Thursday, July 10, 2008

Robert Beverly Hale and the Masters



Last year I spent some time looking at Robert Beverly Hale's book Drawing Lessons from the Masters. Above is a piece I did after Norman Rockwell during my studies in the Hale book.

Here are those posts.

A few thoughts that still stick with me:
  • drawing takes practice (he constantly uses phrases like "hundreds of times" when referring to doing exercises)
  • artists don't draw what they see, they draw what they want you to see
One of my favorite quotes from the book:
"You must realize there is no royal road to drawing. It is practice, practice all the way. So get your pad of paper and start drawing simple lines. You will find it very hard to make a really straight line, and harder to make a vertical than a horizontal. Try drawing a perfect circle. Draw a few thousand and they will get perceptibly better. Above all, don't get discouraged. It is said that only the divine Raphael reached circular perfection." (Hale, p. 14--15)

3 comments:

Teresa said...

Hi Rose,

Such an informative post... thank you! Does this mean you're back?

Rose Welty said...

Glad you liked the post. I'm still "on break", but I am checking in now and then! I'll be back in another week or so!

The break has been good for me though, I'm getting desperate for a post.

Valerie Jones said...

I liked the quote!