Welcome to Drawing the Figure 2: Planes and Volume

In this post:

About Drawing the Figure: the Course

Drawing the Figure 2 description

Details and How to Register

About Private Mentoring

Image:

Vincent Van Gogh

Drawing, Black chalk

Paris: October 1886-7

Van Gogh Museum

About Drawing the Figure: the Course

Julia's Studio presents Drawing the Figure, a course in four parts designed to make the most timeless, fascinating and rewarding subject in all of art accessible and learnable.

Each part of Drawing the Figure is made of 8 concentrated, 3-hours classes designed to maximize your time and learning experience. The classes feature lots of demonstrations, in-depth instruction and concrete approaches to drawing the figure that you can apply to anything you see.

Featuring a combination of four live model days per 8-week segment, alternating with guided explorations of master drawings, paintings and sculpture, Drawing the Figure offers a rewarding, practical approach for beginners and a rigorous refresher for more experienced artists.

As one of my students, you are entitled to a one-hour private mentoring session either before the first class begins, during or after the eight weeks, included in the class cost.

It is still possible to join the class if you missed Drawing the Figure 1. Please contact me for a free consultation.

Thank you for joining me in studying the art and skill of figure drawing!

-----------------------

Class Description

Drawing the Figure 2: Planes and Volume

Drawing the Figure 2 emphasizes planes and volume. Building on your work in Drawing the Figure 1, you learn to extend line to the planes of the body to build convincingly solid, three dimensional form on the page.

We start with a review of gesture, blocking in, proportion, placement, shapes and spaces, and a focused look at finding points where lines change direction.

From there you learn to find corresponding interior planes and model the form.

Class includes a mini-intensive on geometric volumes and how they relate to the figure. Watch your drawings take on exciting new dimensionality with this knowledge.

As always you are encouraged to join in art history discussion designed to expand your drawing vocabulary and broaden your understanding of the figure in art. The class features a high degree of individual attention.

Image:

Alberto Giacometti

1923

-----------------------

Details and How to Register

Wednesdays

1:30-4:30

January 6, 13, 20, 27

February 3, 10, 17, 24

8 sessions

Includes 4 live model days

Includes a 1-hour private mentoring session

$370

Location:

University Heights Building

5031 University Way NE

Room 211

Seattle, WA 98105

206-527-4278

Email me to register

Classes are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. This class is now officially open for registration. Spaces are limited.

After I receive your email I will confirm your space with you and send you payment information. Full payment is due within two weeks of receiving your confirmation email

Classes start on time!

Thank you for signing up.

Questions? Drop me a line

-----------------------

Read on for More Information

Private Mentoring

Private Mentoring is what I call the "rocket fuel" of drawing instruction. Artists and students of all levels can benefit from mentoring. The one-on-one format in which you have my undivided attention is an effective way of advancing your skills rapidly. It's also an excellent option for experienced artists who are looking for a fresh perspective or who need to fill in technical gaps, hone content, strengthen compositions, or create goals.

You can choose how you use your dedicated time: bring work you've done for me to review and offer my constructive feedback, practice drawing or painting, with exercises I tailor to your questions and requests; get help on a specific technique you're not clear on or would like to strengthen; or designe a personal program of study based on your goals.

You can bring any visual work - collage, ceramics, sculpture, painting, drawing photography, graphics, illustration - to your session, or just bring yourself and an idea of what you'd like to work on.

-------------

Drawing the Figure 1: Welcome

In this post:
About Drawing the Figure: the Course
Drawing the Figure 1: Description
Details and How to Register
------------
About Private Mentoring
About Julia's Studio
About Julia Hensley









Image:
Georg Kolbe
no date. Crayon on paper
15 3/8 x 11 1/2"
Museum of Modern Art, NY




About Drawing the Figure
Julia's Studio presents Drawing the Figure, a course in four parts designed to make the most timeless, fascinating and rewarding subject in all of art accessible and learnable.

Drawing the Figure 1 (see "Description", below) is the first part, which you are invited to take as a stand-alone class or as the first in the full, four-part course. Descriptions of the next three parts will be posted soon.

Each part of the Drawing the Figure is made up of eight concentrated, three-hour classes designed to maximize your time and learning experience. The classes feature lots of demonstrations, in-depth instruction and concrete approaches to drawing the figure that you can apply to anything you see.

Featuring a combination of four live model days per 8-week segment, alternating with guided explorations of master drawings, paintings and sculpture, Drawing the Figure offers a rewarding, practical approach for beginners and a rigorous refresher for more experienced artists.

