Winter Drawing Workshop: January 7 - February 11

"Everybody can learn how to draw!"

Customized gift certificates are available for the Winter Drawing Workshop!

* includes a hand-made certificate by the class instructor.

* can be sent via post 

This class introduces basic techniques in drawing, with a focus on drawing from observation. Exercises explore technique, medium and strategies in visual thinking. The class is a perfect introduction for beginners, with something new even for the more experienced.

Each class is structured around a formal topic (contour lines, tonality, negative space...), with examples from art-history and a brief discussion. We will build technique through a series of guided exercises, followed by time for experimentation and longer drawings. We will draw from a live nude model and from still life creations.

We will make an excursion to draw the ready-made still-lives of Berlin’s Natural History Museum, including dinosaur bones and exotic taxidermy. This class will take the form of a "Drawing Scavenger Hunt"!

Drawing in the Natural History Museum

Location: Berlin Drawing Room in Kreuzberg

directions HERE

Schedule: Monday 6-9 pm

- Field-Trip to the Natural History Museum on Saturday February 2, 12-3 pm.

Winter Drawing Workshop is January 7 - February 11, 2013

Cost: 120 Euro for the complete Workshop (7 classes: 6 regular plus 1 field-trip)

To sign up contact:   miraob@gmail.com

More about the instructor HERE

Link to drawing supply list and suggestions where to purchase HERE

the Berlin Drawing Room

life drawing from a live model!

Aktzeichnen: Check back later or CONTACT us for exact Life Drawing Dates, in case you interested in joining only on the days when we have a model.

GidsyDay Aktzeichnen: Reviews and Photos

Hey Everybody,

Just giving you an update on what has been going on with the Berlin Drawing Room during our Winter Pause, and what to look forward to. 

In November we had a special one-day Life Drawing Workshop to help Gidsy celebrate their one year birthday! It was a packed event, as you can see by some of the photos below. 

We also received some great reviews on the Gidsy website from participants. I will paste some of them here (scroll down), but you can also read them directly at https://gidsy.com/activities/berlin/10545/life-drawing-with-model/

Looking ahead, the next Drawing Workshop will start January 7, 2013! The next Watercolor Workshop will start in April, 2013!

Charcoal!

Reviews from Gidsy:

"My first Life drawing class ever, and surely not my last! Mira guided us through the first steps of life drawing with a lot of different techniques. I'm thinking of joining her classes on a more regular basis! Also the model was very professional and skilled."

"Thanx Mira. I learned heaps of techniques in a very short period of time!"

"It was a really great time , nice people and a warm, professional teacher. Thank you Mira :)"

"This was the first time for me with life drawing and it was really really good. From this experience I decided to do this on a regular basis and I definitely decided that I will join Mira´s drawing class in january."


And one more quick reminder to "like" our Facebook page for updates, exhibition recommendations, and occasional news about the Berlin Drawing Room community, including instructor Mira O'Brien's exhibitions.

one-day Life Drawing Workshop November 10

The Berlin Drawing Room is offering a one day Life Drawing Workshop as part of Gidsy Day.  We will draw from a live model, and materials such as charcoal and paper are provided. This workshop is offered at the special price of just 5 Euro, thanks to support from Gidsy.

To sign up, just visit the Gidsy event page: https://gidsy.com/activities/10545/event/35990/

Just a few spots left!

Otherwise see you in 2013 for the next Drawing Workshop starting in January.

Naturkundemuseum Sunday

Field trip to the Natural History Museum this Sunday!

This class will take the form of a "drawing scavenger hunt". This is a great way to see the museum in a totally new way! Find your inner Naturalist and draw from the incredible ready made still lifes and taxidermy.  

Upon arriving at the Natural History Museum you will receive a set of instructions for drawing exercises that will lead you throughout the museum. We will do certain drawing excercises together as a group, and others you can choose your own subject while exploring the museum. I will walk around to check up on everyone and provide drawing instruction.

The winner is the one that completes (fully) the most drawing excercises. Just come prepared with pencil and sketch book. Stools are provided by the museum at no extra cost.

Here are the details:

Museum für Naturkunde
Invalidenstraße 43
10115 Berlin

Entrance 6 Euro/ 3.50 Student 

U-6 Naturkundemuseum

12-14:00 Sunday, May 29

*** Meet in the museum foyer at 12:00.***

 All you need to bring is your sketch book, a couple pencils, and I would recommend a snack as well. The museum cafe is very limited.

Negative Space: from Juan Sánchez Cotán to Rachel Whiteread

The negative space in a picture is not only a powerful formal element, but can carry symbolic value as well. It is the ever present and often overlooked "background," the space between things and around things. But how do we define this space? How do we picture it?

The 16/17th century Spanish painter Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560 – 1627) often set his still-lifes against a velvety black backdrop. This blackness, rendered lusciously in oil paint, takes on a sort of metaphysical quality in his paintings. As if the darkness is ready to absorb the last bits of life out of his nearly or freshly dead objects. More information about this artist can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Sánchez_Cotán

The contemporary artist Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963) also uses negative space to great effect. As a sculptor, she renders negative space as three dimensional form. She uses the technique of casting, to create positive forms from negative space. For Whiteread, the rendering of negative space into solid forms is like bringing ghosts into the light. She uses negative space for its poetic associations, such as emptiness, loss and memory.  More about Rachel Whiteread http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Whiteread

"House" 1993
Whiteread cast the entire interior space of a house in London.

