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Blue Ridge Mountains, by Henry Wingate
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TRADITIONAL DRAWING I
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We are at the beginning of a resurgence of traditional art. The basis of this art is drawing, and the basis of that is learning to see well. This course is about learning to see, and to draw beautifully what is seen. The created world has innumerable subjects to be drawn. A wonderful by-product of this traditional training is gaining an ability to notice more of the natural world. One’s skill at observation can be enhanced by learning to draw.
Lessons in this course cover eight topics: proportion, shape and angle, gesture, line drawing versus mass drawing, form and shadow line, edge, lost and found, and unity and breadth. Two lessons will be spent on each of these topics (and a minimum of eight drawings). Each topic will have a written description for the student to read and a video of the instructor doing a demonstration drawing. Then the student will be given the four drawings to do. The student will choose the best of these to submit for the critique. |
About the Instructor
Mr. Henry Wingate
Sample Lesson
Lesson 1
Individual Registration
Families that are already registered can enroll from their main family page.center>
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COURSE CONTENTS
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Lesson #1. Introduction
Lesson #2. Proportion
Lesson #3. Proportion
Lesson #4. Shape & Angle
Lesson #5. Shape & Angle
Lesson #6. Gesture
Lesson #7. Gesture
Lesson #8. Line vs. Mass Drawing
Lesson #9. Line vs. Mass Drawing
Lesson #10. Form & Shadow Line
Lesson #11. Form & Shadow Line
Lesson #12. Edge
Lesson #13: Edge
Lesson #14: Lost & Found
Lesson #15: Lost & Found
Lesson #16: Unity & Breadth
Lesson #17. Unity & Breadth |
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REQUIRED MATERIALS
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The materials needed for the course are:
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a drawing pad of heavy drawing paper
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several HB drawing pencils or #2 pencils
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erasers including a kneeded eraser
Additional materials that may be introduced to students with some experience and making good progress are:
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charcoal
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red-chalk pastel pencils
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softer drawing pencils (B to 6B)
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off-white drawing paper.
Some of the required drawings will be done by copying photographs provided by the instructor, some will be done by copying Old Master drawings, but the majority will be drawn from life. This will require a place in the student’s home where he or she can have a single light source on the object to be drawn. This topic of light – natural versus artificial, northern facing windows for a studio set-up -- will be covered at length in one of the lessons.
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ABOUT TRADITIONAL DRAWING
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Traditional, realistic drawing and painting can be taught. Modern art has almost completely done away with this type of training in the last 100 years. The modernist artists focus primarily on that element of art which should come last, that is, the expressive aspect. The craft or skill of drawing and painting was not focused on and, consequently, was almost lost.
There were a few individuals who kept the traditional method of art training alive during the twentieth century. One such man was Ives Gammell who was born in Rhode Island In 1893. He studied with an American artist named William Paxton who had studied in Paris under the French painter, Gerome. Gammell saw what was happening in the art world in the first half of the twentieth century and decided his life’s work would be to keep traditional art training alive. He taught aspiring artists and he wrote about the differences between Traditional and Modern Art, and he was a painter himself. In The Twilight of Painting, Gammell compares traditional and modern art. The Boston School Painters, 1900-1930 is a very good explanation of the group of American artists, all traditional painters, from whom Gammell learned this craft.
My two painting teachers both studied under Ives Gammell in the 1970’s. They both opened schools, or ateliers (the French word for a studio school), one in New England and one in Florence, Italy. I spent a total of six years with these two teachers and now am a professional painter. I have made a living as an artist for the past eleven years.
I am very pleased to be part of this tradition that goes back to the time of the Renaissance, and of course that has its link back to classical Greece and Rome. More and more young people are drawn to this rigorous, traditional training and more and more ateliers are being opened.
If you have any questions about the CLAA's Drawing course, please contact us.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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 Mr. Henry Wingate
www.henrywingate.com
Henry Wingate began his training as a painter at the age of 28, after having served six years as a pilot in the Navy. From an early age he showed an interest in drawing and would have begun his formal study of painting on finishing high school had he found a college or studio that offered training in the traditional representational art that appealed to him. At that time, in the mid 1980's, modern art seemed to be completely dominant in college art departments, and Wingate chose another route. He received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated from Annapolis with a degree in History in 1988. He went on to flight school and ended up as an F-14 pilot stationed at Oceana, Virginia, and on board the USS Kennedy.
The six years in the Navy gave Wingate something of a late start toward his real career, the one he knew he would follow after the flying was over. On leaving the Navy, he discovered that there was a small group of ateliers, or working studios, teaching painting in the representational style that he had always loved. In 1994 he moved to Boston to study with Paul Ingbretson. He spent five years in the Ingbretson atelier and then added two short stints with another teacher from the same tradition, Charles Cecil, in Florence, Italy. Both Ingbretson and Cecil studied under Ives Gammell, the teacher, writer, and painter who kept the traditional atelier method of painting instruction alive, which formed a link back to the Paris ateliers of the 19th century. Gammell had been a student of the Boston painter, William Paxton, who, in turn, had studied at the Paris atelier of Gerome.
 Now, pleased to be part of this tradition, Wingate has his studio in rural Madison, Virginia. He lives with his wife Mary and their three children in nearby Front Royal. He paints portraits, landscapes, and still-lifes, as well as larger figurative works.
Wingate has won numerous awards, including First Prize in the American Society of Portrait Artists 2000 competition, the Gold Medal of Honor at the 2003 Hudson Valley Art Association annual exhibition, and the Best Painting from Life Award of the National Oil & Acrylic Painters' Society in 2003. His work was featured in the 2006 issue of Portrait Highlights and as the cover article in the November, 2002, issue of American Artist.
Works by Henry Wingate
To view a selection of Mr. Wingate's works, we recommend that you visit his website portfolio available at: http://www.henrywingate.com/portfolio.php.
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