Course Description:
Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned artist, and whether you want to make art exclusively from life or create images out of your head, solidifying the fundamentals of drawing will help you produce your most confident work. Drawing is not just copying, but rather understanding what you’re seeing. This course will teach you strategies to begin to see and translate three-dimensional form into a two-dimensional drawing. The purpose of this course will be to learn strong block-in techniques, learn the concepts of form, and practice some form modeling. We will not finish rendering the cast in 5 sessions; rather, this course is designed to give you a taste of traditional cast drawing methods so that you can apply what you’ve learned to longer-format figure and cast drawings on your own time.
Week 1: Begin with Block-In
Week 2: Enhance and Refine the Block-In
Week 3: Final Touches on the Block-In
Week 4: Explore the Fundamentals of Form Modeling
Week 5: Expand on Form Modeling Techniques
Class Schedule: February 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th and March 4th from 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Please note: Because we limit our student count, if you miss a class, a critique of your last work can be offered the next session. That is the benefit of small classes.
Gaby Nighan (b. 1995) is a Colombian-American realist artist known for her figurative works, portraits and landscapes in oil, pencil and digital media. She is interested in color combinations and light qualities in the nature world. Her art practice is a way to be present with what is, and to offer reverence for the beauty of nature and people. Gaby draws and paints from life at the Grand Central Atelier, where she is pursuing an education in realist figurative painting, in Queens, New York.
The following materials will provided to each student and should be left in the classroom after each class.
Drawing Paper, 9”x12” or larger (I recommend 18”x24” Strathmore 400 series but any white sketching paper will do. No printer paper)
Pencils: 4H, 2H, H and HB (I like Staedtler), Xacto Knife, Sandpaper block (the simple 1”x4” ones are great),
Kneaded eraser, Tombow Mono Eraser Pen
Our beautiful studio is located within the historic National Arts Club on Gramercy Park South. The 24 doorman will direct you to our space. We limit our class to 8 students. 
We are a screen-free environment!
Students are expected to focus on their work for the duration of the session. We play low classical music during class.
Discussions of student work with the teacher take place during class.
Gender neutral restrooms are located near our room.
Our room has a security camera for everyone’s safety.
The above drawing required 180 hours of dedication from your instructor. As our class meets for 15 hours, we will work from simplified casts.