Holocaust Monument a.k.a. Nameless Library (2000), Vienna

Inverted Plinth, 2001

More blog posts on Negative Space:
Negative Space in the Garden  http://berlindrawingroom.blogspot.de/2012/07/negative-space-in-garden.html

Fall Drawing Workshop: September 17 - October 22

New class starts September 17! Sign up now to reserve your place! 
Contact miraob@gmail.com

Student work from the Drawing Workshop

This workshop introduces basic techniques in drawing, with a focus on drawing from observation. Exercises explore technique, medium and strategies in visual thinking. The class is a perfect introduction for beginners, with something new even for the more experienced.

Each class is structured around a formal topic (contour lines, tonality, negative space...), with examples from art-history and a brief discussion. We will build technique through a series of guided exercises, followed by time for experimentation and longer drawings. We will draw from a live model and from still life creations.

We will make an excursion to draw the ready-made still lives of Berlin’s Natural History Museum, including dinosaur bones and exotic taxidermy. This class will take the form of a "Drawing Scavenger Hunt"!

The Berlin Drawing Room

Location: Berlin Drawing Room in Kreuzberg

directions HERE

Schedule: Monday 6-9 pm

- Field-Trip to the Natural History Museum on Saturday October 6, 12-3 pm.

Fall Drawing Workshop is September 17 - October 22, 2012

Cost: 120 Euro for the complete Workshop (7 classes: 6 regular plus 1 field-trip) 
                             - recommended for beginners

                             - 20 Euro per class (for returning students and more experienced)      

To sign up contact:   miraob@gmail.com

More about the instructor HERE

Link to drawing supply list and suggestions where to purchase HERE

Tonality figure drawing (student)

Negative Space drawing (student)

Spring Life Drawing with nude model!

Aktzeichnen in Berlin
to receive updates on future workshops, please sign up for the mailing HERE

Life Drawing Dates
6-9pm, April 29, 2013

May 6

May 13

Draw from a live nude model! We start out with a warm up drawing excercise, such as blind contour drawing. Then we do a series of short gestural poses - always interesting because our models are typically dancers and performers! We end the session with a few longer 20 minute poses.  The instructor will suggest themes to focus on such as "the exploratory line" or "negative space".  Personal instruction and critique will be geared to the level of each participant. These classes are suitable for beginners as well as the more advanced who want to practice drawing from a model.

Contact info: HERE

What to bring: sketch-book/ paper minimum A3 size, some pencils, any other drawings materials you want to use such as charcoal, conte crayons, ....

Cost: 15 Euro/ per session

Negative Space in the garden

In the Drawing Workshop, the class on Negative Space is definately one of the most important. Being able to shift your focus between positive in negative space is a crucial skill in becoming a better observer. This is also one of the most abstract concepts to explain, but with practice, something just seems to click. Giving equal focus to positive and negative space within a composition is important to achieving unity in a picture.


We were lucky enough to have great weather last week, and got to draw in the lovely garden of the Berlin Drawing Room. Here are some images from that class.

Focusing on the negative space between leaves and branches

Observing tree branches against the sky through a mirror. Clever!

Using a viewfinder to frame the composition.

Final negative space drawing. These always remind me of pressed flowers. 

Result of drawing tree branches with the mirror. 

Can you identify the negative space here?

Result of a hard days work!

Drawing Workshop starts July 23

New class starts July 23! Sign up now to reserve your place! 

Contact

This class introduces basic techniques in drawing, with a focus on drawing from observation. Exercises explore technique, medium and strategies in visual thinking. The class is a perfect introduction for beginners, with something new even for the more experienced.

Each class is structured around a formal topic (contour lines, tonality, negative space...), with examples from art-history and a brief discussion. We will build technique through a series of guided exercises, followed by time for experimentation and longer drawings. We will draw from a live model and from still life creations.

We will make several excursions to draw out in the field, including the ready-made still lives of Berlin’s Natural History Museum, the statues in the Pergamon Museum, and a plein air site.  This workshop is also suitable for teenagers! Inquire for more details.

Location: Berlin Drawing Room in Kreuzberg

Schedule: Monday 6-9pm and Wednesday 6-9pm

- the field-trip will be scheduled at a different time

Summer Drawing Workshop is July 23 - August 15, 2012

Cost: 135 Euro for the complete Workshop (8 classes plus 1 field-trip) 

                             - recommended for beginners

            or 20 Euro per individual class

To sign up contact:

miraob@gmail.com


Link to the drawing supply list and where to buy your drawing supplies HERE

A selection of Student Work from the Fall Drawing Workshop

"Excellent for first-timers! Challenging for slightly more experienced!  Stimulating for experienced artists too. You've got nothing to loose. Mira's Life drawing class was our highlight of the past summer."

-  Marta Hanson, Visiting Scholar, Max Plank Institute for the History of Science

(participant in the Summer Drawing Workshop, 2011)

Watercolor Location: Sunday July 15

For the last plein-air painting session of the Watercolor Workshop, we will meet in a quite unique and interesting location. It is a train yard in the Gleisdreieck area, and the good news is that we can hide under the old train tracks in case it rains. 

Since it is a little bit hard to find, we will meet at the Bülowstrasse U-Bahn station (under the station at the west-most end - ground level). But just in case you come late and want to try finding the way yourself, here are directions:

From Bülowstrasse on: go down the stairs to get out of the station; orient yourself towards the church (picture 1) and walk straight towards it 500m; then to the left of the church (picture 2), cross the curve of the street and go on 100m (picture 3). You'll see a little skatepark to your left. At the end of the pathway, you'll see a small door (picture 4), seeming to lead to private gardens (also noticeable : the sign for "beach61". Climb the stairs, to the left 10m, and you're there!

 Here are some images of the site, thanks to Alexandre Dupuis.