Learning to Draw the Landscape with Traditional Mixed Media
(Online Class)


This class will show you how to employ a range of traditional artist’s materials in combination with one another. Improve your drawing skills while also discovering and analysing the possibilities these materials offer an artistic practice, both individually and in unison. Materials studied will include chalk pencil, pen and ink, pen and wash, and white gouache; together with coloured and watercolour papers. The theme for this term will be landscape. Classes will include an historical analysis of conventions for drawing the natural environment along with a series of landscape excursions. Suitable for beginners to intermediates.

This class will be delivered online via the online platform Zoom. Enrolling students need to ensure they have an email, a reliable internet connection, microphone/speakers and access to a tablet, smartphone or computer.


COURSE OUTLINE

  • Week 1 and 2 – Black chalk pencil and Pen and Ink on paper: Pen and ink will be employed over an initial black chalk pencil drawing.
  • Week 3 – Excursion
  • Week 4 – Chalk pencil and pen and ink wash on watercolour paper: Over an initial chalk drawing, students will learn how to broadly depict the fall of light and shadow and accurately describe the shadow’s shape with an ink wash.
  • Week 5 – Ink wash and white gouache on coloured paper: Learn how to combine an ink wash with gouache using a coloured paper ground as a mid-tone. Excursion.
  • Week 6 and 7 – Composition and the Landscape: We will move beyond looking at individual elements in the landscape to examining how to create a harmonious composition on a both a horizontal and rectangular page.
  • Week 8 – Excursion: Consolidating the lessons in landscape composition from Weeks 6 and 7.


PLANNED LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:
  1. Gain an introduction to the use of mixed media materials employed by artists of the past.
  2. Learn to borrow and develop the shorthand means necessary for describing complex and ephemeral natural forms.
  3. Make use of coloured papers in mixed media drawings.
  4. Make practical use of historical drawings and landscape compositional conventions.


MATERIALS LIST

  • Oil-based black chalk pencil
  • White gouache paint
  • Stanley knife
  • Kneadable eraser
  • A3 sketchbook suitable for watercolour
  • Nib holder
  • Speedball lettering & drawing round pen nib B Style B-5 ½ (and two other nibs of smaller sizes).
  • Watercolour brushes sizes 6 and 8
  • Two A3 sheets of blue-grey watercolour paper or a larger sheet divided to size.


When:
Thursday 15 Oct - 3 Dec 2020
9.30 AM - 12.00 PM

Where:
This is a WEA Sydney course to be delivered via online platform Zoom.