As one of my students, you are entitled to a one-hour ($70 value) private consultation or mentoring session either before the first class begins, during, or after the eight weeks, included in the class cost.

Welcome to the exciting and learnable skill of figure drawing!

Description

Drawing the Figure 1:

Gesture, Proportion, Shape

Image:
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Study of Seated Female Nude
c. 1830. Musee Ingres

Drawing the Figure 1 emphasizes line as the primary element of drawing. You learn ways to loosen up and begin a drawing with ease. Then, expand these skills to capture gesture and expression. Learn how to build your drawing with progressive lessons on blocking in, proportion, placement, shapes and spaces. Using pencil and charcoal, work from both the model and reproductions to deepen your understanding of how to use line to convey the complex 3-d form of the body in 2-d. You are encouraged to join in art history discussions designed to expand your drawing vocabulary and enrich your knowledge and understanding of the figure in art. The class features a high degree of individual attention.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Details and How to Register

Wednesdays

1:30-4:30

October 14, 21, 28

November 4*, 18,25

December 2, 9

8 sessions

Includes 4 live model days
Includes a 1-hour private mentoring session ($70 value)

$370

Location:
University Heights Building
5031 University Way NE
Room 211
Seattle, WA 98105
206-527-4278

Email me to register

Classes are filled on a first-come first serve basis. This class is now officially open for registration. Spaces are limited.

After I receive your email I will confirm your space with you and send you payment information. Full payment is due within two weeks of receiving my confirmation email.

Classes start on time!

Thank you for signing up.

*NO CLASS November 11 due to holiday closure at UHeights.

An additional workshop, payable separately, may be available on this day at my home studio for those wishing to practice. TBA.

Questions? Drop me a line
------------------------------------------------------------------

Read On for More Information

Private Mentoring
Private mentoring is the "rocket fuel" of drawing instruction. Artists and students of all levels can benefit from mentoring. The one-on-one format in which you have my undivided attention is an effective way to advance your skills rapidly. It's also an excellent option for experienced artists who are looking for a fresh perspective or who need to fill in technical gaps, hone content, strengthen compositions, or create goals.

You can choose how you use your dedicated time: bring work you've done for me to review and offer my constructive feedback; practice drawing or painting, with exercises I tailor to your questions and requests; get help on a specific technique you're not clear on or would like to strengthen; or design a personal program of study based on your goals.

You can bring any visual work - collage, ceramics, sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, graphics, illustration - to your session, or just bring yourself and an idea of what you'd like to discuss or work on.

About Julia's Studio
Julia's Studio is a private art school owned and operated by Julia Hensley since 2002. The goal of Julia's Studio is to make university-quality art instruction accessible to the community.

Julia's Studio is founded on the belief, experience and observation that drawing is a set of skills that can be taught and learned. How far you go with it is up to you, the student. All you need is curiosity and motivation and the world of art making is open to you.

My goal as a teacher is provide the beginner with concrete, usable skills along with plenty of encouragement and guidance. For the experienced artist, I provide a place to practice, question, fill in technical gaps, rethink habitual approaches, reinvigorate content and refresh skills.

I am available at all levels of the process, both in class or privately, to help you go as far as you want to go. I am passionate about art and I believe in sharing all the secrets!

Any interested adult is welcome; so are young adults serious about learning art. Julia's Studio does not discriminate in any way against anyone. If you want to learn and are physically able to be in a class, you are invited to enroll.

About Julia Hensley
Julia Hensley is a professional artist and devoted instructor of art to adults. She has shown her work in Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. Her work is held in numerous collections nationwide.

Julia's teaching is based on the world-class art training she received at Boston University (BFA with honors, 1989), and was subsequently influenced by Betty Edwards' brilliant book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".

She honed her own methods of conveying the complex skills of drawing and painting during ten years' classroom experience at Kirkland Arts Center, Pratt Fine Arts Center, North Seattle Community College, the Frye Art Museum, and Julia's Studio, from 1999 to the present. Many of the terms and images she uses are unique to her and arise from her own thinking about the practice of art and how to convey its mechanics and aesthetics.

Portraits 3: Features and Composition

With your understanding of the human head's planar structure well under way, you are ready to delve into individual features. In addition, as you begin to synthesize perspective and anatomy in your portrait drawings you will be ready to play with the larger compositional picture with increased knowledge.

 

First, you will learn to simplify and comprehend eyes, nose, mouth and ears as sculptural and anatomical forms. Then you'll work on integrating these landmarks into the overall architecture of the head. In addition, you will learn to use shapes and spaces to more easily and effectively portray the unique character of each feature from your viewpoint. Finally, you will carry the focus on flat shapes and spaces into costume and background to make surprising and satisfying compositions. The class builds on our previous work with planes and modeling the form to full rendering of the head and surroundings in light and shadow. 

