Life Drawing in August 2014

Join us for Open Life Drawing at the Berlin Drawing Room!

Wednesday, August 6, 6-9 pm

               Focus: Charcoal and contour lines

Sunday, August 10, 4-7 pm

               Focus: Ink and watercolor

Wednesday, August 13, 6-9 pm

                Focus: Longer poses

Price:  45 Euro for all three classes, 20 Euro per class.
Materials:  Bring a drawing pad, pencils, and any other drawing utensils you like.  Some special materials will be provided or available for purchase. See below for details.
RSVP:  contact

ink with watercolor background

Format:  Draw from a live nude model! The typical format we use for life drawing, or Aktzeichnen, goes like this.  We start out with a warm up drawing excercise, such as blind contour drawing. Then we do a series of gesture drawings from short expressive poses - always interesting because our models are typically dancers and performers! We end the session with a few longer 20 minute poses.  I will suggest themes to focus on such as "the exploratory line" or "negative space".  There is a break so you can mingle, get a coffee, or at least some fresh air.

These open life drawing sessions are well suited for absolute beginners as well as more advanced participants. Whether you want to learn new techniques, or just draw from a model with a nice group of people in a beautiful space, you are welcome. 

Focus: This year I have decided to spice things up with a special focus for each session. You can choose to participate in the focus, or not. I know that for some of you, you just want to draw from a model and you have your own technique in mind, and you are very welcome to pursue this and ignore me.  

• Charcoal and Contour Lines:  For the first class we focus on long flowing contour lines with charcoal! Emphasis will be on quality and economy of line, as well as the various effects one can achieve with the modest medium of charcoal.  Materials: Bring sketch books, drawing pads, pencils, erasers, etc... Some paper and charcoal are provided. 
• Ink and Watercolor: We will experiment with ink and watercolor as drawing mediums.  This technique is different from creating a finished painting.  We will "draw" with the paint brush and use color more graphically. Watercolor may provide a soft colorful background for a an ink painting, or the drips and pools of color may blend into the drawing.  (see example above)  Materials:  Bring watercolor paper, brushes, water based mediums such as watercolor or ink, a cup for water, a palette, paper towels.  I will have some ink and watercolor to use, and some watercolor paper and brushes for purchase. If you don't have all the materials, don't worry!  I have materials to share, and other people usually like to share what they bring. A little bit of my red ink for your blue? So just bring what you have.
• Longer Poses: The special focus here effects the format of the class itself. Instead of the many shorter gestural poses we normally start out with, we will spend almost the entire class time with longer 20 minute poses. We will have a few short poses to warm up at the start, but then we go straight to the 20 minute poses. You can use these longer poses to create more finished works or experiment further with some of the materials we used in the first two classes. This could also be an opportunity to make more detailed studies or hands, feet or a portrait.  Materials: Anything you like!