- Thursday, 27 March 2025
- Thursday, 3 April 2025
- Thursday, 10 April 2025
- Thursday, 17 April 2025
About
Over the four weeks we will experiment with different materials to understand the human body, building from traditional sketching to creating to a final composition in paint. Participants will draw directly from life models each week as we focus on different aspects of rendering the figure from proportion to line, to tonality, to composition. In addition, each week the exercises and materials used will take inspiration from an artist in the National Gallery’s collection, including artists such as Michelangelo and Edgar Degas.
While we will work primarily in two-dimensions with charcoal, ink and paint, we will be thinking throughout the course in three-dimensions as we think about the human body as sculpture that should be understood from all angles. Drawing upon the Italian Renaissance idea of the 'paragone', the debate of whether painting or sculpture were the superior art form, we will go from painting into sculpture and back again by the end of the course.
All materials are provided, and all sessions will take place in our brand new, state-of-the-art Clore Art Studio in our Roden Centre for Creative Learning.
Week 1: Introduction to the figure
Week one will serve as an introduction to drawing the figure from life. Drawing directly from a male life model in charcoal, pastel and pencil, we will use the first session to explore proportions, anatomy, and modelling. We will take inspiration from Michelangelo’s extraordinary drawings, paintings, and sculpture for both our techniques as well as in the model poses.
Week 2: The body and line
In week two, we will focus on the importance of line in art. Working across multiple mediums, including pen, ink and wire, we will examine how line can transform how to render the human form. With a special focus on Degas’s masterful use of line in his paintings, drawings and small sculptures. We will look at gravity and weight that line can provide while working from a female model.
Week 3: The figure in the round
In our third week, we will consider the figure in the round, or the figure from all angles. This week we will focus on tonalities and work with oil paint to render the human figure. With the help of projection and lighting, we will also play with chiaroscuro and silhouettes with both our male and female models for the session. As many artists worked directly from existing sculptures for their poses, we will think about this dialogue between painting and sculpture with reference to ancient works and the work of Luca Giordano.
Week 4: The figure as storyteller
In our fourth and final week, we will play with scale and composition. Magenta, a central artist of the 'paragone' debate, will serve as the final focus artist for inspiration. Working with the mediums of your choice from two life models, you will create a final work that combines elements from each week to create a final project.
Your tutor
Emily Motto is a London-based artist. She works between sculpture, installation and drawing – often creating playful forms, arenas and mazes. Her work plays with what can happen when shapes and lines are extended into palpable forms in space, with dependencies on weight, material reactions, and physical limits; she is fascinated by how sculptural forms can share in a bodily sense of space, command attention, and hold presence. Motto’s work has been featured in exhibitions globally, included in Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the ICA London and the Liverpool Biennial, and the Saatchi New Sensations; and received awards including The Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship at the British School at Rome, The Gilbert Bayes Award, and The Red Mansion Art Prize. She often works collaboratively and was commissioned to deliver a series of workshops for British Art Show 9, and an evolving work 'The Obstacle Course' for Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer.
Life drawing: From line to form
- Thursday, 27 March 2025
- Thursday, 3 April 2025
- Thursday, 10 April 2025
- Thursday, 17 April 2025
Enrol
This event is open for Members priority booking until Wednesday, 26 February 2025. Members please sign in to book.
Standard: £320
Concessions: £288
Please book a ticket to attend this course which will take place in the Roden Centre for Creative Learning.
Tickets include entry to the National Gallery. Please arrive in good time to access the building and find the event.
Bookings close ten-minutes before the event.
Concessions are for full-time students, jobseekers, and disabled adults.
Concessions are for full-time students, jobseekers, and disabled adults.