In this part of the Russian Academic Drawing Course, we take everything we’ve learned about light and shadow and apply it to an organic element, figuring out where to establish our major changes in plane. In this lesson, we will be using a plaster cast to analyze and render the forms of the ear.

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 this next part, How to Draw from Plaster Casts, we will use our understanding of the technique to explore casts of the organic forms of the face.

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

• Graphite pencils
• Kneaded and Hard Erasers
• Roll of Paper, Smooth Sketchbook paper
• Easel
• Light source