Website Overhaul: how to access the new pages and content!

The Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course has been recently overhauled with new diagrams and improved content. More to come soon, in particular a deep dive in the building blocks of the pose and its expressive potential! Watch this space!

Renovations!

I have been overhauling and adding to much the teaching content of my website, so hopefully you find things cleaner and simpler to access and understand.

I have also had to move to a new paywall system, which means that if you have not already done so, you will need to join the new system to access both paid and free content.

 

Access your paid content

If you are a paid member of The Form, Gesture Anatomy Course, you should have by now received an email with how to migrate to the new system for free. If this has somehow not found its way to you, please contact me!

 

Free Content

Free members can access the new free content page that consolidates the free content to one place, including the work in progress “A Guide to Figurative Composition” and “The Elements of Classical Figure Drawing” and much more!

 

This summary of the life drawing component of the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course is a useful point of contact if you’re focussed on the drawing side of the course.

 

The Simplified Écorché Kit

The kit is in stock, available with or without the plasticine clay (to save cost if you prefer to source locally)

A set of 10 modelling tools suitable for clay and polymer clay is now included with the Kit

The Simplified Écorché Kit skeleton armature is designed to work with the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Kit

Want both the FGA Course and the Kit?

GET $20 OFF the cost of the The Simplified Écorché Kit skeleton armature by purchasing the FGA Course first!

1.Sign up to the FGA Course below - choose “One Time Payment” or “Payment Plan” to access discount

2.Click on “Your Account” in the main menu at the top of the page

3.Click on “Simplified Ecorche kit discounted for FGA members” to mail order the kit

(note if you have already purchased the kit, and wish to purchase access to the online FGA Course notes, just contact me with the details you used during purchase and I’ll forward you a discount code for an equivalent amount)

 

Watch a quick video about the way the Kit and Course are designed to work together, and how this is designed to support the figure drawing compenent.

 
 

In-person FGA Course

For those in Brisbane, Australia, the next in-person Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course will begin on the 9th of March 2024. Learn more and enrol here.

If you already own the course notes and/or the kit, please contact me and I’ll give you a 10% discount on the in-person course (since the notes and kit are included in the course)

Be guided through the Form, Gesture Anatomy Course in-person in the classroom. Demos, hands on learning, and plenty of support and feedback. Accelerate your learning!

 

“The Geometry of Thirst” Graphite on paper

from the show “The Shape of the Sky” 2020

 

Happy drawing!

Last chance for 10% off FGA figure drawing course!

Do you want to fast track your skill with drawing the figure?

Working with Simplified Écorché Kit skeleton armature model allows a fun, hands on, 3D approach to learning.

Last chance to get 10% off: Early Bird Special finishes on the 4th December!

My in-person Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course starts March 9th 2024

Enrol here.

Scholarships and secondary/tertiary discounts available

 

Learning anatomy from 2D books only can be confusing…

Find out more about the origin of this course here

How I developed the process and sequence of learning activities.


 

Multiple senses are involved in the process of building the anatomy with my unique and efficient process, available as an in-person course in Brisbane or online

If you’re not in Brisbane, you can get the kit here, and do the course at www.formgestureanatomy.com

How the course works

 

Each of the images above represents one of the lessons.

I have a novel, carefully crafted series of learning exercises for working from the life model to help you apply your anatomy knowledge to drawing the figure. Find out more about the curriculum here.

Sale on the Simplified Écorché Kit for November

The Simplified Écorché Kit is 15% off until the end of November.

Get it here

Doing an écorché is by far the most efficient and fun way to come to terms with the complexities of human anatomy, and this course takes that further by offering a simplification that focusses on the essential points and forms relevant to the artist.

It uses embedded 3D models in the course notes, colour coded plasticine, and a high quality 3D printed skeleton armature to help you accelerate your learning. Check out the course notes here.

The course notes also include a series of lessons relating the anatomy content to the actual challenge of drawing the figure.

For those in Brisbane I will be delivering this course in its entirety in person using the Simplified Écorché Kit process alternating with integrated life drawing sessions.

Details and enrol here.

(Early bird special of 10% off until the 4th of December).

Scholarships available!

 

Opening this Friday: Shifting Sands, a collection of landscape paintings

My new show is opening this Friday 6th October 2023 at Lethbridge Gallery!

