Figure Drawing

19 May 2018 . Observing the Human Form with Ian de Souza

| Huixin Su

Some updates from a recent workshop with Ian de Souza in his intriguing Fremantle home studio, where we learnt not only about drawing, but also some really interesting life experiences

The clear structure of workshop, and Ian’s technique to ‘loosen up’ was extremely helpful to work on my own areas of drawing deficiencies.

‘Yin & Yang’.

The first half of the session primarily focused on developing visual observation and confidence in strokes, flow, and tones through drawing with charcoal and chalk.

Greyscale.

The second half was spent exploring tones and ‘natural tone’ of hues, and breaking through the mental barrier of using colours beyond realistic depiction through painting.

Untitled
2018
Acrylic
© 2018 suhuixin

Looks a lot easier than it really is to portray the ‘balance’ and ‘connectedness’ in a human form! The most frustrating being the disconnect between what the eyes see, how the mind thinks, and what your hand wants to put onto the canvas.

Bacelona – Figure Drawing & Sculpture

| Huixin Su

Back after a 30-day social media vacation! Actually, more so that I felt so battered from the daily walking and activities during the past month of travel in Europe, there was little energy left to be active in posting online updates. The hubby is like a Energizer rabbit when it comes to updating his photojournal for his one-year art challenge.

Whilst travelling in itself provides opportunities to build on life experiences, we make it a point to incorporate in most of our longer some ‘educational’ itinerary. Enrichment aside, it feeds our curious minds and always takes us somewhere new.

This time, we committed ourselves to a two-week ‘figure drawing’ intensive workshop and a week-long ‘portrait sculpture’ workshop in Barcelona. Both workshops were attended in parallel, and the learnings in one workshop complemented and enhanced the other really well. The key takeaways from the cross-learning: understanding anatomy, sensitivity in observation, selection and simplification. These are concepts that are easy to understand and talk about, but when it comes to executing them (especially, consciously) … frustratingly difficult. Sharing here some work done in the 2 weeks of intensives.

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Instruction:
1. Barcelona Atelier of Realist Art (figure drawing) . http://barcelonaatelier.com
2. Barcelona Academy of Art (portrait sculpture) . http://academyofartbarcelona.com