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There is a great tradition in art to use landscape along with the figure. Many great masters used landscape to add to a story, give the figure context, or to add a whimsical muse. This life drawing will incorporate this, plus it is a great excuse to get outside to draw.
Here is the skinny:
Drawing or painting must be done somewhere outside form observation, it can be a landscape, a street scene, outdoor café scene, at the beach, ocean, in your back yard, garden, where ever you want.
Have at least one person in the drawing/painting, they can be clothed or not, they can be real people such as your friends/wife/husband etc... or just random people who are in the area at that time. you could also add a figure to the scene form a photo, just keep in mind that the light source in the environment and that of the figure should be the same in the drawing!
You could do a bunch of quicker drawings, or a sketch book journal of places you do outside, or you could do one (or more) formal (complete) piece of art. Letting this up to you
Otherwise it is open in style, feel, mood etc...
Things to think about:
If you are drawing people at a café or on the street, remember people move a lot so start with quick sketches and then fill in the detail as time permits, or just do an impression of the person. Abstraction and simplification is ok.
Sometimes it is nice to add movement to the drawing say if some ones hand moves, draw it in several places (this is how cubism was started by drawing different views)
You might also want to look at several different artist and how they delt with landscape and figures, I would look at Monet, van Gogh, Diebinkorn (sp), or Rembrandt van Rijn just to name a few.
Think about a them or story, use mythology, of an old Biblical store, or just something that comes out of you, to add to it (this might be nice even in the quick drawings)
One last thing, I love to draw in public, but it can be really intimidating also, just relax and enjoy. It is a good way to have people see your work. I say this form expereance, many people hate when others are doing things out of the norm and must come up to you and see what you are doing, meet many friends this way.
lets draw, Douglas Pexa
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