Drawing Lessons from the Famous Artists School

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Job: 11803 Title: #218076# Drawing Lessons From The Famous Artists School (Rockport)

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According to Robert Fawcett, drawing the same thing over and over

again enhances an artist’s knowledge of form and sharpens focus on

detail. This allows the artist to forget “technique” and concentrate

on structure. The three interpretations of an identical man, below,

seen from the rear holding a shovel, examine the figure’s stance and

silhouette, and explore the eects of light and shadow on form. First,

Fawcett created a simple contour drawing and filled it with flat tones.

His second drawing employs line and stark shadows to delineate

form, and his final work relies upon line, shadow, and varied tone to

create a more complete picture.

The quick portrait studies at right, which Fawcett frequently made,

rely on light and shadow to create volume, and search out the small

details that reveal character and emotion.

Robert Fawcett

Studies,

Man with Shovel —

Rear View (left) and

Five Men’s Heads (above)

Pencil and ink wash

on paper

Ink and gouache

on board

THE CONSTRUCTION OF FORM

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Norman Rockwell

Portrait of an Old Man, European travel sketchbook;

c. 1932

Pencil on paper

In these studies, the artist used light, dark, and middle tones

to capture fragments of his subject. Light seems to be shin-

ing most strongly from the left-hand side and slightly above

his subject, casting the right of the man’s head, hand, and

shoes into deeper shadow. Rockwell uses the broad side

of his pencil to create tonal strokes and the point for crisp

detail, as in the man’s expressive face and his worn shoes.

Austin Briggs

Gestural studies

Ink on paper

Draftsmanship was an important

skill for the illustrators of the Famous

Artists School, an ability they developed

through the act of observational draw-

ing. John Atherton often focused on the

beauty of the common object, creating

works that ranged from the highly

realistic to the decorative. He noted

that the illustration, at right, for United

Airlines “has nothing in it that would

seem to oer diculty to the draftsman,

but the very simplification of the forms

themselves is what a good groundwork

in drawing helps to accomplish.” Sound

drawing was essential to all of them,

he said. “In each case I recorded what

I saw and wished to use but I did more

than that. I refined the forms which I did

use and eliminated what I saw because

some of the things were not essential.”

The ability to “observe intelligently

and refine or exaggerate” was key to

Atherton’s success and a distinguishing

factor in his unique brand.

CONSIDERING THE COMMON OBJECT

John Atherton

Poster for United Airlines,

New Orleans

“Remember,” Austin Briggs wrote, “in order to describe an object

you must have light, and light cannot be expressed without shadow.”

Nature has at its disposal an infinite and subtle range of values, but

Briggs pointed out that the artist must make selective statements of

light, dark, value, and pattern to create an eective work of art. “Once

the basic areas of light and dark are expressed, we must decide from

the nature of our subject which of the middle values” to employ.

Briggs uses both line and tone to create form in the drawings

below and right. He varies his quality of line, from the light, breezy

strokes of the woman’s towel blowing in the wind, to the strong,

dark line that describes the form and stance of the beachgoer in the

foreground with her back to us. Spatial clarity is established sim-

ply — darker lines and tones delineate the figures closest to the viewer,

while softer shades push others back in space.

In his sketches of a figure in motion, Briggs again employs lines

of varying widths and shades to describe form. In the image on the

bottom right, he emphasizes the sweep of the woman’s gesture by

darkening the strokes of her hair, the curve of her back, and her right

leg thrusting forward.

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