My students have been very busy this week learning the fundamentals of contour drawing. We have taken for our subject the ordinary shoe, and I have taken them on a brief tour of shoes in the history of art. Some of the highlights include, of course, Vincent van Gogh's many lovingly executed portraits of footwear: In addition to contour drawing the lesson included rules #1 and #2 of good composition: balancing positive and negative space and the rule of thirds. I encouraged them to "pose" their "models" in an interesting way that included some overlapping to create a sense of depth and space. Your shoes are a couple, not twins, I told them; and they don't always agree. One may see things this way while the other sees them upside down. Speculation ran wild as to why this image by Rene' Magritte bears the particular title that it does. A couple of students found it to be "creepy", but most thought it was "cool, like when Marty from 'Madagascar' couldn't decide if he was black with white stripes or white with black stripes." Score one for Surrealism. After wrapping up the project and discussing the Warhol above, everyone was ready to put their shoes back on....much Febreze had been sprayed. Stay tuned for an update on how our hand studies are coming along......
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