Sixth-Form Art students sharpened their observational and technical skills through a life drawing workshop on 5th November
Learning to draw the human figure from life has been fundamental to the training of artists ever since Renaissance times and, according to Harrodian Head of Art, Laura Caldecott, 600 years on, regular life drawing sessions remain as vital to art teaching as ever. ‘Life drawing teaches you to really look at what you’re drawing: the dimensions and proportions, the perspective, the light and shade,’ she says. ‘It’s an excellent way of developing technical skills which every artist needs.’
Life drawing teaches you to really look at what you’re drawing: the dimensions and proportions, the perspective, the light and shade.
Laura Caldecott, Harrodian Head of Art
Lower and Upper Sixth Art students had the chance to practise these skills when they assembled in the school theatre on Saturday 5th November to take part in a life drawing session run by artist and regular Harrodian visitor John Close. ‘John is a brilliant teacher and a real expert in life drawing,’ says Laura Caldecott. ‘He has all sorts of great advice to offer both about how to approach life drawing as a whole and specific aspects that are specially challenging such as drawing hands, for example.’
For Lower Sixth A Level Art student Grace, the session represented a priceless opportunity to refresh and hone her figurative skills. ‘We’ve been focusing on abstract work for the last few weeks so drawing 10 or more charcoal sketches in a short time was hard and challenging work,’ she says. ‘But I kept going and enjoyed the day. Working fast inevitably means you make mistakes but you also learn a lot in a short time.’
As you can see from the photographs, the quality of much of the work they produced suggests that, alongside new insights into their craft, many of the young artists who took part will have some impressive life sketches to add to their A Level portfolios as a result of their weekend drawing masterclass.