Portraits 3: Features and Composition

Wednesdays

10:30-1:30

July 8, 15, 22, 29 

August 5, 12, 19, 26

Class cost: $288

Location TBA 

Email me to register

Thank you!

---------

Image:

Leonardo da Vinci

Angel for the “Madonna of the Rocks” 

ca. 1483-85

metal point heightened with white on prepared paper, 181 x 159 cm

Announcing

New June workshops: small, semi-private one-day sessions in my home studio with a view. Enjoy a lunch break, plenty of time to develop your work, camaraderie and lots of individual attention. You are welcome to draw, paint, or both. Click here to read about the class that started the idea. 

Drawing & Painting Workshop

Topic: Interior with Landscape View

We will look particularly at Diebenkorn, Matisse and Bonnard as we draw and paint the view through the old fashioned windows of my Spanish-style building to the red tile roofs and Lake Union beyond. Drawers will explore a series of variations in the first half, building to a more finished study in either pencil or charcoal after lunch (you may also bring colored pencils or other media). The focus will be on simplifying creatively, understanding the perspective of what you're seeing, connecting indoors to outdoors, and creating a strong compositional structure. Painters will sketch and transfer their drawings to Bristol board in the first half, then switch to painting after lunch. Your additional focus will be on making a painterly, layered painting. Lots of individual attention and demos. We will start on time and keep our lunch to an hour to maximize our work time.

Sunday, June 21

11am-4pm

Deadline to register: Saturday, June 20 by noon

Friday, June 26

11am-4pm

Deadline to register: Wednesday, June 24 by 5:00 pm

-------------------

Lunch from 1-2

Please bring a lunch

I will have salad, bread, cheese, fruit, cookies, etc. 

So no need to worry if you forgot/didn't have time

Location:

Julia's Studio

Contact me for details

Class cost $80

-------------------

EMAIL ME TO BOOK

Space is limited to 4 people. 

Booking is on a first come, first serve basis.

Minimum of 2 people necessary to run each workshop.

-------------------

Images:

Christine Lee paints the view, with Vicki Schoettle's painting visible

And, the view

Flower class: New June dates

Drawing Flowers in Color

It's spring! Join me for an exploration of flowers and plants in the versatile mediums of aquarelle pencils and aquarelle crayons. Starting in pencil and charcoal to focus on gesture, structure and value, we'll switch to aquarelles to capture color ideas and explore composition. Develop your drawings using techniques from hatching and pastel-like effects through translucent washes and opaque layers. Working from still life arrangements indoors and from plants at the Conservatory at Volunteer Park, you'll learn simple ways to organize complex subjects that can be applied to anything you look at, including contour, shapes, spaces, relationships, and value. In addition, discover ways to draw out the abstract elements in your subject and develop surprising, original compositions with line, pattern, shape and color. The class includes some essential color theory and lots of technical tips, as well as a look at flowers and plants in art history for inspiration and information. A springy spirit of experimentation is encouraged as we delve into nature's jewel-box. All levels welcome, no experience necessary.

Tuesdays 

10:30-1:30 

June 9-30

(June 9, 16, 23, 30)

4 sessions $144

Email me to register

-------------------------------------- 

Locations: 

June 9, 23

University Heights Building 

5031 University Way NE, Room 211 

Seattle, WA 98105 

206-527-4278

 

June 16, 30

Conservatory

Volunteer Park

1402 East Galer Street

Seattle, WA 98112 

206-322-4112

--------------------------------------

Image:

Vincent van Gogh

Irises, 1889

Oil on canvas

28 x 37"

Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Heads up! Portrait drawing, continued

Registration is now open for part two of Portrait Drawing.

Portrait Drawing 2: Form and Volume

In the continuation of Portrait Drawing: The Human Head, you learn to make increasingly three-dimensional heads in both line and value. Heighten the sense of volume, solidity and space in your drawings with an in-depth study of the head's sculptural qualities coupled with some useful anatomical information. Starting with pure line, discover the "inner" surfaces of the head and face and find out how exterior lines relate to interior planes. Then, following line and plane into volume, learn the important concept and technique of modeling the form to build a convincingly 3-d head on your page. Finally, you work with light and shadow to reveal form and create exciting depth and atmosphere, using both additive and subtractive techniques in pencil and charcoal. Art history continues to be an important part of our studies as we work from both reproductions and live models. Pre-requisite: Portrait Drawing: The Human Head 1, or permission of instructor. 

