Drawing Classes Christchurch
Six week course $242
All materials provided
Term 1
15 February - 22 March
Wednesday nights 6-8pm
Term 3
4th August - 18th of Sept
Wednesday nights 6-8pm
Christchurch Art Gallery Education Room,
corner Madras and Gloucester St.
Booking essential, if you would like to express your interest in joining the next class please email us by clicking the button below.
Foundation
Learn to Draw
Foundation course
Learn to Draw
Our foundation programme covers the basics of drawing in six workshops of two hours. The course covers contour drawing, perspective, composition, proportion, rendering light and shade and mark making. The last workshop is a full two hour life drawing session with model. All materials are included.
The foundation series replaces our Beginners course. We will show you how the ability to draw comes not through the hand but through the eye, through ways of seeing the world. These basic principles or 'views' can easily transform your drawing. Over the course of six weeks we will investigate each of these ways of seeing and teach you how to combine them to create beautiful drawings.
This is a great course for anyone who is new to drawing as well as those students pursuing study in a creative field. The classes will cover those very necessary things they won't teach you at art school, give you an edge and increase your confidence. It is also a wonderful course if you have some experience with drawing and would like to develop your skills further, to see things in a new way and to challenge yourself.
We are excited to announce the classes will run this year from the Christchurch Art Gallery Education rooms. As the gallery is open late we have a unique opportunity to view artworks as part of the programme.
Please check out the press release below for more detail.
PRESS RELEASE
Artist Revealing Tricks of the Trade Insists Anyone can Learn to Draw
The secrets of the artist’s ability to represent the visual world are being leaked to the public in a series of classes currently running in Christchurch.
Artist’s Hannah Beehre and Julia Morison have been running art classes showing the methods they and other artists use to draw accurately from observation. The classes challenge preconceptions of natural talent and ability and explain the process of making a drawing so that anyone can do it.
Beehre says “Interestingly it’s got little to do with hand-eye co-ordination, or even what happens with the hand. Certainly an artist’s individual style has a lot to do with the hand, but the ability to draw realistically comes from sharp and deliberate observation. We teach people to see in new ways, to understand visually what is in front of them so they can represent this accurately. Once the concepts are grasped they can be applied to anything you see.”
Most people can draw at about the level or age they gave it up, for many people this has extended to the symbol stage where a persons face is represented by an oval with stylised eyes, lips, nose and a scribble of hair. Drawing from observation requires a completely new approach, a new internal dialogue, but the artists declare anyone can learn to draw.
The secrets explained are not tricks, but techniques that enable major breakthroughs and which, if developed as habits, produce satisfying results. They are a mix of things, learnt and discovered by the two artists over years of practice, but taught concisely through a bit of direction and a bit of doing. “We have had to think quite hard about how to best explain certain aspects of what we do, but there’s no substitute for picking up a pencil and trying it out yourself.”
Having used the techniques for a number of years in her own work Beehre is keen to share the secrets with others. “There is a lot of potential out there, a lot of hidden talent. It is a great time to challenge yourself to do something new and most people, once they start, realise they love the simple focus of it.”
Initially the classes were run out of Morison’s studio, but with a big project in the works she has decided to take a break and the classes have moved to the Art Box classroom (now currently in Christchurch Art Gallery's Education Room). “I think initially Julia and I were both interested in seeing what was possible, it is a very exciting thing to watch the pennies dropping and people surprising themselves. But the art classes are also these intensely focused sessions, there is something reflective and contemplative about them, and we found we had a lot of students coming for the chance to spend some time in that atmosphere.”