Figure Drawing for Teens

Life drawing helps teens to connect with the world around them in a very focused way.

This workshop is a combination of SSA’s Cast Drawing, Linear-Perspective-1 and Figure-Drawing-1 classes. It offers 14 to 19 year olds in the Hudson Valley area a unique opportunity to hone their figure drawing skills. The 4-session workshops are based on the classical atelier approach. The goals of the workshops include being present to the process of observing/drawing, creating accurate drawings of the clothed human figure from direct observation, and producing well-conceived figurative drawings from imagination.

Figure Drawing is an excellent way to help teens in terms of both inner development and career readiness.

Life drawing as a practice helps people of all ages to look more carefully, and more slowly, at the world around us.

In her recent Business Insider article, Jean Twenge touches on some the unique emotional challenges faced by teens today. In particular, she looks at the “sudden ascendance of the smartphone” in the lives of teens. She goes on to suggest that “interacting with people face to face is one of the deepest wellsprings of human happiness”.

The SSA’s Figure Drawing for Teens workshops provide a healthy alternative to our high tech world, by creating an environment where young people can directly interact with one another, with what they are drawing and, most importantly, with themselves.

In the 2006 exhibit titled Slow Painting: A Deliberate Renaissance Lloyd Nick, Director of the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, noted that the exhibition of realist drawings and paintings “was born as a reaction to the super-technological age, against the ‘beauty of speed’ and out of a deliberate desire and need for slow art. As Robert Hughes expressed it, ‘art that … makes … you think and feel; art … that doesn’t get its message across in ten seconds … that hooks into something deep-running in our nature.’ ”

According to CollegeSimply.com’s 2016 statistics for the Rhode Island School of Design, only “902 out of 2,425 applicants, or 37%, were admitted, making RISD a more competitive school to get into with a lesser chance of acceptance for average applicants.” Clara Lieu, Professor at RISD, ecourages applicants to develop a portfolio that highlights “work from direct observation”.

In the article titled How to get a job at Pixar Studios, the advice offered by Andrew Gordon, the Directing Animator at Pixar, is “Firstly, build a really strong foundation of traditional art . . . it helps in the design of poses, in the staging of shots, etc.”

For more information contact Alex Canelos at (845) 255-7612, or through the Contact page.