Brian's Bargue Line Drawing

During the last figure drawing session at the Academy of Realist Art, one of our students, Brian Krasinski, focused on trying to assimilate the characteristics of a Bargue line drawing. He made a line drawing from the figure using the style of the line drawings you see in Charles Bargue’s “The Drawing Course.”

Through methodical study, Brian developed a list of 21 concepts that he found consistently repeated in all of the Bargue line drawings from the book. This list contained observations about cast shadows, contour lines, interior form lines, line characteristics, and drawing procedures.

Brian was moderately general about the anatomical forms he drew – only showing the major forms. He tried to minimize the number of lines used by emphasizing longer flowing lines. This effective self directed study by Brian netted him a beautiful drawing and reinforced ideas about line that he can use for all of his future drawings.

Materials Used by the ARA Boston

I've received a number of requests from interested parties regarding the materials that we use at our School. Here is a run down of our supplies.

For Bargue drawings students use graphite pencil, Mars-Staedler being the most popular brand. The finished drawings are all done on the light grey version of the Stonehenge paper.

For our Figure Drawings we use carbon pencil (mainly Wolfe's Brand,) on Arches 140lb cold pressed watercolor paper. Some of the students have experimented with different types of paper like Artistico, Sommerset, or FA5, but the Arches is still the most commonly used.

For cast drawings we are using non-renewable materials. We draw on Fabriano's Roma paper, which is only printed in limited quantities. The drawings are done with Fusian Nitram Charcoal, a brand of charcoal now discontinued. We have a small supply of each Roma paper and Nitram charcoal so we aren't too worried about the shortages yet. Soon enough though we'll be forced to come up with an alternative. Any suggestions out there in internetland?

Along with these materials we also use kneaded erasers, knitting needles, plumb lines, mirrors, and black mirrors (glass from welder's masks.)

Garrett Vitanza Joins the ARA Boston

Garrett Vitanza is now a part time figure drawing instructor at the ARA in Boston. One day a week Garrett joins us to impart his knowledge of figure drawing acquired over years of study and practice.

Garrett says he first started drawing at the age of five. By the age of 13 he was taking his creations more seriously, drawing in a more recognizable fashion, and working towards building a career in the fine arts.

He began attending the ARA Toronto at the age of 17, and after graduation he spent a number of years teaching a variety of classes from portraiture to red chalk. Now he is settling down in Boston and getting a degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Art.

His top five artistic influences include an array of artists from realists to impressionists: Rembrandt, Goya, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and any early Netherlands artist around the turn of the 15th century. Some of his favorite contemporary artists are Lucian Freud, Yuqi Wang, and Francis Bacon.

If he had to lump his work into one descriptive category (which was required of him for this interview,) he would consider his work to be 'figurative in relation to narrative.' To see more of his work one can visit http://garrettvitanzaart.blogspot.com/