For those of you in SE Queensland tickets to the opening event here:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/scott-breton-opening-night-tickets-717574413387?aff=oddtdtcreator



 

Watch the video about the inspiration for the show: Carlo Sandblow near Rainbow Beach, in Queensland Australia. A beautifully made video showing how epic this place is, and a little of the process and meaning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xuyBSyz6hk

 

This video is a short interview about the show, watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMem_dgzO08

 

There will be an artist talk at Lethbridge Gallery on Friday 5th October from 6 -7:30pm

Get your ticket here:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/scott-breton-artist-talk-tickets-717563932037?aff=oddtdtcreator

 

Shifting Sands will be on display until the 17th October 2023

Lethbridge Gallery is open every day excepts Sundays and Mondays

Contact them via their website or purchase here

 

Tuition with Scott

www.scottbreton.art/tuition

New landscape show: Shifting Sands

For those in Brisbane, save the date!

Opens 6th October 5:30pm Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington, Brisbane

Tickets here


Artist talk Thursday 5th October 6 - 7:30pm

Tickets here

Lethbridge Gallery presents

Shifting Sands by Scott Breton

In conversation with gallery owner Brett Lethbridge, Scott will discuss his landscape practise and the creation process behind his new series of Rainbow Beach paintings.

Topics will include:

  • The beauty of painting en plein air

  • Altering perspectives to create greater movement and space

  • Moving from a figurative to a landscape based practise

  • Using colour and texture to heighten our sense of place and atmosphere

  • Scott's philosophy on art and creation.

Drinks and nibbles provided.

Please note, parking on Latrobe Terrace can be tricky. We recommend parking in the Paddington Central carpark just 300m down the road from the gallery.

10% off composition course ends 4th July, new stock of simplified ecorche kit

For those of you in Brisbane, the 10% off early bird special for my Figurative Composition course finishes this Tuesday 4th of July, for full details and to enrol go here:

5 Saturdays, starts 14th October 2023

 

I have a new stock of the Simplified Ecorche Kit!

It’s the enjoyable and effective way to understand the forms of the human body, use in conjunction with the extensive 3D models and instructions in the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course.

Click here to find out more and order online - shipping worldwide.

Free Composition Guide updates, New In-Person Composition course in Brisbane, I'm Judging Brisbane Rotary Art Show 2023

I’ve updated some new diagrams and info in my free access (for now) Guide to Composition page. This is content I’ve been enjoying sharing this with my Mastrius Mentorship Group (places still available) and helping them work through the activities in the online sessions. This allows clarification and constructive critiques.

 

Access the new notes and illustrations for free here.

(If you’re not already a free or paid member, you’ll just need to make a free account)



 

New In-person Composition Course Starts in October!



Following on from my experiences with mentoring composition for Mastrius.com and compiling my notes and diagrams into the guide mentioned above, I've decided to offer an in-person short course on figurative composition.  Over 5 Saturdays we will explore traditional design principles as they relate to line, tone and colour, as well as important visual phenomena such as light, atmosphere, space and even a sense of implied time. We'll look at the some of the techniques I've found most useful for arranging and executing figurative compositions, both physical and digital. We'll then work from the life model to apply these concepts and skills to making a figurative composition, in several different distinct modes: Narrative (traditional storytelling, often mythological or symbolic), Associative (think Surreal or dreamscape), Observational (visual subjects, often quite ordinary, are made magical through an intense quality of observation and annotation), and Material Expressionist (The use of physical material or their distress is central to the meaning generated). These categories are not exclusive but offer “central organising principle” around which other decisions can be made.

By the end of the course you will have experienced applying a range of approaches and skills that should help to clarify what you find most natural and fruitful for you, at least at this point in your life.

There is 10% off with an Early Bird discount until the 24th June 2023.  

 

I have been asked to judge Brisbane Rotary Art Show 2023 (entries close 27th May 2023)


I will be judging the Oil Painting and Acrylic Painting. I thought I would share here my approach to judging competitions such as this here since it relates to the issues mentioned in above in designing compositions.

