Start here to learn all about the
Sight-Size approach to seeing.
Atelier training often begins with
cast drawing in Sight-Size.
Drawing with confidence requires
accurately seeing relationships.
Here is an ever-growing collection of over 100 articles related to the Sight-Size approach, as well as some digressions. Many of these articles expand on the lessons I teach my own students. Others are of more historical interest. And yes, many contain promotional content to my free guide, books, and videos. You can learn how to see accurately so that you can confidently draw what you see. Therefore, all of the content I produce is centered on helping you do that.
The modern day theory of mastery prescribes 10,000 hours of practice. That’s not a magic number, of course, it’s merely a guideline. But more important than the number of hours of practice is the quality of that practice. Practice needs to be focussed and deliberate. And you must also fail. In fact, better than 10,000 hours of practice are 10,000 failures. Even better is to use your failures.
Plates from what is known as the Bargue-Gérôme Drawing Course are routinely copied by students in dozens of ateliers around the world. Some schools even base their entire curriculum on them. Thousands of self-taught students use them as well. In fact, the Free Guide I offer on this site is dependent on Bargue plates. But did you ever wonder, is Bargue bad?
Gammell taught his students how to see by having them draw plaster casts in Sight-Size. To do so they were to follow specific and progressive steps. Each succeeding step led logically to the next, resulting in a finished cast drawing that was seen and rendered as a whole. This article more fully explores his cast drawing process.
“It will be like scales falling from your eyes” was a statement I frequently heard during my years in various ateliers and it is something I tell my own students. That’s fairly straightforward. But let’s look a little closer to better understand how it applies to learning to see.
Through the other articles in this series I have described the two main approaches to modeling as well as presented some of the history behind them. This article focuses on a single artist who managed to model using both approaches, each during two different stages of his career: the two faces, or periods, of Velazquez.
In setting out a drawing, this fixing of certain salient points is the first thing for the student to do . . . The next thing to do is to block out the spaces corresponding to those occupied by the model in the field of your vision.
Did you know that every time you look from your subject to your drawing or painting you have to rely entirely on your visual memory? And, although this applies to all who work from visual sources, it is especially true for those who work in Sight-Size. This article takes a look at visual memory and what some artists have had to say about it.
Memory training must be integrated into a mature painter’s working method if his or her talent is to be truly fulfilled. I myself, when doing a portrait commission, will spend up to three times as much time on memory work as I do on direct observation. Much of the weakness of contemporary realism done from nature comes not only from poorly trained eyes, but also from poorly trained memory.
Scattered throughout a book of letters (written to Richard Whitney from R. H. Ives Gammell) is perhaps the best advice ever given to an aspiring painter: “Do your memory work for 10 to 15 minutes daily.” In fact, Mr. Gammell instructs Richard to bring some memory drawings with him to their very first meeting.
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Learning how to accurately see, as well as draw, is best done through cast drawing in Sight-Size. Ateliers exist worldwide to help you do that. But what if you cannot attend an atelier? Or, perhaps you're already in an atelier and would like to supplement that training? I can help.