If you’ve been following along from the beginning, way back on January 1, you’ll realize that memory drawing is work. It’s not especially difficult, but it is work and boring and . . . Nonetheless, the payoff is great, assuming that you remain diligent. Don’t fret, after six months or so your memory will have markedly improved and the exercises will become less formalized.
Like the last two weeks, we are staying with value-memory for this week’s exercise. Next week we’ll combine shape and value to keep things interesting. For now, these five-square sets ought to challenge you a bit. Don’t forget to alternate between impression and analysis.
Be aware that your printer may not be up to the task of printing some of the subtle variations between some of the squares. If that is the case, you could either use the images directly from your screen or create your own squares out of construction paper. If you do the latter, be sure to use squares with values that are close to each other, rather than highly contrasted.
The basic instructions for these value-memory exercises are here, in week nine.
If you’re new to all this, begin here first.
Earlier in the series I hinted that I was planning on releasing a book this Spring, about memory drawing. Well, we’re on track and it ought to be available within a month. Rest assured that once we have an active Amazon link, I’ll post it on this blog. The ISBN is 978-0980045444.
In the meantime, below is the cover mockup, back/front.
Darren R. Rousar studied privately with Richard Lack and attended Atelier LeSueur, both in Minnesota, as well as Studio Cecil-Graves in Florence, Italy. He was the assistant director and an instructor at Charles Cecil Studios in Florence, after which he became vice president of The Minnesota River School of Fine Art in Burnsville. He has been a professional artist for more than 20 years, focusing mainly on Christian themes. Darren is currently an art teacher, technology coordinator/coach at Providence Academy in Plymouth, MN. He is the author of three books, Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach and Cast Painting Using the Sight-Size Approach and Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall as well as the producer of a companion DVD, Sight-Size and the Art of Seeing. Through his company, Velatura Press, he republished an expanded edition of E.G. Lutz's 1921 book, Drawing Made Easy and edited a combined reprint of Asher B. Durand's 1855 Letters on Landscape Painting with Birge Harrison's 1910 Landscape Painting.
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See If You Can Help
Clearly, sight is very important to all of us. But not everyone sees clearly and not everyone can afford eye care and glasses.
Books and DVD
Memory Drawing teaches you how to visually perceive and accurately recall those perceptions.
Landscape Painting by Asher B. Durand and Birge Harrison, together in print for the first time.
Sight-Size is a way of seeing and comparing nature to your artwork from a given distance. The books and DVD shown below explain it in detail.
Children and young adults can learn constructive drawing through Velatura Press' reprint of E.G. Lutz's 1921 classic, Drawing Made Easy.