Basically I try to minimise my personal bias, or at least be transparent about what I am basing my assessment on, by referring as much as possible to concrete standards:

  • The traditional design values of how harmony and contrast apply to the categories of linear, tonal and colour arrangement, to create both unity and selective focus within a picture. 

  • Visual effects, as described above: how convincingly a sense of light, atmosphere and space, and the sense of implicit storytelling (where these factors are relevant) have been applied. 

  • How the physical media has been handled and whether there is coherence in the brushwork and mark making, a suggestion of creative process - whether painterly or more delicately rendered. 

  • I consider the breaking of cliché through novel metaphor/ approach a positive quality - though I consider novelty itself only a positive where it manages to generate meaning for the audience.

  • Finally, all these factors are only relevant in so far as they speak poetically or meaningfully, and so this sense of coherence is my final standard for assessing the success of a composition - does this work speak to some aspect of the human condition, some aspect we all share as humans, as different as we are.

While it is impossible to remove my biases in this process, you can see how these type of standards provides a sense of transparency that is connected to the conservation of a certain tradition in the visual arts, that I believe still have their place today, even as the world changes in many ways.

Awards and Judges

I’ll be judging the Oil and Acrylic sections, while the wonderfully creative photographer Beth Mitchell will judge Photography and Mixed media/ Drawing sections, and Lara Cresser, a law academic and professional experienced in art competitions will be judging the final categories of Water Colour and 3D. We will jointly judge the overall winner, which offers a $10,000 prize.

So if this way of thinking resonates with you, you might like to apply for this competition or visit their social media pages

Info for Artists from the website

Brisbane Rotary Art Show on Facebook

On Instagram

My new guide to composition - free access for now

If you have ever set about composing a painting or sculpture, you might know how overwhelming the range of possibilities can be. Media, processes, subjects and design options seem nearly endless… Or on the other side, you get stuck in a rutt, not knowing what avenues to explore to vary your work more.

Over time, I have worked out some practical frameworks and models for cutting through the noise, overwhelm, and blocks. I have begun compiling my diagrams and notes into a sequence - a guide to composing. These are the things that I use myself, the ways that I think about pictorial composition and how to move from idea to execution of an original artwork.

‘

 

For now this material will remain free to access here but over time will probably be compiled into a book.

It is at an early stage at this point but I think you will find some novel thinking as well as clarifications of tried and true ideas.

 

I am including here a few of the diagrams from this project which I use when teaching workshops, as well as some newly developed for my Mastrius Mentoring sessions, where I am guiding the group through a series of compositional activities. You can still join this Mastrius group and get direct feedback as well as learn from and with other likeminded peers, join at: https://www.mastrius.com/scott-breton-mentorship/

Access my Guide to Composition here, free for now, covering the most important principles and processes I know of for the enjoyable process of visual experimentation as you weave together the threads of a satisfying composition. I will be continuing to add to this guide over time and will post here when I add new content to the page.

I also touch on some important issues around meaning making, the relationship between the discipline of life drawing and the composing of images, where the skills utlised in one arena can feedback on the other.

www.scottbreton.art/compose

For more context go to www.scottbreton.art/compose

For more context go to www.scottbreton.art/compose

For more context go to www.scottbreton.art/compose

Scholarships to my course close on Friday 17th, and an update on my online mentoring for Mastrius

Scholarships to the FGA course

Are you a full-time student, secondary or tertiary? You can apply for one of 2 scholarships to my in-person figure drawing and artistic anatomy course that is coming up. This is on top of the 25% discount for full time students already provided. Full details at: https://scottbreton.square.site/product/FormGestureAnatomycourseinperson/8

 

Options for doing the FGA course

There are still several places available in this course held over 10 Saturdays. There is a range of options to suit your interests, availability and budget:

Visit the calendar to view the content for each session starting on the 4th March, and choose which option suits you best.

 

Monthly mentoring on Mastrius.com

An example of the type of content I am focussed on in this Mastrius mentor group - ranging from working with sketches to explore and design the picture up to working methods for executing the final full size work on canvas.

Mentoring on Mastrius.com began last week, and I was very happy with how the session went and the quality of the group participants - it is a very talented, motivated and kind group.

These monthly sessions centre around the composing of pictures, looking at both working methods and technique as well as compositional design. I also give homework and offer feedback on homework and/or your work.

