Elation, rage, happiness, mystery, intrigue: capturing emotions and facial expressions with a drawing is fun and satisfying and can greatly enhance an artwork. In this 6-week course, we will explore a variety of emotions through the facial expressions that reveal them, copying the works of great artists of the past. In this course, we will also practice a variety of traditional techniques and use methods and materials historically used for portraiture, developing your technical skills, experimenting with new materials and drawing methods, improve your drawing accuracy in depicting the human face.

Charcoal and chalk, graphite, toned paper, pen and ink, pastel, reduction technique, trois crayon, silverpoint, are all methods we will use in this course, making it also a survey in classic drawing methods and styles. You will have access to the recordings of this course for the duration of a year, giving you the possibility to continue practicing these methods at your leisure.

Materials:

• White paper: a pad of Strathmore Drawing in vellum or medium surface, about 11”x14”; or a pad of Strathmore Bristol, same size and same surface; or a pad of Stonehenge Legion in white, same size.
• Toned paper: you can wait to buy the toned paper as we will be discussing various types of paper in class, but these are a few possibilities: a pad of Strathmore charcoal, 11” by 14” or bigger; or a pad of Hahnemhule (it comes with an assortment of 9 colors) in 12” by 16. You can also buy a few sheet of Fabriano Roma, Fabriano Ingres, Canson Mi-Teintes.
• Graphite pencils: traditional wood casing pencils or lead holders in gradations HB, B, 2B, 4B.
• Charcoal and chalk: Nitram charcoal sticks in hard, medium and soft gradations, compressed charcoal pencils in hard, medium and soft gradations (General’s or Wollf’s carbon), white chalk in pencils or sticks.
• red earth pastels, such as sanguine, burnt Sienna, indian red (Conte, Cretacolor or General’s). We will discuss eventual other materials in class.