ANDRE DE BEER WORKSHOP, CREATIVE FIGURE DRAWING

On the 16th october we had a wonderful day with Andre de Beer.
He is a very well known South African artist whose work is of a very high standard, and he loves to depict people in his paintings. His drawing skill is fantastic and his caricatures are very entertaining.
We were very privileged to have him come and share some of his knowledge with us. He also brought several paintings and books of sketches and his fantastic caricatures of the Bulls.
Andre started off by saying "open your eyes". Look around you and draw what you see. use pens and always carry around paper. Pencils encourage you to erase. By using pens you begin to put down what you see the first time. Sketch, sketch and sketch some more Where ever you go and where ever you are look around and sketch.
You can draw anything from plants, trees, dogs, cats, people, buildings etc. Also take you camera and take photos of street scenes, restaurants,the shopping malls, sporting events etc.
Draw all the time and develop your own style. Choose the accent line and put that down first then work in the rest, See something in your mind- how he is bending his elbows or his knees .
We drew a man taking the size of the head and working with that size to create the body of the man. The head goes into the body 8 times. From the top of the head to the chin- 1, from chin to breast-2 from breast to waist-3, from waist to crutch-4, from crutch halfway to knee-5, from halfway down the leg to just below knee-6, and from below the knee to halfway down shin-7 and from halfway down shin to under the foot is 8. This is a good measurement although is slightly different in some people. Children have different sizes to measure with and babies have bigger heads. A babies head measurement is used 4 times when about one year old.
We then drew stick figures showing movement and then filled it in. We did several running, bending, walking etc. We drew faces side and front view.
He also helped us see movement by showing us how he moved. Andre walked around to all of us and gave out help and encouragement.
Andre gave advice by saying we must use our whole are to draw not just your fingers. He also told us to draw all the time, using pitt pencils, pens and charcoal. Do Not Erase.
We all enjoyed it. he is an inspiring teacher and we produced so really exciting and good results. He invited us to come and visit his studio and gallery. I look forward to that sometime next year.
As usual there were great eats to be enjoyed by all. During the lunch break we had our branch AGM.

Dont forget that our next meeting is on the 20th November. We are all meeting and going over to Norscot manor. This will be an exciting and very interesting meeting. hope to see you all there.