The platform is very good to use, and provides access to recordings from sessions, a group chat, group library, and also other videos/sessions.

Find out more about my mentoring group and join up here: at: https://www.mastrius.com/scott-breton-mentorship/

(you can still access the recording of the first session there.)







Flexible new options for the In-person Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course

For those of you in Brisbane, who wish to attend my course but can’t fit in the 10 full Saturdays to do the whole thing, I have created the following options:

For those not in Brisbane…

High quality 3D printed model that you add colour coded plasticine to in order to learn the essential artistic anatomy

If you’re not in Brisbane, you can order the The Simplified Écorché Kit here (https://scottbreton.art/early-release-skeleton-kit) ($99 USD including shipping worldwide, plasticine available separately or source locally to you)


 

Hundreds of pages of content, hundreds of diagrams, embedded 3d models, diagrams and illustrations - supports the The Simplified Écorché Kit by providing 3D models for each layer of the anatomy

Get access to the Form, Gesture Anatomy Online Book here:

https://scottbreton.art/fga-buy-options ($7USD per month (cancel any time) or $40USD one time perpetual)




For those in Brisbane, untutored long pose drawing session starts soon! (Salisbury)

Years ago I was one of the founding members of Atelier Art Classes on the south side of Brisbane. Its great to see that though I went on to other projects some time ago, the same art space has endured over a decade since founding. It continues to providing artist studios, classes, and a place to share working from the model together.

I have fond memories of doing a lot of drawing and painting studies here.

My friend Amber now runs it, and I encourage you to take a visit and do some drawing or painting at the next 4 saturdays long pose.


Here’s the information from her:

“We are re-starting the Saturday Long Pose on the 4th February 2023!

Expressions of Interest - Limited places (only 12). Please contact via hello@chromestreetstudios.com and further information will be sent, including details for payment.

Priority will be given to people who commit to a 4 week block and secure their place ahead of time.

Details

  • Long Pose over 4 consecutive weeks (4th, 11th, 18th, 25thFebruary)

  • 1.30 - 4.30pm on Saturdays

  • $120 prepaid for the 4 week block and priority placement

  • Only 12 pre-paid priority places available

  • $40 for casual session attendance slotting in amongst the regular attendees

  • Curated setting with a nude model

  • Opportunities exist for regular attendees to curate future sessions and direct poses

  • Untutored

  • Tea and Coffee provided in the break

I'm really excited to be bringing this back and look forward to having you in the studio!


Chrome Street Studios
2b, 9 Chrome Street, Salisbury

Warm regards, Amber”


It’s a luxury to be able to work from the model for such a sustained session, so if you’re in Brisbane I encourage you to try it out!

If you need somewhere to get started in your drawing or are not in Brisbane, a free overview of the ten session life course I teach is available at www.scottbreton.art/lifeclassfree

 

Don’t forget my anatomy kit is available for mail order here:

https://scottbreton.art/early-release-skeleton-kit

Artistic anatomy is critical... and hard - is there a better way? (and heads up Brisbane!)

Pictured above: Have you ever waded through anatomy books trying to work out what the heck is going on? These are some of my favourite artistic anatomy books but even so the process is grueling! (Bridgman, Bammes, Richer, Goldfinger, Raynes, Vanderpoel)

Years ago, when I was wading through artistic anatomy in order to draw the figure better, I found myself repeatedly confused as I flipped through a half dozen anatomy books, unable to see around the corner where the muscle finished or why it made the beautiful shape it did.

But I continued the grind, drawing the model from life, and working my way through parts of the body with mysterious lumps and bumps, trying to understand… I dug through books when there was some part of the figure that I could not translate into a simple series of lines - the real test of knowledge.

 

Pictured above: A wooden écorché (Spellati in Italian) by Ercole Lelli at the Anatomical Theatre at the University of Bologna

Eventually I found myself sculpting a skeleton and placing muscles over the top, just to make sense of all this overwhelming detail. This was before I knew about the tradition of making a écorché (a sculpted figure without skin) - it just seemed to me like the only way I would ever get to grips with it...


