Before you begin your final assignment, you will learn how to draw and render inert cloth, or cloth that is resting on a surface. Although it appears different, the same principles you’ve learned so far still apply. You will use your knowledge of weight and the basic construction of drapery to draw inert cloth and take what you’ve learned from previous lessons to clearly describe the forms and structure of the fabric.

Students are encouraged to work from the NMA reference images and 3D viewer included on this page*.

Join Ukrainian-born artist Iliya Mirochnik as he passes on a 250-year-old academic method preserved at the Repin Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia and seldom taught outside of the Academy and never before on camera.

The Russian Academic drawing and painting approaches were uninterrupted by the modern art movements that transformed representational art in the West, and as a result, they provide a unique and clear lineage to the greater art traditions of the past. As a powerful approach that is both constructive and depictive, it combines the two methods that prevail in contemporary representational art.

In this series of drawing courses, we have set out to condense the entire program, spanning over eight years into a logical, step-by-step procedure. We have made improvements and added resources and exercises to explicitly drive home the concepts that are required to work in this approach.

We have also structured the course so that it is not only useful for professional and experienced artists but also artists with no drawing experience whatsoever.

In the last part of our Russian Academic Drawing Course, Iliya used plaster casts to explain the organic and important forms found in the face. In this next part, Drapery: The Russain Approach, we will delve into the different constructions of cloth, highlighting the effect that each one has.

The New Masters Academy Coaching Program directly supports this Course. If you enroll in the coaching program, you can request an artist trained in the Russian Academic Method including Iliya Mirochnik himself. Click here to enroll in the Coaching Program.

Materials

• Charcoal pencils – Conté Pierre Noire
• Vine Charcoal
• Kneaded and Gum Erasers
• Roll of Paper, Smooth Sketchbook paper
• Easel
• Light source