Term 5, Unit II Plan
For full context, see the description of my Art Home School Curriculum. If you find this post inspiring, consider leaving me a tip.
Today marks one year of writing weekly art blogs. In celebration of making it a whole year, I’m going to change things up for the next unit. Rather than spending the whole month focusing on a single topic, I’m going to study a few different topics and spread them out over each week. The goal is to emulate an art school environment where I might be enrolled in several classes in a semester working on multiple topics simultaneously.
Additionally, since I’ve now completed a year of structured training in drawing, I will be adding a painting component to each unit. I will spend 30% of my training time on painting and 70% on drawing. I’m starting with gouache because I’ve heard it’s a good transition medium between charcoal/graphite and oil. Also, being water-based, it is safer and easier to clean up. At some point I will venture into digital painting, but I feel that it is important to have some grounding in traditional materials first.
Here is my tentative schedule for the next month. I moved my time for original work to the weekend because trying to do it in the evening hasn’t been working. I’m too exhausted after my day job to think creatively and draw from imagination. I’m hoping it will be easier when I’m fresh on the weekends.
Resources
Books
- Composition of Outdoor Painting — Edgar Payne
- Composition — Cyril Pearce
- Picture This: How Pictures Work — Molly Bang
- Framed Ink — Marco Mateu-Mestre
Inspiration
- Alla Prima by Richard Schmid
Exercises
- 20 minute figure lay-ins from photos
- 5 minute head drawing warmups
- 2.5 hour head drawings in charcoal
- Black and white portraits in gouache
- Compositional thumbnails
