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Charles Bargue Drawing course
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Posted
To some this will have no interest, if so please feel free to keep your thoughts to yourself. For others though I will take the trouble to document my journey through the Charles Bargue drawing course explaining what it comprises of and presenting my work which I am happy to have critiqued (though I will feel critique of the subject matter an impudence)
The course came out in the 1860's to teach classical drawing in France as part of a 5 year course... it was divided into 3 sections which comprised of drawing from plaster casts (since they remain static and being colourless allow accurate estimation of light/dark values) followed by a study of masters paintings. Only after the completion of these sections did they move onto drawing from life. Van Gogh worked his way through this course multiple times and Piccasso was known to copy the Bargue plates.
It was designed to be done in charcoal, though the beginner (like myself) is advised to work in pencil (I will possibly revisit in charcoal later on) and it is said to train the eye in numerous ways including the simplification of curves into straight lines, and judgement of relationships of the different elements etc.
The book was assembled from the only complete set of images held by the Victoria and Albert Museum and a few others contributed from other museums and at the back offers a list of his other known work which seems to be very rare with about 50 survivors known.
Images in this thread are for non-profit and educational purposes, no copyright infringement intended and if they are of use I encourage others to purchase the book which seems to have been a project of passion for the author who is primarily an art historian but underwent atelier training in order to be able to understand and write the accompanying text to the Bargue images.
I have a 600 page sketchbook on order and a bigger sketchbook already here, as I understand it I will be requiring blown up photocopies of the images in the book in order to work from (and draw directly onto) some of them will require lots of drawing and redrawing so the paper needs to be able to stand up to this (which will remain to be seen) and currently I am just reading the notes on how to approach the drawings.
A few images of Bargues work for example...
. Edited
by Daveyboyz
Posted
Thank you David.
I guess I will get out about as much as I put in... but the course teaches good practice and trains the eye in judgement and correction fusing "sight-size" methods (so that when drawing from life your image on the canvas appears to be the same size as the subject in front of you and comparison can be accurately made.)
I don't necessarily require to be that good either but I certainly need to move in that direction as I wish, one day, to be able to work quickly without aids both from memory and from life with the result something accurate.
Posted
Admire your dedication to improving your drawing through these traditional methods - I was very badly taught how to draw, by an ex-Flight Sergeant at school who was about as artistic as my old hamster who used to decorate her little house by sticking her choc-drops to the walls. I've spent years un-learning the methods he taught, and wish we'd had this resource.
I'll take a closer look and see what I can find out.
Posted
The book seems good value (less than £40 on ebay as paperback) but since it will require many pages to be blown up I guess that adds to the cost... yes there are plate images available online but the only complete set was in the Victoria and Albert (197 plates I think) A search of instagram throws up 4500 images (mainly students attempts at copying them) and if you need any of them particularly I could sent you a photo (if this is high enough quality for you to print out perhaps that would be of use.
Robert if you are going to admire my dedication it would probably be best to judge it after I have exerted myself a bit... it always remains to be seen if I stay the course, I am very much an all or nothing kind of guy and its entirely possible I will wake up one morning and think "this isn't for me" but I very much hope that day doesn't come until I have made some progress.
Edited
by Daveyboyz
Posted
It seems to me that whatever you want to do with your art, a sensible starting point is to learn the basics...and the most basic must surely be drawing. I'd not heard of this artist, but I like the examples shown - especially the drawing of the child. I'm not a big fan of academic art, but I do admire the skills involved. My 'method' has been to draw as much as I could, a bit hit and miss, I'd have been better served by doing a course. So David is doing the right thing...good luck with it.
Posted
The Harold Speed book is also available for a free download (The Practice and Science of Drawing) and is highly spoken of, I have that one downloaded (and would have made a note of where from should I have known it would come up) but haven't looked through it yet.
Today I probably wont draw anything, I will try to get to an art shop for some bits and pieces and get the first 10 or so plates blown up and printed if I can.
