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Charles Bargue Drawing course
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Message
Posted
Davey, that is impressive, I do admire your ability and drive, this course must be tiring, on times, with the effort and time you put into it. Well done.
Gudrun, don't give up on the oil pastels, they take some getting used to, I use them now and again. There's not much literature in the way of instructional book, but trial and error
will get you a good image, no doubt. It was suggested to use a solvent, tried it but never again.
This is one (using oil pastels) I entered the van Gough comp with, a representation of his empty chair and that of, his so called friend, Gauguin.
These are the benches we used when visiting my brother at a hospice. These too are a symbolic gesture of loss.
Keep at it Gudrun, you'll get there :)
Sorry to butt in Davey. Over and out :)
Keep at it Gudrun, you'll get there :)
Sorry to butt in Davey. Over and out :)
Edited
by carol
Posted
Just as a matter of interest - the young US painter Brandon Shaeffer is a devotee of the Bargue drawing course; he has a drawing on Instagram, and Facebook, to which I would link if I hadn't dozily lost the post. (May be Sheaffer rather than Shaeffer, if you want to look for him.) He usually paints in oils, and is mostly into landscape, but the Brague drawing was of a foot - you might find it helpful to take a look and compare - your work is coming along very well, and I don't think you'd be disappointed by any comparison.
I echo Carol's sentiments - I admire your commitment to the course, and you've demonstrated its benefits; juggling this and work must be exacting but, I hope, satisfying.
Edited
by RobertJones
Posted
Got to pay the model, pay for the space - factor in a bit for the advertising: £65 doesn't seem bad for an afternoon, nor £200 for a two day: which isn't to say I'd spend it, you understand.
Yes, having looked I find there's an incredible number of Brandon Sheaffers - who would have thought such a name would be common? Jones I can understand.... I will endeavour to find a link to the lad I mean. If visual identification helps, he's long and rangy, with a beard.
Bargue Plate 56 in charcoal and pencil.
It seems to me that mechanical pencil is the best way to get a hard and thin line, so there's no reason not to use that for the lines and use the charcoal for the shading. 
Posted
Quite right of course, you can load yourself up with stuff you don't need and won't use - but I have a couple of clutch pencils, one a Faber Castell (gifted to me by a certain watercolourist of our common acquaintance) and a Staedtler Mars Technico, which I actually bought for myself, together with their special sharpener. Wouldn't be without either of them now. You can't have too many pencils - I have cigar boxes full of them (sadly bereft of cigars) collected over many years. Sympathetic though I am to the point that you can't possibly try every single thing on the art market, with a bit of discrimination you can build up a formidable array of tools to meet just about any occasion - I think avoid the gimmicks is good advice, and of course learn to distinguish them from the useful. So, I could have bought 'trace-down paper', but didn't - given I can transfer drawings much more easily by traditional methods - torchons and so on, which are very easy to make for yourself - special tools for scratching into paint, when all you really need is a bit of twig or cocktail stick or the wrong end of a paint-brush (or a thumb nail), view finders, when all you need are two hands, greyscale devices, which I've never found of the slightest use, but maybe some have, Claude mirrors which a) you can make for yourself, and b) I find fairly useless, light boxes which just inhibit you from learning how to draw, brush-holders and driers which you can make for yourself (see Syd Edward's cunning handiwork), Mahl sticks, which you can certainly make for yourself (although I admit, I'd rather like a really posh one with joints and brass and chamois leather, rather than my stick of bamboo with a bit of cotton wool and sponge on top, wrapped in a bit of old pyjama fabric and secured with a shoe-lace).
If you can afford these things when you've got everything else you need - fine. I have been known to splurge on a few luxuries. But you can do so much with very basic equipment, good brushes, good paint, good surfaces: and those things come first. Camera obscura comes later...
Posted
Brandon Schaefer is the fellow Bargue devotee to whom I referred the other day - both of my alternative spellings were wrong.
I have been massively busy with other things, and procrastinating a bit... 5 pages left to fill in the sketch book so I am getting near the end of these but I have the most difficult ones to come still in the form of the Belvadere Torso.
Posted
You seem to be making splendid progress. The drawings look great. A side benefit for me has been picking up on the pencils used, and the comments made by you and others. The lumographs are excellent, I shall continue to use them. I just got a Pentel mechanical pencil today. What a pleasure to buy something so cheap (£4), that's so well made, and a delight to use. Look forward to seeing your next drawings.