After teaching figure drawing and artistic anatomy to many people since then, I still think this is the only way to really do so. Literally “come to grips” with the subject because the hands on process of sculpting the shape of each muscle mass or group, seeing how they wrap around each other and are attached to the skeleton helps you to understand in a tactile way that goes beyond words or even pictures.

But even the traditional écorché has it’s challenges as a learning tool, in my opinion:

  • Detailed écorché classes can last for a very long time and be quite expensive, and in my opinion can sometimes over do the detail such that the overall patterns are lost in the mesh of dozens of extensors and flexors… we lose the wood for the trees.


  • I have also found that when students sculpt a skeleton, even small errors can make the proportions of the final figure look drastically wrong, which prevents the subtle changes to proportion that would bring it to life.


  • Making a symetrical pose, as is often done in écorché courses, doesn’t show the difference between, for example, a bent and a straight arm or the two sides of the body during a contapposto (weight on one hip) pose.


  • Finally, how does this relate to the actual aim of the exercise, which is to draw the figure better? I need to be able to integrate this knowledge into my drawing process in a way that makes for more powerfully convincing and alive figures rather than being largely irrelevant. Or worse yet, makes my figure more stilted, and mechanical.

To solve these problems I gradually developed a robust 3D printed skeleton model, industrially printed, correctly proportioned and posed to offer anatomical variety eg a bent and a straight arm, a pronated and a supinated forearm. I have organised the muscles into groups and colour coded them so that they can be added one by one in oil clay (plasticine) or drawn / traced over a figure. My aim was to include only those masses we are likely to distinguish in the living figure - for example I mass the flexors of the forearm into one unit, so that they are visible against the extensors and pronators, and certain bony landmarks since this is mostly what we actually see in real life.

Pictured above: my answer to the issues mentioned above

In order to overcome the problem of working with flat images I have made have made a sequence of 3D rotatable models embedded in my online notes that are the primary reference for the course.

Click the play button (and go full screen if you like) and then you can rotate and zoom in and out this example model.



Finally, the process of doing the écorché alternates with exercises in life drawing that relate in a range ways to the anatomical content, and we apply our growing anatomical knowledge to making more fluid, 3D and convincing figures.

Pictured above: The course alternates between the exercises in life drawing above and sessions doing the Simplified Ecorche such that we can relate one to the other. For instance, key bony landmarks of the torso are explained through the ecorche and become the basis for drawing approaches, and then practising these approaches helps to develop understanding of the anatomy further by studying it in the living subject. Click to see the overview of the life drawing curriculum.

 

Of course, you don’t need to use my online materials or my Simplified Écorché Kit to achieve this - there are other good anatomical models available, both digital (eg rotateable ipad apps) and physical. You would learn a lot by taking note of the issues above, and building your own skeleton onto a simple armature at about 1/4 life size. What I have done is to integrate it all in one place and provide a logical sequence so you don’t have to work all that out while you are meanwhile wrestling with the anatomy itself.

 

If you would like to order the kit or find out more go here: https://scottbreton.art/early-release-skeleton-kit

If you would like the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course online book (with the rotatable 3D models of each stage of the anatomy course) plus my full life drawing curriculum with videos, hundreds of diagrams and illustrations go here: https://scottbreton.art/full-basic-ecorche-and-gestural-life-drawing-course

 

If you are in Brisbane, I will be delivering this full course starting 4th of March 2023 at the Royal Queensland Art Society studio on Petrie Terrace, you can enrol here: https://scottbreton.square.site/product/FormGestureAnatomycourseinperson/8

Use the code “earlybird” at check out for $120 off until the 29th of January.

Mentoring on Mastrius from the 8th Feb 2023!

Since I began pursuing art seriously I have made an awful lot of mistakes.

Many of these mistakes could have been avoided or corrected earlier if I had of had a mentor in my corner providing feedback and advice that took into account my aims, my strengths and my weaknesses.

That’s why I’m beginning to work with Mastrius.com to mentor an 8 person group, beginning 8th February

The process for executing this painting (Threads, 2022, 60x60cm) involved sketching in pastel pencil on a toned acrylic gesso ground, locking this in place with a transparent gesso, sanding this smoother, then approximating the background in order to provide context for painting the figure.

