I am excited to offer a class called “Drawing Practice” at the Lawrence Arts Center this Winter. It will meet once a week for 8 weeks on Tuesday evenings, January 9 to February 27, 2024, 6:30-8:30pm. Enroll online, or at the Lawrence Arts Center.
This introductory drawing class will focus both on exercises to strengthen our ability to draw from observation, as well as additional exercises to strengthen our abilities to draw from memory and imagination. Each student will be provided a sketchbook of their own to use and to keep, and basic drawing tools will be provided to use during class.
We’ll draw from still life setups as we engage classic skill-building drawing exercises such as contour drawing, gesture drawing, continuous line drawing, sighting methods to help us to draw in proportion, and exercises that help us draw light and shadow, too. In addition, we’ll doodle a lot (and “noodle”), we’ll make loose and controlled drawings, we’ll enlarge, abstract, stretch, and distort our drawings, and we’ll draw at different rates of speed. We’ll practice drawing from memory in different ways, we’ll imagine monsters made from random marks, we’ll go on drawing scavenger hunts, and we’ll chronicle our day — just for fun — as a simple 4-panel cartoon.
Our class will serve as a support group for drawing outside of class, too, and we’ll think about strategies to help us make time to draw at least a little bit each day — but we’ll never beat ourselves up if daily drawing isn’t something we can do — homework is always optional. Our goal in this class is to simply draw enough to forget whether or not our drawing is “good.” Our goal is to practice as much as we can, and by doing so, to make drawing a pleasurable part of our everyday lives.
You can register for the class on-line or in person at 940 New Hampshire St., Lawrence, KS, phone 785.843.2787. Financial aid and senior discounts are available.