Russian Drawing Course Part 20: Cast of the Eye

[New Masters Academy]

In this part of the Russian Academic Drawing Course, we take everything we’ve learned about light and shadow and apply it to an organic element, figuring out where to establish our major changes in plane. In this lesson, we will be using a plaster cast to analyze and render the forms of the eye.

Students are encouraged to work from the NMA reference images and 3D viewer included on this page*.

Join Ukrainian-born artist Iliya Mirochnik as he passes on a 250-year-old academic method preserved at the Repin Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia and seldom taught outside of the Academy and never before on camera.

The Russian Academic drawing and painting approaches were uninterrupted by the modern art movements that transformed representational art in the West, and as a result, they provide a unique and clear lineage to the greater art traditions of the past. As a powerful approach that is both constructive and depictive, it combines the two methods that prevail in contemporary representational art.

In this series of drawing courses, we have set out to condense the entire program, spanning over eight years into a logical, step-by-step procedure. We have made improvements and added resources and exercises to explicitly drive home the concepts that are required to work in this approach.

We have also structured the course so that it is not only useful for professional and experienced artists but also artists with no drawing experience whatsoever.

In the last part of our Russian Academic Drawing Course, Iliya brought together the knowledge we learned about Anatomy in order to complete a fully rendered figure drawing. In this next part, Casts of the Face, you use your understanding of the technique to explore these important and organic forms.

The New Masters Academy Coaching Program directly supports this Course. If you enroll in the coaching program, you can request an artist trained in the Russian Academic Method including Iliya Mirochnik himself. Click here to enroll in the Coaching Program.

Materials

• Graphite pencils
• Kneaded and Hard Erasers
• Roll of Paper, Smooth Sketchbook paper
• Easel
• Light source

* Reference material is only available for premium subscriptions. If you don’t have premium access to the reference, you can pause the video when the reference is shown.

[noselves]

Plaster Cast Drawing of the Eye

[erased_1637791157]

The camera cuts were way too much for a tutorial. I really wanted to draw along with him as he explained things. Other than that, i think it’s a great lesson and i benefited from it.

[Daniel Daigle]

Thank you for the feed back David. Do you think it be better to have progress pictures that you could reference, or to simply keep the camera on the drawing when the instructor steps back?

[Stig-Arthur Thesen]

I agree with David John. The camera cuts makes it very difficult to draw along with him and I find this very frustrating. I notice that all the recent add-ons to the russian drawing course is the same way. The camera keeps going back and forth between the drawing and the reference and Iliya as he explaines,  and at times you’ll only get a few seconds on the drawing before the angle changes again. In the original russian drawing course the camera does not change, but is kept on the drawing and the reference at all times. My opinion is that this is a much better solution and is my prefered choice by far. The other courses on nma that I have gone through also keeps the camera angel on the drawing at all times, so it’s sort of hard to understand why this is suddenly changing in this particular course. I think Iliyas courses are great, so I really hope this can be fixed:)

 

 

[Nathan Senevirathne]

I am sorry, I found changes of camera view is so annoying. I just want to draw with you but you keep changing the view from one to other. I am sure viewer finds very hard to concentrate and compare reference image with what you are doing.

Following is the best angle because it allows us to refer the image while you are drawing. But you keep changing the view.

I got to tell you that your course is very good and you are doing a great job. This is one of the most important lessons but it is too hard to follow because of this issue. Just wanted to give you a feedback hoping it will help you to improve. I am sorry for criticising. I wish you could re-edit this video and upload it to the system (I guess you have the video of this camera).

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Nathan, we hear your criticism and appreciate your feed back. Our goal is to make content that works best for the students. I have forwarded your feed back to our team so that we can move in a direction that will benefit all students.

[Daniel Daigle]

Hello again Nathan, I wanted to let you know that I just received confirmation that we are reediting this course. This will take some time, but we are working on it!

[Sheean Hanlan]

I’m taking Ilya’s Russian academic course, and I’m having a hard time figuring out how to accurately measure proportions from master copy photos using this method. Does anyone have any step by step insights?

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Sheean, It should be the same process that you would use for measuring real life objects. Give yourself enough distance to measure accurately and consistently. It will also help to print out the reference or have it in a vertical position. For figures, I would focus on boney landmarks first, and triangulate their positions.

[Tianze ZHANG]

Who can tell me all the BGMs in this series. They’re all awesome and different from other tutorials’ BGM, maybe because this is Russian, creating a sort of tense mood. I really need them!!!

[Jennifer Strauchmeier]

Hello everyone. I am a real beginner at drawing. I know my drawing Looks different but i am still proud of it. I‘m pretty sure i could have kept refining a lot more but i felt myself getting tired of this drawing. I‘m Open for critique 🙂

edit: for some reason I am not able to post a picture here. Can someone please help?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Jennifer Strauchmeier.

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Jennifer, we are working to resolve this ASAP

[Will Setchell]

I have to say, this is the hardest section so far for me. Previous experience helped with the earlier parts but the main issue I’ve had is seeing the planes in the photo – I’d imagine its easier in real life.

 

The camera cuts haven’t bothered me so much as I’m not interested in copying along with Ilya- I prefer to watch a section or whole lesson, take notes then try to make the analysis. I’m also fairly sure the angle he sees the cast from is subtly different from the photo meaning copying is even less valuable.  And if the point is to learn the process of analysing planes and defining forms based on that, then I hope I’m taking the right approach.

 

I’ll try up upload a photo when I finish – it’s been a few weeks of sporadic work so far and I’m only starting to move into refining small details.

[Will Setchell]

Can’t figure out how to edit, so a new post it is.

 

I decided to call it on this one. A very tough but valuable lesson that I had to restart after a failed first attempt and took multiple rewatching of Iliya’s demo. I think I’ll come back to this once I complete the course, if only out of a sense of perfectionism – I had a lot of issues around the placement of elements in the lower lid on the shadow side and I’m sure some other parts of the drawing are wrong as well, though I tried to let that go a bit otherwise I could have kept fiddling for weeks.

 

 

So yes, an imperfect attempt but hopefully it will help others trying this exercise, if only to show what not to do!

[Author]

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