SECTION 1

Wednesdays

10:30-1:30

May 13-June 24

(May 13, 20, 27; June 3, 10, 17, 24 )

7 sessions

$252

--------------

SECTION 2

Fridays

1:30-4:30

May 8-June 26

No class June 5

(May 8, 15, 22, 29; June 12, 19, 26)

7 sessions

$252

---------------------------------------

Location:
University Heights Building
5031 University Way NE, Room 211
Seattle, WA 98105

Email me to register

Please let me know which section you are signing up for. 

Thank you!

Museum visit NEW DATE: Sunday, April 19

Please note that the date for our visit to the Garden and Cosmos exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum has changed:

The new date is Sunday, April 19 from 1:30-4:30.

See below for details.

Join me for sketching, informal lecture, discussion and exploration of this extraordinary show, followed by dinner at a nearby restaurant (TBA).

"Blossom Cluster of Delight"

I picked up a postcard of this painting in Boston and it's on my studio wall right now - what a delight to find the image on the Harvard's Sackler Museum website so I can share it here. Apparently, beetle-wing cases were used in its making, see below. How's that for mixed media?

-----------------
Image:
Unknown Artist
A Nayika and Her Lover: Page from a Dispersed Rasamanjari Series (Blossom Cluster of Delight), c. 1660-1670
Painting
Indian, 17th century
Basohli, Kashmir, India
Opaque watercolor, gold, and beetle-wing cases on paper
actual: 23.4 x 33 cm (9 3/16 x 13 in.)
Harvard Art Museum/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of John Kenneth Galbraith, 1972.74

Museum visit NEW DATE: Sunday, April 19

Join me for the next Julia's Studio Museum Visit to

Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Sunday, April 19

1:30-4:30

$42 (non-SAM-member)

$33 (SAM member)

There is nothing like looking at paintings from another country to bring home the mystery (and delight) of cultural perspective. These lush images burst with life and story, and at the same time they present visual viewpoints quite different from conventional western ones. Let's look for ways to understand the stories as well as the visual elements of the paintings by noticing connections to other work, discussing what we see, and sketching the paintings to make them our own.

All are welcome to join me for an early dinner following the class at a restaurant nearby, TBA.

Read Jen Graves' review of this gorgeous show in the Stranger.

Contact me to reserve your space. 

Heads you win

Register now for Portrait Drawing: The Human Head

Learn to draw heads in a relaxed, supportive atmosphere using concepts that can be applied to any subject. This class banishes myths and fears about drawing people by introducing concepts one by one, simplifying the human head into basic shapes and forms. In addition to understanding structure in both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional terms, we learn techniques to capture character and gesture, working up to portraits that have both form and life. Working from master reproductions, photographs, each other, live models, and ourselves, you will learn to use the scribble, contour, core lines, relative points, negative space, adjacent shape, and light and shadow to build sculpturally convincing, abstractly satisfying and humanly expressive heads. As always there will be a strong art history component to the class as we refer to master works for hot tips and inspiration. Lots of demos and individual attention. No experience necessary.

SECTION 1

Fridays

1:30-4:30

March 6, 13, 20, 27 and April 3, 10, 17, 24 

8 sessions

$288

SECTION 2

Wednesdays

10:30-1:30

March 11, 18, 25 and April 1, 8, 15, 22,29

8 sessions

$288

--------------------------------------

Location:

University Heights Building

5031 University Way NE, Room 211

Seattle, WA 98105

527-4278

--------------------------------------

Email me to register and for payment and location information. Spaces are limited, sign up soon. Thank you!

Rembrandt van Rijn

Self-Portrait, 1631

Etching

Welcome to Julia's Studio

Julia's Studio is a private art school for anyone interested in drawing, painting, and learning to make art with the guidance of an experienced teacher and professional artist. I teach at my home studio in Seattle. Classes are small with lots of individual attention and range from ongoing, full-year courses of 8 weeks each, through a series of two- and four-week focus classes on a wide array of topics, to one-day museum visits.

Coming up in the 8-week Julia's Studio class series is Drawing the Human Head.

In addition, private mentoring is available for all levels from beginning to professional. Delve into a skill you need help on, or receive thoughtful and constructive feedback on a body of work. Rate is $70 per hour, $105 for and hour and a half, and $135 for 2 hours. Email me to set up a time.

It's cold out there! Come on over, bring your paper and pencils, have a cup of coffee in my studio with a view, and warm yourself in the study of that most worthwhile of human pursuits: the making of art.