Two Day Holiday Course | Drawing from the National Gallery

Overview

We will make drawn transcriptions from masterpieces by artists such as Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Giovanni di Paolo in the Early Renaissance tradition, and from the visionary paintings of El Greco and his contemporaries, including Diego Velázquez and Zurbarán in the Spanish Enlightenment. Drawing directly from the classical tradition has always been the bedrock of art education, enabling us to understand the technical and emotional legacy of some of the greatest creative minds. The National Gallery has an extraordinarily efficient and comprehensive website which offers a detailed overview of each room and all individual works on display in the highest definition. Rather than rushing through rooms, each day will be devoted to the deep study of key works, approached through discussion and the act of drawing using multiple approaches and techniques. Working through guided exercises, you will discover how drawing activates a different type of attention. What you draw, you remember; composition, structure, and colour emerge with new clarity, and ideas unfold in unexpected ways.