While I will be happy to talk about whatever topics group members are interested in, I believe that the main thing I can offer is guidance in the process of crafting imaginative images. Essentially this means the contemporary tools that can be used to do what the renaissance masters were doing, including idea generation, sketches, studies, 3D modelling, working with life models, and execution of the physical painting in oils on canvas or panel. All these practical steps contribute to the generation of an image with a feeling of luminosity, three-dimensionality and space, vital force and movement, focal points and compositional design.

This painting (The Abyss Stares Back, Oil on linen, 180x189cm, 2022) went through multiple iterations of sketches, working with models, composing with 3D software, studying horse anatomy, and finally executing on the full size canvas, where things were still being worked out. Note how the reflection of the main figure was not inserted until later, when this idea evolved.

If you would like to be part of this group, there are only 8 places available, and you can be with me for as long or short a period as you like.

Find out more and register through:

https://www.mastrius.com/scott-breton-mentorship/


Brisbane life drawing show Friday 16th Sept 2022 6:30pm

Apart from teaching figure drawing, each week I draw at two or more untutored life drawing sessions where a group of professional artists and enthusiasts share the cost of hiring the artist’s model. This coming Friday the 16th September, I will be taking part in a small show with Brisbane Institute of Art Life Drawing group:

Drawing media is coloured pencil on bristol paper toned with diluted chinese drawing ink, about 40 minutes, model: Carmen

I love the dynamic of the model offering their energy through poses, like a dancer improvising on stage. A model who is inspired and knows how to use their body to suggest gesture and more subtle psychological qualities can be completely mesmerising.

Pastel and pastel pencil on smooth paper, 10 minute drawing, model: Cedar

As an artist, it is a relief to be able to simply respond, rather than always leading the poses for compositional purposes. It gives the chance to just think about what I am doing with my drawing - the emphasis, how the medium feels, and simply being focussed on how to simplify the magic of the human form and gesture into intuitively felt marks, to make something alive and 3D on a flat surface out of basic materials.

Pastel and pastel pencil on smooth paper, 5 minute drawings, model: Cedar

If you are practising figure drawing, I really recommend you find a place near you to practise your drawing - this is quite popular in Australia and there are sessions at affordable rates in most of the major cities I’ve visited around the world. (Please note: I don’t have any problem with photography as a reference when used as such, but if you don’t work from life, which is to say in the same room with a living, breathing person as subject, you are missing out on a range of important factors - spatial depth is profoundly more tangible, and you get tuned into the subtle shifts in the body. Even the fact that a model from life will not be perfectly still can help to cultivate the sense of “building a figure with reference to the subject” rather than copying the figure in a more passive way.)

Pastel and pastel pencil on smooth paper, 10 minute drawing, model: Cedar

If you’re looking for guidance in how to approach drawing in a productive way, check out my summary page for my life class here or the chart of drills I made recently summarising the same content (there’s a zoom function at top right, best to view on a computer rather than a phone)

Drawing to Painting: process for my painting "Threads" (now on show at NERAM)

This painting is currently on show at NERAM (New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, Australia) with the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine curated exhibition “Interconnected” there. On until the 26th of June, details here: https://www.neram.com.au/event/interconnected/

If you are interested in purchasing my work please do so via this link https://store.beautifulbizarre.net/product/scott-breton/ .

As always I very much appreciate your support of my practice!

If you’re in the neighbourhood, the show really is worth a visit: the Interconnected show is full of amazing artwork by Australian artists, the 2021 Archibald is also on show in the museum in the adjacent room, and there is an excellent collection of late 19th / early 20th century Australian works in another room, which includes Streeton, both Nora and Hans Heysen, several Elioth Gruner, Tom Roberts, Norman Lindsay and even an exellent piece by Julian Ashton.

Below you will find a series of images showing the process I used to make the painting.

Process - underdrawing

The way that I work now generally begins with drawing in pastel pencil or charcoal on a warm toned ground, with several layers of gesso applied to smooth the weave of the canvas and make it more organic (I don’t like the mechanical quality of canvas, and even the more subtle and organic weave of Linen can be a bit too insistent under the thinner sections of oil paint).

Pastel pencil sticks well, wiping off less easily than charcoal, and allowing a degree of cross contouring and rendering to develop form and rhythms, though sometimes the transient quality of charcoal is desirable.

