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• Intro to Drawing

  • Start
    April 22, 2025
  •  
    12:30 PM (PDT)
  • End
    June 10, 2025
  •  
    2:30 PM (PDT)
  • Location
    3614 SE Division, Portland, OR
  • Spaces left
    0

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  This 8 session, two hour class meets Tuesday mid-day, 12:30-2:30pm, from April 22, 2025, through June 10, 2025. 
  
  For absolute beginners. This class is also great for experienced drawers who don’t love to draw, or haven't drawn in a while, or want to loosen up or open up their drawing. Emphasis is placed equally on seeing and expression, description and the pleasure of making. Exercises break down students’ preconceptions about how drawings come about, so that drawing becomes a matter of truly human scale exploration and experimentation, rather than the product of giant leaps of talent or inspiration.

  All students who are new to Phil's teaching should start with this class, even if experienced. I've had exhibiting artists with MFAs take this class and say that it wasn't like anything they had previously done and that it really helped their work.

  
  Materials: Please bring the following materials to the first class meeting and wear clothes you don't mind getting charcoal on:
  
  two 4b or 6b graphite sticks (rectangular shape, not pencil shape)
  
  one white vinyl eraser
  
  two soft charcoal pencils
  
  one soft charcoal pencil with peel off wrapping
  
  six to twelve sticks of compressed charcoal (Alphacolor Char-Kole if the store has it)
  
  Paper, drawing boards, clips, drawing horses and easels will be provided by the studio.

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• Intermediate Drawing/Painting, The Figure

  • Start
    April 26, 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM (PDT)
  • End
    June 14, 2025
  •  
    1:00 PM (PDT)
  • Location
    3614 SE Division, Portland, OR
  • Spaces left
    0

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  This 8 session, three hour class meets Saturday mornings 10am-1pm from April 26, 2025, through June 14, 2025. All first time Drawing Studio students, no matter how experienced, must take Intro to Drawing at The Drawing Studio before taking this class.
  

  This class is for intermediate level drawers and painters who want to work primarily from the figure. I will typically give exercises during the first hour to help students loosen up and to encourage experimentation. Students will then run their own show during hours 2 and 3, though I will continue discussing process issues through the whole class. There will be figure models nearly every session.

  Students who want to paint but are new to painting should take the Winter Term Intro to Painting class rather than this class. Students who have never taken any of Phil's classes should first take the Intro Drawing class even if experienced. I have had exhibiting artists with MFAs take the Intro class and say that they have never done anything like it and that it really helped their work. 

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• 3.5 Day Intro 2 Intensive

  • Start
    June 26, 2025
  •  
    6:30 PM (PDT)
  • End
    June 29, 2025
  •  
    5:00 PM (PDT)
  • Location
    The Drawing Studio, 3614 SE Division, Portland, Oregon
  • Spaces left
    20

  Register

  This workshop will present most of the content of Phil Sylvester's 8 week Intro 2 class in a three and one half day workshop format. The workshop is only open to students who have already taken Intro to Drawing from Phil or Sarah at The Drawing Studio.  

  Class will concentrate on things that Phil would add to Intro if it were a much longer class. We'll do more figure sessions, we'll do sessions where we do studies from other artists' work, we'll do more practice sessions where students get to experiment to find what works best for them as individuals, and we'll spend more time exploring risky, screwball approaches to drawing. Students will have a chance to slow down a bit and go more deeply into issues that we kind of rush through in Intro. Also, this class will make the transition to Intermediate classes a bit less of a jump.

  Class will meet Thursday evening June 26 through Sunday afternoon June 29. Thursday the 26th, we'll meet in the evening from 6:30-8:30pm. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we will have 2, two-hour drawing sessions each day, the first from 10:30am-12:30 and the second from 3-5pm. Over the 3.5 days, students will be able to take an intensive version of Intro 2 that only requires taking one day off work.

  Students who are new to Phil's teaching should wait until Fall Term to enroll in the Intro 1 class, even if experienced. For those of you who are experienced, I've never had an experienced student feel that Intro 1 was redundant and all have remarked that the class really helped their work and their process.

  
  

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