Posted
Yesterday I picked up a putty rubber (will apparently be useful for lightening overly dark shading etc) and I had the first ten plates from the Bargue book blown up to A3 size in Pronta-print at a cost of roughly 50pence a copy (so the whole course will cost approx £130 to get through if I do every image)
There is some debate whether a ruler should be used or not, some saying it is important to be able to draw straight lines freehand and others saying it is hard enough to be precise even with a ruler so better to use every advantage possible. I have decided to chose the middle ground, I will use rulers for schema in order that my judgement and measurements are taken from a true point but for the actual images I will not use aids.
I have ordered some knitting needles and some tracing paper... having just completed the first drawing of plate one where I was holding pencil to the image to plot the distances of intersecting lines ect I was putting dots on the image by accident, use of a skewer or cotton is advised to measure distances and to check measurements by placing the thumb at the relevant place while holding tip to the schema lines.
The easel should be vertical and images to appear side by side, flicking eyes from image to image should make one aware of any differences though for good comparison I have ordered tracing paper (so I can trace the original and place it over my rendering to see if it is accurate.)
I have simply clipped my papers to a canvas board in the absence of an easel or space to leave things permanently set in place...
I am using an H4 pencil which gives naturally a thinner line than the charcoal image I am drawing so I have to estimate line thickness too and am not surprised at the considerable time that can be spent on such a simple image.
There is some debate whether a ruler should be used or not, some saying it is important to be able to draw straight lines freehand and others saying it is hard enough to be precise even with a ruler so better to use every advantage possible. I have decided to chose the middle ground, I will use rulers for schema in order that my judgement and measurements are taken from a true point but for the actual images I will not use aids.
I have ordered some knitting needles and some tracing paper... having just completed the first drawing of plate one where I was holding pencil to the image to plot the distances of intersecting lines ect I was putting dots on the image by accident, use of a skewer or cotton is advised to measure distances and to check measurements by placing the thumb at the relevant place while holding tip to the schema lines.
The easel should be vertical and images to appear side by side, flicking eyes from image to image should make one aware of any differences though for good comparison I have ordered tracing paper (so I can trace the original and place it over my rendering to see if it is accurate.)
I have simply clipped my papers to a canvas board in the absence of an easel or space to leave things permanently set in place...
I am using an H4 pencil which gives naturally a thinner line than the charcoal image I am drawing so I have to estimate line thickness too and am not surprised at the considerable time that can be spent on such a simple image. 
Posted
Daveyboyz, can you explain why you want knitting needles and tracing paper.
When measuring a subject- for botanical accuracy- I use a technical compass, hope this helps.
I will be asking my nephew, who is attending an art college in London to have a look at this thread, and hope it will be of use to him.
I see nothing wrong with a little self- help alongside his course work.
You seem to be making good headway.
Posted
The first plate is done, each of the examples took 15-20 minutes (the first couple a bit longer maybe) and side by side I think I can see a couple of small errors. The tracing paper is ordered in order that these can be analysed properly by tracing the image on the left and laying the paper on top of my own I will be able to see exactly which line is out of alignment.
It may appear unclear why not just judge and copy by eye (since the aim to be able to draw by eye better) but there are two suggested techniques, either cotton pulled between the hands to measure of the use of a skewer (which is why I ordered knitting needles) it is suggested that points are measured by placing the point to the schema and using thumb to measure distances, I was using a pencil like this which occasionally left unwanted marks.
Bargue was clever in the design of these plates in quite a subtle way. As they are progressed through you are confronted by problems that you have been prepared to solve by previous exercises Presently I am no wiser and might be wondering what copying this first plate has taught me, it isn't clear at all, and this technique of measuring seems a useful trick (since it can be applied to 2d or 3d objects) but I am assured that by the end of the course it will have trained my eye to see such things as where lines would intersect and comparative distances without going through the physical procedure of measuring.... I guess only time will tell.
This is hard work though, draining of concentration and time consuming, I don't think I will be rushing through it but rather will be trying to chip away at it over the long haul and possibly interspersing it with my own fancies - I have another book coming which teaches in a completely different fashion, more to do with how to construct anatomy with construction lines, gestural approaches etc so I will probably be flipping between the two.
In music I have always though you become the sum of your influences and if you do just one thing you turn out a clone, by integrating different things you form your own style and I guess the same if true for art which is why I am keen to try multiple approaches.