I use the line to feel out where to push the drawing, emphasising elements of the gesture, stretching or compressing.

Process - Fresco/19th century style area-by-area painting

In this case you can see I have simply begun by generally creating a colour context for the figure with a rough background, which allows a fairly direct painting of the figure part by part, a process favoured in the 19th century and also necessarily utilised with fresco painting (which demands finishing an area at a time because one must paint onto plaster laid that morning). I don’t always work this way, sometimes focussing more in terms of tonal impressionism and establish broad general areas rather than thinking primarily about drawing. But this approach suits me because the emphases/exaggerations of the drawing, as well as the rhythms of masses, are the framework out of which the colours and tones will be derived, and provides a guide for the directional application of paint.

In the end, rhythmic, gestural and spatial qualities emphasised/distorted in line point always to composition, to the idea of meaningful integration - with this supported by the texture, colour and physicality of sculpture or painting.

I’ll be writing a separate blog soon about how the emphases that are done during drawing can imply both the interiority of the subject and the artist, and how the sequential caligraphy of marks can transmit this information, stay tuned!

In person class Brisbane:

If you are in Brisbane and wish to do the class with me, which breaks down my drawing process and provides a series of drills to develop each of the elements in your own drawing, you can add your email to be notified when term 3 dates are announced: https://scottbreton.art/notify-me-classical-life-class

Curriculum summary:

https://scottbreton.art/lifeclass

Online Book version of the course:

My online book about drawing can be found here: https://scottbreton.art/full-basic-ecorche-and-gestural-life-drawing-course

Life Drawings, One spot remains for Class, Beautiful Bizarre curated exhibition

Term 2 Life Class

Starts Thursday 26th May, 6:30-9pm, RQAS. 10 sessions in course (Brisbane, Australia)

Just one spot remains! Book in here www.scottbreton.art/book

(Online version of course here.)

Life model: Mark

3B Graphite block on smooth paper

I want to provide 3 key things in this class:

  1. Enjoyment and support : It can be a scary learning to draw or putting yourself out there in a class. I am doing my best to make class both supportive, comfortable and even fun, despite the challenges in drawing.

  2. Practical : I don’t hold back on giving the best drills and deep feedback I can because I want to empower people to take their drawing to the next level. I’m not providing “Paint and sip” here.

  3. Poetic : What are we doing this for if not to be able to tap into the sense of inspiration, wonder or collaborative expression to be found in working from the life model. The course is designed around the idea of providing tools that will slowly but surely lead to the development of a deep personal aesthetic (not superficial techniques). There is no short cut in drawing, but there are plenty of long-cuts!

Life model: Marie

Graphite block and progresso solid graphite pencil (both 3B) on smooth paper

For more information about what I am teaching go to:

www.scottbreton.art/lifeclass

In the drawings shown I am using a 3B block of solid graphite mainly, on a smooth paper that allows a broad soft mark that can be handled in a somewhat caligraphic way. The pencil is used for refining edges.

There is also one drawing in pale shades of pastel picked out with a dark brown (sepia) pastel pencil which allows even softerd marks.

The use of a “calligraphic mark” is discussed in Lesson 7 of the life class (the online version is www.formgestureanatomy.com)

Life model: Cedar

Graphite block and progresso pencil

Chelsea and Lauren

Pastel and pastel pencil

Mark

Graphite block and pencil

Mark

Graphite block and pencil

Cedar

Graphite block and pencil

“Interconnected”

Beautiful Bizarre Magazine Curated Exhibition

70 artists from around Australia

Now on at NERAM, Armidale, Australia

https://www.neram.com.au/event/interconnected/

https://beautifulbizarre.net/2022/05/06/beautiful-bizarre-exhibition-interconnected/

I even managed to get onto some of the posters!

(“Threads” Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 cm)

Met some wonderful artists at the opening last Friday.

For sales enquiries after the opening reception please contact office@neram.com.au. Payment plans are available.

see the painting process on Instagram here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcmYyOzPuOm/



 

Other exhibits at NERAM right now:

The 2021 Archibald is on display in an adjacent room, and a wonderful collection of early 20th century Australian paintings from their collection including Streeton, Tom Roberts, Nora and Hans Heysens, Elioth Gruner and Norman Lindsay.


