Art

Be Mindful

  • Seeing comes first.

  • Knowledge comes second.

  • When rules and knowledge conflict with seeing, forget the rules and draw what you see.

[Dod90] should be attempted together with [Vil97][Nic41][Loo39][BGeromeAP17]. Each of these authors focus on a different facet of drawing.

[Dod06] should be attempted after completing the above.

Daily Exercises

Eventually these exercises will blend together and become second nature.

Contouring - Drawing Blind

Look at an object and draw without looking at your paper. This exercise trains hand-eye coordination and accuracy. Do not erase any mistakes; instead restate them i.e. draw the more accurate line alongside those mistakes.

Gesture - Look, Hold, Draw, Repeat

Draw from memory by looking at the model and then drawing what you remember. Never copy the model; analyze it and focus on the action.

Cast Drawing and Modeling

Find a vertical reference line on the model that intersects important landmark features. If possible, find a series of non-vertical lines that bisects the reference line and some landmark features. These landmarks help frame the lines, angles, and distances.

Bound the object of interest by marking the points at the extremes (e.g. convex polygon, box). Approximate all curves with a series of straight lines. Focus on the large forms first and recursively work towards the smaller details.

When modeling values, fill in the darkest shadows first. Then half-tones, and finally areas in averaged light.

Apply the sight-size technique to your drawing. Look at it side-by-side to the object (at some plane), upside-down, sideways, and in the mirror.

References

BGeromeAP17

Charles Bargue, Jean Léon Gérôme, Gerald M Ackerman, and Graydon Parrish. Charles Bargue Drawing Course: With the Collaboration of Jean-Léon Gérôme. ACR Edition, 2017.

Bartok40

Béla Bartók. Mikrokosmos. 1940.

Cha07

Chuan C Chang. Fundamentals of piano practice. 2007.

Dod90

Bert Dodson. Keys to drawing. Penguin, 1990.

Dod06

Bert Dodson. Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and exercises for gaining confidence and enhancing your creativity. Penguin, 2006.

Fab93

N Faber. Faber piano adventures. 1993.

Gui03

The Piano Teacher’s Guide. Schirmer, gustav. 1903.

Gur77

Cornelius Gurlitt. The first steps of the young pianist. 1877.

Gur95

Cornelius Gurlitt. The first lessons. 1895.

Jon29

Alberto Jonás. Master school of piano playing & virtuosity. 1929.

Kun75

Konrad Max Kunz. 200 short two-part canons. 1875.

Loe60

Albert Loeschhorn. Studies for the piano. 1860.

Loo39

Andrew Loomis. Fun with a Pencil. Viking Press, 1939.

Man06

Jeff Manookian. Gradus. 2006.

Mat92

William Smythe Babcock Mathews. Standard graded course of studies for the pianoforte. 1892.

May07

Faith Maydwell. Sight reading skills: a guide for sight reading piano music accurately and expressively. 2007.

Nic41

Kimon Nicolaides. The natural way to draw: A working plan for art study. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1941.

PML95

Willard A Palmer, Morton Manus, and Amanda Vick Lethco. Adult all-in-one course: alfred’s basic adult piano course level 1. 1995.

PML05

Willard A Palmer, Morton Manus, and Amanda Vick Lethco. Alfred’s basic piano course. 2005.

Sch08

Christian Schafer. Sight reading exercises. 1908.

Vil97

Glenn V Vilppu. The Vilppu drawing manual. buy direct from Vilppu LLC, 1997.