original of the master's study I did is "Study of Two Feet" by Albrecht Durer.
In the second assignment, we learned how to do one-point perspective from life. We had to locate our horizon line and vanishing point and line everything up in order for it to look correct. We also started working on some shading. My view is of the vending machines and the back door of one of Anderson Hall, one of the SCAD art buildings. The master's study original is "The Grand Canal Near the Fish Market" by Francesco Guardi.
The third assignment was when we started going crazy with shading on drapery. We had a mannequin, draped in a sheet, standing towards one wall of the room and a large lamp was shown at it to create the harsh shadows. I used pan pastel as the initial background and then erased it for the highlights. I used pastel pencils and sticks for everything else. The original master's study original is by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon.
The fourth assignment was a Trompe-l'oeil attempt. Everyone brought in their own objects and cardboard. We arranged our objects on the cardboard, taped them down, and hung it on the wall. We had big lamps scattered around the room to create the harsh shadows. You'll notice there is another object in the picture and not in the final piece and that's because I would have needed to write all the lettering as well as drawing the man's face and I wasn't up for all that. This was done using oil and pastel pencils. It's also the drawing I decided to put in the final gallery showcase of Rising Star work. The master's study original is "Trees and Houses" by Karl Blechen.
For the fifth and final assignment, we did gesture and figure studies. For the whole last week, the same model came in every day and we drew her over and over again. Sometimes we did 30 second gestures, 2 minute gestures, or 5 minute gestures. There were a couple times when we went up 10 minutes. It was fun drawing her form especially when we had such a short amount of time because it made me not worry about making mistakes. The master's study original is by Edgar Degas.
