Student Gallery:
Luca Indraccolo
Sally Furest
Alain Bressan

Student figure work:
Sharn Whitehead
Sean Garztecki
Luca Indraccolo
Caroline Armstrong

1st Prize for Best Drawing -Big Phil - Student Luca Indraccolo

Painting colour study

The grissaile palette consists of a white, Ivory Black, and Raw Umber. It removes the complications of mixing colour and allows the student a less steep learning curve during the transition from drawing to painting. The combination of Raw Umber and Ivory Black in varying amounts allows for a very slight manipulation of chroma and hue in order to introduce the concept of temperature contrasts in a painting.

Charcoal Study - James Napier

With the assistance of tutors, attention is paid to posing and lighting the model, establishing a composition and mood, and achieving a convincing depiction of the likeness and character of the sitter. Students are expected to make preparatory studies to explore their ideas before beginning a full-scale project. It is the aim of the program to not only develop the student’s observational powers and technical ability, but also to enable them to apply critical thinking when realising their intentions.

Lacoon – Luke Hassler
Canova’s death mask – Helen Frost

St Benedicto by Jamie Coreth - White Chalk

Beethoven – Ken Sharp
Eye David – Luke Hassler
St Benedicto – Alain Bressan
Canova death mask – Sharn Whitehead

The remaining three hours are devoted to a series of studio assign- ments, that begin with the initial cast drawing exercises, and lead on to developing accomplished finished painting by the end of the curriculum.

Figure Drawing

Figure drawing is the basis of all good draftsmanship, and for this reason, drawing from life is the foundation of LARA’s curriculum. The course focuses on various distinct elements of drawing the figure from life, initially through the simple use of outline to focus the student’s mind in achieving accuracy and excellent construction. The emphasis then shifts to working with masses and outline, then on to full value drawings in which every aspect of drawing the figure is tackled.

Pencil Figure Drawing

Students initially focus on developing a competent outline drawing, and understand the foundations of a good figure drawing, such as sound proportions, a lively gesture, and strong construc- tion. The skills learned at this level are carried forward to every part of the curriculum.

Charcoal Figure Drawing

Charcoal introduces the student to working in masses with a broad range of values, allowing them to make a highly naturalistc impression of the figure. It also provides a  ing; here edges, shapes and accurately translated values play as important a role as they do in figure drawing.

Cast drawing

The white surface of a cast allows the the student to study and translate forms without the complexities of local value and texture. This is the point in the program in which the eye is most intensively conditioned and trained to see and translate nature with incredible accuracy, as well as instilling a deep understanding of the mechanics of light and value. Great emphasis is placed on the design of shapes and edges. Students make an initial two value block-in drawing of a simple cast to familiarise themselves with working in sight-size, before moving into full value charcoal draw- ings, in which capturing a convincing impression of light plays a major role.

Painting

Painting is the natural continuation of the mass drawing training of the first with the addition of colour.

Working from both the model and still life, students complete a series of exercises that cover colour mixing, paint application, to achieve textures and atmosphere in painting. Using a limited pal- ette of 5 colours enables the student to keep focused on tone, temperature, mark making, and painterly qualities – those aspects that can ultimately separate a painting from a photograph – which have less to do with absolute colour than with overall mood. Students learn to appreciate the impression, the whole statement of values that belong to the specific scene they are painting, wether it be a figure, still life,or a portrait. The complicated problems of representing nature are solved by understanding the form as a combination of shapes with specific colour values, each relating to the whole. Preliminary colour studies are executed before the main work is attempted, to better understand the broad effect and flow of light. A general colour ‘block-in’ or ‘ebauche’ is developed into a work that retains unity and a strong sense of drawing – econ- omy of detail and broadness of effect being stressed.

Typically a painting project begins with a studied drawing in which the accurate proportion and placement of the big masses are established. This is then transferred to canvas and the drawing can be developed from a number of different angles, for instance with an initial monochromatic underpainting, or a simplified colour block in. Regardless of the specific method, a direct treatment is encouraged, striving toward a sense of the whole, where each individual component is assigned its proper importance in relation to the whole effect. All throughout the figure painting program lesson learned in previous drawing exercises are sustained: accuracy, proportion, capturing a lively and believable gesture, conveying a sense of anatomy, and designing a believable value scheme that describes the effect of light, are key.

Advanced projects in the drawing program allow a natural pro- gression into working with oil paint. Students initially begin with a grisaille palette to familiarize themselves with the medium and the problems of accurate value mixing and paint handling. They soon progress into working with the traditional limited colour palette, enabling an accurate and convincing colour impression, marrying a strong sense of drawing with the principals of direct painting.