Drawing Lessons from Art History

This first lesson will cover Danny’s influences on looseness, rhythm, and appeal. He will discuss various Pontormo works as well as a variety of animation drawings that helped to shape his voice as an artist. At the end, Danny will assign an exercise to help you put the ideas he discussed into practice.

Learn Danny’s design and tonal influences. He will begin with an analysis of Ivor Hele, Robert Riggs, and his own work, followed by several toned paper demonstrations. At the end, Danny will assign an exercise to help you put the ideas he discussed into practice.

Learn Danny’s inspirations when it comes to exaggeration of figures and creating a three-dimensional quality. He will begin with an analysis of artists such as Paul Cadmus and Reginald Marsh, as well as of his own work, followed by several demonstrations. At the end, Danny will assign an exercise to help you put the ideas he discussed into practice.

Danny analyzes the work of Venetian Master Jacopo Tintoretto. He will begin with a draw-over analysis, identifying key characteristics in Tintoretto’s work. He then puts pencil to paper to further illustrate these stylistic elements. Following that, he analyzes the work of American painter Thomas Hart Benton and his use of silhouette and simultaneous contrast in his paintings, murals, and lithographs. Danny urges you to glean techniques from the masters just as Benton did with Tintoretto as you solidify your personal artistic style.

Danny does an analytical study of a costumed-figure drawing by the master Jacopo Pontormo. You will begin by laying in the figure with light, loose and long lines while checking your alignments and proportions. Then you will proceed to develop the head, torso, arms and hip area, as well as the forms, folds and underlying structure.

Danny analyzes and breaks down a drawing on toned-paper by the master Anthony Van-Dyck. First you will see how to block in the basic rhythms and flows throughout the figure and how to get a good lay-in. Then you will begin to build upon your initial line-work with the form and structure by working across the figure and relating both sides.

In this final lesson, Danny executes an analytical study of Michelangelo’s drawing technique used in his famous study of the Lybian Sibyl. First you will see how to block-in the rhythm, anatomical landmarks and structure, followed by how to develop the subtle forms with a hatched-line technique.