Black Book Practices: Introduction to Action Drawing

 Registration is closed for this event

April 8th, 2015 6:30 PM

  • Instructor: Will Cloughley
  • Workshop Type: Arts
  • Workshop Status: Closed
  • Workshop Start: April 8th, 2015 6:30 PM
  • Workshop End: April 15th, 2015 9:30 PM
  • Sessions: 2

Dionysus says beware of creeping elegance, don’t be afraid to lose yourself and make a mess; Apollo says let’s sort this mess out and make it into something meaningful, harmonious, orderly.  In Book of You—Part Two we will be guided by the voices of both of these ancient Greek gods that in balance resulted in the profundity of their highest art forms.  We will engage exercises in drawing and writing that call for freeform spontaneous dancing on the page with brush markers while listening to music, allowing your somatic intelligence (the beautiful wild animal in you) to guide your hand much as it does your whole body on the dance floor.  Then you  approach the energetic chaos of your marks with a calm Apollonian eye and you begin to make out forms—faces, bodies, animals, abstract structures—that you can bring forth from these marks in a calmer approach to modifying what has been laid down by consciously adding elements.  Then with calligraphy pens you will  spontaneously write words and phrases suggested by the drawing into free negative spaces.  These words collected, become the beginnings of a story or a poem.  In our second session we will explore doodling (look at some Zentangles) and bleed-troughs onto the back side of the page as prompts for drawings much as Leonardo DaVinci looked for inspiration in ink stains.  It’s all about your mind’s gestalt-forming ability as the most powerful artistic tool you posses.

Skills Gained After Completing this Course:

--Learning the power of loosened-up approaches to drawing and writing in the initial phase with a more critical, deliberately honed follow-up to craft polished gems from the initial raw energy.

--Learning to exercise the creative gestalt as an essential part of art making and personal exploration.

--Acquiring confidence about doodling and exploratory creative writing as a creative activity like jazz improvisation.

--Use of frottage technique, outlining, and working with Prismacolor pencils.


Materials to Bring: 

1)      A color co-ordinated group of at least three Tombo brand brush tip markers (Flax $2.50ea or set of 10 for $21.95) for fast drawing to music.

2)      A selection of PrismaColor colored pencils.

3)      One General’s Sketching Pencil (wide carpenter’s style graphite pencil available at Flax) good for frottage.

4)      At least one Itoya Doubleheader Calligraphy pen (in black or color co-ordinated with the Tombo brushes).

5)      An ink writing pen (felt tip or metal nib)

6)      A few colored Sharpie markers for bleed-through exercises.

7)     One 8 ½” x 11” Black Sketchbook.

Workshops + Materials fee: $120.00

Date & Time: Wednesdays, April 8 & 15, 2015 | 6:30pm-9:30pm

Location: 375 Rhode Island Street San Francisco, CA 94103

Note: Please review the SFCB Registration Policies before signing up for a class

REGISTRATION WILL CLOSE 3 DAYS PRIOR TO THE START DATE OF THIS WORKSHOP.


About the Instructor | Will Cloughley

Will Cloughley is a San Francisco based fine artist, philosophical essayist, poet and lightshow producer, whose work encompasses drawing, mixed media, animation,photography and versions of the graphic novel. For the past several years Cloughley has concentrated exclusively on fine art works on paper and the hand-crafted artist's book, bringing to maturity his visual language and vision in a tactile medium. A sketchbook journal is always by his side or with him in his backpack; he can often be spotted writing and drawing in the black books at his favorite San Francisco coffee houses, or out at solitary industrial landscapes being reclaimed by nature.