The downside of a typical day for me is that it’s mostly spent staring at a computer screen. I do carry a sketchbook with me and frequently jot down details of my surroundings. But I love detailed drawing, and those kinds of projects don’t happen without conscious thought and planning.
Towards that end, a few friends and I have been meeting once a week to learn and practice lessons from the Bargue Drawing Course (here’s an economical alternative to the full course). It’s the way many art students in 19th-century European academies learned to draw.
The emphasis is on accuracy — no personal style or creative flair desired, just reproducing a set of lithographic plates exactly as they are; training the eye to see accurately. We use the sight-size method to get the measurements precise and then build the shading in layers to reproduce the effect we see in the original. Results build s-l-o-w-l-y. We spent hours copying a small preliminary sketch of an eye, getting every line placed at just the right angle in just the right spot. After 18 hours(!), I’ve done an eye, a bust of a man in profile, a hand (not finished), and next week will start on a sculpture of a torso. I’ll have 9 hours to finish that, then we’re taking a break for the holidays.
It’s been such fun to spend time with friends who are also interested in this style of drawing. We’re in good company: Van Gogh used the course to strengthen his drawing skills when he couldn’t make it as a student in a traditional academy. Bargue drawings aren’t meant to be an end in themselves, but a way to develop skills that I can use to improve other drawings.
