Future figures: digital iPad painting and life drawing
Two-day practical workshop
11 February 2017 10.30am - 5.30pm12 February 2017 10.30am - 5.30pm
The Life Room, RA Schools, Piccadilly
£420. Includes all materials, lunch and wine reception at the end of the second day.
Terms and conditions
The RA Schools' Head of Fine Art Processes and renowned figurative artist Mark Hampson leads this specialist digital workshop. Explore the possibilities of electronic drawing and painting using Apple’s iPad Pro and Apple Pencil technologies in conjunction with photographic and traditional analogue methodologies.
"Anyone who likes drawing and mark-making will like to explore new media. Picasso would have gone mad with this (iPad). So would Van Gogh. I don’t know an artist who wouldn’t actually.’’
"Until I saw my drawings replayed on an iPad, I’d never seen myself draw.”
David Hockney RA
“….It’s a new medium and it's here to stay’’
Richard Benefield, Deputy Director of the de Young Museum, San Francisco
At the formation of the RA schools in 1769, life drawing and oil painting were the central activities that dominated artists’ thinking. Their prominence dictated artistic production and greatly influenced fine art education, and they were held in high regard as the skills essential to the practise of all artists. If we fast-forward almost 250 years we recognise that artists now have an astonishing plethora of choices in the available mediums, forms, and approaches they can explore, yet drawing and painting still retain vitality and relevance for contemporary artists and their audiences.
Emerging developments in new technologies have both challenged and enhanced our collective ability to create art using painting and drawing-based approaches. Pixels and electronic light have become just as crucial in the arsenal of a contemporary artist’s thinking as oil paint, charcoal and graphite had been to previous generations.
This course will focus on the latest development and emerging possibilities in the recently launched iPad Pro with its touchscreen drawing tablet and the innovative Apple Pencil. These technologies have opened up new opportunities for artists and illustrators to draw digitally and with a more nuanced touch, sensitivity, dexterity and creative flow than had ever been thought possible before. Using this technology, artists can now alter the weight, scale and density of their line and brushwork in ways that more successfully emulate the feeling of their direct physical counterparts.
Painting and drawing introduces and develops essential skills in meditative analysis, focused discipline and acute observation, while also promoting playful experiment, hand-to-eye co-ordination and expressive gesture.
In translating these core skills and approaches via modern technology we continue to embrace these essential skills, whilst further developing an understanding of how technology can extend and enhance the possibilities of image manipulation, hybrid fusing of approach and appropriation, and contemporary image-sharing and distribution.
This event also takes place on 6-7 May 2017.
About the course
Taking place in the historic Life Room within the contemporary setting of the RA Schools, this specialist weekend course covers all aspects of figure drawing and digital painting with this exciting new technology, from initial sketching towards fully realised layered compositions and timed animation recordings. It will introduce creative approaches to screen-based image construction including layering techniques, mark-making, digital colour painting and image manipulation, working directly onto touchscreen tablets from and inspired by, the tradition of the nude model.
The course will explain how to develop skills using digital technology that combines approaches in drawing, painting and photography. It introduces techniques in layering, image manipulation, filter effects, digital pencil work, colour palette choices, image selection, saving and sharing. In doing so it embraces traditional artistic skills such as observation, line work, tonal and colour shading, spatial awareness, related anatomy and image creation that merges analogue, digital and photographic sources. Participants will work predominantly with the iPad Pro and digital pencil technology in combination with some comparative paper-based substrates from both male and female models and still-life set-ups.
This course is suitable for enthusiastic and curious beginners and also those with previous experience of drawing (not necessarily iPad drawing) who wish to further develop their understanding of digital applications and new digital pencil technology.
This course is for you if:
• You are curious to learn how to approach digital drawing from the model in a creative and supportive professional environment using IPad technology, or wish to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the implications of digital drawing and painting.
• You want to explore digital approaches that are informed by both a rich historical context and also a contemporary art school experience delivered by a sympathetic specialist tutor.
• You would enjoy the thrill of spending time experimenting with the possibilities of these recently developed cutting-edge digital art techniques and would appreciate an intense insight into the various applications and outcomes available.
Minimum age 18
The number of participants is strictly limited to enable detailed feedback from the course tutor.
£420
Saturday 11 – Sunday 12 February 2017
10.30am – 5.30pm on both days
Includes:
• An introduction to the Academy with special reference to works in both the RA Schools and Academy’s Library and Archive, focusing on approaches to drawing, painting and printmaking in relation to digital art
• An introduction to creative image production using iPad Pro and digital pencil technologies
• All practical materials and loan of iPad pro and Apple Pencils for the duration of the course
• Access to professional life models
• Lunch and refreshments on both days
• A drinks reception at the end of the second day
• A certificate of participation upon course completion
About the tutor - Mark Hampson
Painter and print-maker Mark Hampson has held over 40 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 200 international group exhibitions. His work has been seen throughout Europe, Asia and the United States at museums, galleries and in-site responsive installations. Recently these have included the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, the William Morris Gallery in London and the Kunst Museum in Vienna.
In 2012 the RA hosted his solo exhibition, Almost Real Art following his two-year artist residency in the RA Collections and Library. Drawing, the figure, narrative and humour are all crucial and constant aspects of his art, leading him to be described as a ‘Contemporary Hogarthian Conceptualist’.
In addition to his professional career as an artist, he has had a prolific teaching career that has embraced the teaching of drawing, printmaking, sculpture, painting, graphics, illustration and fashion. As part of this he served as senior tutor in printmaking for 14 years at the Royal College of Art, before joining as Head of Fine Art Processes, running the sculpture, printmaking and digital media areas within the Royal Academy Schools in 2013. In 2007 he was made a senior fellow of the RCA.
His work is represented in numerous private and public collections including the V&A Museum, the Arts Council of Great Britain, Hyundai Arts Collection, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Krakow Museum and the Osaka Prefectural Government collection.
Mark has worked with digital technologies in printmaking and textile production as an integral aspect of his studio practice for 20 years. In 2015 he led the first ever iPad Pro life drawing class as an event for Apple at the RA Schools. A historic moment for both organisations.
About the space
The Life Room
The Academy’s historic Life Room is nestled deep in the heart of the RA Schools. This unique and significant space was designed in the 1860s when the galleries and schools were first constructed; purpose-built to accommodate the study of the human form in art.
The semi-circular seating arrangement is based on an ancient design and can trace its British history back to the 1730s and Hogarth’s Academy in St Martin’s Lane. The directional light is also of ancient design and is used (then as now) to aid the delineation of the figure’s musculature – significantly enhancing the use and study of colour and light in art.
Our courses and classes programme
Our programme of short courses and classes offers the opportunity to explore a range of subjects, led by expert tutors and practising artists.