Monday Evening Class Report

Last night I had the opportunity to participate in Michael Klein's Training Your Memory from the Figure course and right now my brain is still recuperating. Michael’s thorough depiction of the anatomy from memory is overwhelming and thrilling all at the same time. The evening started promptly at 6:30 with an intriguing demo uncommon to these school walls. After the model took his pose Michael asked all of us to simply observe the model for a full five minutes. When the timer went off, the model left the stand and Michael proceeded to sketch the gesture and main masses of the figure. It felt very much like a class that bridges the gap between Renaissance and French academic drawing.

Michael's demo started with five minutes of observation. Like a conductor, he moved his hands in the air rehearsing the movement and the angles his hands will later make when drawing on paper. 

Drawing from memory by Michael Klein

After the demo we set up our boards at our easels and began the process. We worked in increments of five minutes of observation and then ten minutes of drawing for the remaining class time. During observation times, we weren’t allowed to make any notes on the paper. While we were drawing, Michael would critique our work and demo on individual’s pages. With his expert knowledge of anatomy he emphasized understanding the underlying structure beneath surface forms.  I felt a little bit like a mechanic, taking something apart and putting it back together again. Monday evenings with Michael offers students the opportunity to understand anatomy and how it works together with the figure in pose. It’s not just about having memorized the muscles of the figure or just the tilts and angles but knowing how to put it all together and be able to move those forms around in space. Next week students will enjoy a Painting the Figure from Memory demo. Members of the CGA community are invited to attend.

Student drawings from memory. Here you can see an emphasis is placed on structural thinking and 3-dimentional gesture lines.

Join us next Monday, September 16th, at 6:30 p.m. sharp for another thirty-minute demo, this time Michael Klein will focus on painting the figure from memory.  Demo Open to the GCA community.  Class that follows only for enrolled students. To attend the demo, please rsvp at gcaclasses@gmail.com.