Best art courses to improve my drawing and illustration?

November 21, 2010 5:43 PM

What art college/course would you recommend to improve my drawing and illustration skills? I need something quite intensive.

I want to learn specifically about capturing character, body language and facial expression through anatomical studies and drawing clothed models so that I can eventually draw confidently from my imagination. I also want to improve my understanding of perspective, composition, narrative, colour and lighting in the context of illustrating an idea, and doing all this using digital and painting mediums like watercolour, brush and ink.

I am from London, and am currently doing 11 hours of life drawing a week here, and have several drawing/illustration books to help me practice but I want some instructed guidance and do some full time drawing to speed up my progress.

My current plan is to spend 90 days in New York doing 3 evening illustration CE courses at the School of Visual Arts, and 2 full-time weekday courses at the Art Students League, averaging about 6-9 hours a day of drawing. I will probably come back and do another 90 days as the visa waiver program prohibits me from staying any longer.

But before I make this financial leap, I would really appreciate any advice on what courses you guys could recommend that offer the above, and is not crazy expensive! It doesn't have to be in the US, but just english speaking. Has anyone had experience doing short courses at the School of Visual Arts, Art Students League, or with conceptart.org?

Thanks so much for reading this!

posted by mushuu to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Can't recommend any specific courses, since its been many years since I took classes there, but have you investigated the New York Academy of Art Graduate School of Figurative Art?
posted by blaneyphoto at 5:50 PM on November 21, 2010

Best answer: Classes at Art Students League have practically no instructed guidance at all. For the full-time classes, instructors are typically only in class for 2 out of 5 days, and during those two days, they must split their time among all the students in the class. It's not what I would recommend, unless you find an exceptional teacher (Costa Vavagiakis is fantastic). If money is not a major issue, I would look at NY Academy as mentioned above (Costa also teaches at NY Academy.) Instructors at NY Academy tend to focus on rigorous, classical methods from which you can really learn a great deal. Other options to look into are Water Street Atellier and Grand Central Academy. Good luck.
posted by thegreatfleecircus at 6:49 PM on November 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Be sure to check out the life drawing sessions at the Society of Illustrators. Great stuff. There's also Dr. Sketchy's--I've heard good things.

Also, bring a sketchbook on the subway and draw the other passengers.
posted by the_blizz at 10:24 PM on November 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

More life drawing is important but you also need to build your own imaginary anatomy model and develop the mental mechanisms that allow you to manipulated it. The best book for this is Die Gestalt des Menchen by Gottfried Bammes.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:50 AM on November 22, 2010