Don’t forget! The new stocks of the skeleton kit for use with the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course are now available for shipping worldwide!

Poem: Broken Tree, Bay of Fires (and sketches from location)

Started 2021 during a hiking trip to the Bay of Fires, north east coast of Tasmania

Broken tree, Bay of Fires


And the sea-spray-fine foliage 

bends to the wind,

outcasts driven from the city gate,

refugees huddling across the slope.


And one wiry little trunk reaches up 

in shamanic weirdness,

stripped of most of your leaves,

a madman guide from the other side of drifting sand.

Perfectly half-broken.


Serene as a bonzai, curled like burning paper

with your calm, salt-maddened smile.

Wrapped in shuffling sand, wandering your bending verge 

where two worlds clash.


Vast and savage she reclaims her borders,

again and again and again,

demonically beautiful

clothed in soft painted foam

and grey glare,

hiding her depth under a frenzy of wine-dark horses, 

neck-arched sea-spray manes,

cupped and jostled in the sea wind.


Beside you, a granite boulder, 

shouldered over, bruised by time,

and painted in flames of lichen.

But inside, dark and steady, 

and dense with volcanic memories,

holds and holds and holds and holds

while civilisations rise and fade like days.


Old tree, 

I hear your hermit whisper,

your tales of becoming the energy of oceans in your bent and proud

little holding.  

You grin and tell me that until the final storm you will keep your shifting garden.


Fierce and strange and alive,

exiled from Athens,

stoned by its citizens 

(yet in the night they wonder about your dangerous freedom)

eyes squinted to the wind.

She has beaten you into a knot of strange will, 

a woody vortex made of stinging sand and shrill winds, 

the terrible horizon fused into your broken little branches,

vast arms that welcome her like a lost child.

 
 
 

Further south, Spiky Beach is an extraordinary spot on the coastal highway. I’d like to go back there to begin some serious work…

 
 

Early release - new Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course kit

I am up to the 5th iteration of the model skeleton that goes with the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course. 15 early release copies available!


To find out more about the new versions, and to order, go here:

https://scottbreton.art/early-release-skeleton-kit

There you can watch this video to see the new iterations that I have recently received from manufacturers, and an explanation of how it works.

I now have two versions of the 5th iteration of kit - one in 4 parts and one in 6 parts. I have some of each that you can order (at the same page)

There is coloured clay also to go with the kit, though of course you might prefer to source this locally - the clay itself is not so expensive while the cost of shipping has increased.


I highly recommend you sign up for the course notes, either as a one time $40 USD perpetual access or $7 per month so that you can keep access for only as long as you need it.

Some new life drawings, how I use studies for paintings, and Brisbane in-person Classical Life Class second term, with a new curriculum summary/ philosophy page

[Not seeing images? Go to www.scottbreton.art/blog to view web version]

Term 2 of my Classical Life Class starts on the 26th May 2022! Brisbane, Australia

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced drawer, this 10 session, in-person course will offer you drills to train and deepen each of the aspects critical to classical drawing. I’ve poured my heart into this, and got amazing results for my students. We break the complexity apart and then put it all back together in a way that is sure to increase your intuitive capacity for seeing and drawing the figure powerfully and sensitively.

It is supported by the extensive online notes and videos of my Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course, which matches the sequence of study. See the curriculum life class summary page for the life class and drawing content of the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course.

Each class involves a live demo for the class and then one on one tuition as the class is working from the model.

We will cover: three dimensionality, artistic anatomy, accuracy and strategy, rhythm and gesture and rendering (shading), as well as more esoteric and subtle factors in drawing the figure beautifully.

Read the “Philosophy, Practise and Practicalities” essay

https://scottbreton.art/lifeclass#philosophy

Studies for paintings in progress

I have learned over time that for the main figures in paintings, it is critical that I have studies such as the ones you see here to guide me when I am developing the painting. This is partly practical because it allows the gestural theme and sub-themes of the figure to be developed and many of the problems to be solved. It is also a psychological support: there is nearly always an excitement/optimism at the start of a painting that is followed by a period of chaos and discouragement, prior to the resolution forming - by having a solid drawing that I feel good about, I can refer back to this to keep me going through this inevitable chaos/discouragement period.