We are offering various life drawing options at Studio 18. You can either:
1) Book the full course and benefit from being taken through the process of learning how to approach life drawing, how to see the model, techniques for drawing and mark making etc through a comprehensively designed course from beginning to end
2) Pick and choose which sessions you fancy dropping in to - maybe you can only do a few days, or certain skills covered in one session takes your fancy in particular
3) Book a 1 hour, un-tutored session for £10. These will run for 5 Sundays beginning 7th November. They start at 5pm, after the session from the tutored course.
Course Outline
Our life drawing classes are designed to challenge, guide and encourage our guests to draw with a new perspective. Ideal for beginners and intermediate artists, for those who wish to expand their existing drawing skills and especially for those who think they can't draw... everybody can draw... and over the next few weeks we will help you come to that conclusion too.
Through the practice of drawing from our life model we will cover numerous different techniques. We will help you build a solid foundation of technical methods and draughtsmanship, learn different mark making materials, express drama and spectacle, gain confidence in your drawing and many other things that are designed to help you see with fresh eyes.
Session 1: Re-learning How To See
This session is going to start at the beginning by setting up the vital foundations on which you can build to create a successful approach to drawing.
After this session you’ll have a better understanding of the best approach to drawing for you: which eye is your strongest, which shoulder you look over, and what type of artist you are. You’ll be re-learning a way of seeing and recording what your brain is actually doing.
Session 2: Draughtpersonship
This session is all about the cold hard facts: how to measure and record angles, measure distances, find equivalent angles and reference points, and how to build the internal scaffolding of a drawing.
During this exercise we will not be attempting a complete drawing, if we successfully capture a good angle or measurement then the drawing is a success.
Session 3: Push Pull
Working with dramatic lighting, possibly drawing by candlelight. Think voluminous drapes, burning incense, a double model. Reimagine a scenario from one of the old masters.
You’ll be encouraged to work on a mid-tone grey paper, with charcoal and chalk, pushing angles back with darkness and drawing things forward with chalk.
Session 4: BIG small
Looking at the importance of size and scale.
We’ll be working tiny and massive to contrast and experience the relationship between big and small and how looking at something in the inverse can help you see it correctly.
You’ll be encouraged to be expressive and make big marks with mess materials like charcoal and chalk, ink and marker pens.
Session 5: Grand Finale
We’ll revisit the long pose from session one and some exercises from the other sessions to see how your approach/outcomes have developed.
You’ll be reminded that we’re trying to record what we see in the most effective way to communicate our experience to the viewer, and to accurately map our brain eye activity.
This structure is a brief description of some of the content we will cover and serves as a loose framework to guide our sessions. Really, anything goes. The main thing is to enjoy the opportunity to be creative in an in-person setting, let loose with your drawing and have fun.
Teachers
Jake Pond
Jake is an artist and designer with over 30 years experience who has drawing at the core of his practice. Previously he has designed and built award winning stage sets, produced graphics for record and clothes labels, taught and provided technical support at FE and HE colleges, ran his own studios, hung work in group and solo shows, been a successful and prolific painter, published comics and graphic novels, and generally spent his time producing work of some kind or another.
Jake has always had a keen interest in life drawing and believes that no matter where you are on your artistic pathway you can always benefit from some observational life drawing sessions, and in a wider sense, use the experience as a way to ground out.
In the next few weeks, Jake will help direct our guests towards more interesting and exploratory ways of making art from observation, with a strong understanding of the vital importance of drawing, relearning how to see, developing a visual language and communicating effectively through the practice of drawing.
See more of Jake's work at: jakepond.squarespace.com. www.theramjetts.co.uk @jakepond23
Nikoletta Monyok
Nikoletta Monyok is Stroud's most creative and experimental life model with over 20 years experience of working with artists from all over the world. Her spectacular and exuberant life modelling sessions cross over into performance and become an artform in their own right, with artists lucky enough to work with her, witnessing and recording these fleeting moments of genius.
Nicki has an innate sense of the dramatic and merges her own practice as a performance artist, photographer and film maker, with her ability to teach and pose simultaneously. With a mix of drawing lesson, photoshoot, exploration of the vulnerability of the human condition, therapy session and many other things, Nicki has been enriching the artist experience of everybody she works with. From private commissions and modelling for established artists, to weekly FE and HE college sessions in London, Cheltenham, Gloucester and here in Stroud, she has gained the reputation for being the most outstanding model artists and tutors have worked with, not to mention giving the students the best and most ground breaking life classes.
When not modelling Nicki is an accomplished photographer, having shot a range of subjects from fashion shoots to photo journalism, and she successfully uses the medium to get into the depths of her subjects.
See more of Nikoletta's work at: geniusmuppet.com @geniusmuppet
Zachary Walsh
Walsh, Originally from Manchester. A student of John Moores Liverpool University and a graduate of London’s Royal College of Art, has had extensive exhibitions internationally with numerous solo shows at galleries including 101 Exhibit - Miami, I-nkd Gallery-Brighton, Signal Gallery-London and the James Freeman Gallery -London. He’s also exhibited in prestigious events such as the MTV European awards, G-40 summit - Washington (featured artist) and the Foundation for the care of victims of torture, Exhibiting alongside established names such as Bridget Riley, Ralph Steadman and Paula Rego. His paintings are in private collections with the Standard Chartered Bank Tokyo and London.
For six consecutive years, Walsh was selected by the critically acclaimed Holland Park Opera as their in-house artist. Resulting for Walsh in a firm collaborative exchange with one of the UK's finest and internationally acclaimed Opera Company’s. Walsh went on to be shortlisted for the Ruth Borchard self portrait painting prize, and was also nominated for the Prix Canson award in 2016.
While primarily gaining recognition as a figurative painter, over the last several years Walsh has also been developing his practice through abstraction. Drawn to the absolute freedom of mark and compositional experimentation, Walsh feels abstraction offers the true limitless potential not only for creative expression but to explore depths of the subconscious human condition.
See more of Zac's work at: www.realartsandmedia.com/abstraction @zacharywalsh_art