The Figurative Art Workshop is a series of 3-hour fine art sessions, in which the first hour will be dedicated to instructed figure drawing with semi-dressed life models and followed by two hours of practice with long poses in the nude with personalized advice for participants who request it. We will discuss composition with portrait and figure, various approaches to artistic depiction and abstraction of the human body, as well as making anatomical studies and gesture sketching, exploring proportions, foreshortening, techniques, and best practices.

The classes will start in March 2024 at Studio ACE in Oceanside, CA

Figure Drawing Practice

Models

We will work with life art models and must express our respect for their hard work. Please, no devices with cameras within reach, all sounds off.

Plan

For the instructive part of the workshops, we will concentrate on various aspects of figure representation in 10 classes:

1. Proportions of the body, measuring, and positioning of the figure; landmarks, mapping, and grounding.
2. Expressive gesture drawing and transitioning from sketch to artwork; value and perception.
3. Simplification and interpretation of the human form and light reflection, quality of line.
4. Major volumes of the human figure; skeleton and muscles, angles and curves.
5. The human face and facial expressions in portraits; hair and "helmet" modeling.
6. Limbs, movement, points of view, and proximity; midvalue as starting point.
7. Hands and feet, body language, creative problem-solving for lack of visual information.
8. Perspective and foreshortening, the illusion of depth and drawing attention to elements.
9. Soft, hard, and water-soluble drawing materials for creating contrast and texture.
10. Contour and shadow to express mood and lighting, composition from thumbnail.

Materials

Bring hard dry media and art grounds, portable water media sets can be useful on special paper. Please, no soft pastels or oils to keep the air clean.

Recommended Drawing Sets

To start, the minimal set of supply I recommend would be:

1. white drawing paper over 20 inches;
2. a graphite pencil, 2B. 
3. white eraser;
4. a thin wine charcoal (optional).

Advanced set that would be suitable for work with light and shadow on mid-tone:

1. brown-toned acid-free drawing paper 20"+;
2. willow charcoal or compressed charcoal sticks;
3. white hard pastel stick;
4. burnt sienna hard pastel stick, or sanguine (any brown skin tone variation);
5. white and kneaded erasers.

Art Supply Lists

Suggested art materials for this session from a reputable online shop, carefully selected by value:

• Blick U Course Supply List

Please use the titles of the recommended items to find them in other stores or pick something similar from what you have.

Art Instructor

Lena Nechet is a European fine art painter in California who makes primarily tangible artwork on the surface, with archival materials in environmentally friendly studio settings. Her preferred art genres are abstract portraits and expressionism in watercolor and acrylics on cotton, and she worked with life models for over 450 hours.

• Title: Figurative Art Workshop
• Description: Life Figure Drawing with Lena Nechet
• Goals: communication, learning, practice, creation, evaluation
• Properties: formal, recurrent
• What: Figurative art is a form of modern art that retains strong references to the human figure with various levels of abstraction.
• Why: The human body is one of the most challenging art objects, and raising its depiction to the level of fine art is a great joy.
• Who: artists, models
• Reference Code: LN24FA