This bootcamp style workshop will focus on building your technical abilities in line, proportion, space and tone when drawing. Various approaches to drawing will be covered and the classes will involve demonstrations and practical exercises designed to build knowledge and confidence. The classes will expand your drawing knowledge in all areas and build skills for future practice. The workshop begin will Nicolas Bruce Plowman in a two hour session life drawing before moving onto the second session with Adam Cusack.

What to bring:

• Various drawing pencils that you already have
• Conte pencil 3B soft
• Compressed rubbing stumps

ABOUT THE FACILITATORS:

Nicolas Bruce Plowman

This Life drawing session will address linear and tonal approaches to life drawing and will involve demonstrations and practical exercises designed to build knowledge and confidence drawing the figure.

Nic Plowman’s remarkable visual articulation has been widely acknowledged and he has been a finalist in many prestigious art prizes, including The Doug Moran Portrait Prize and twice in The Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. Other noted achievements include: Finalist in the 2015 Hurford Hardwood Portrait prize, the Duke Prize and the Sunshine Coast Art Prize for three consecutive years. He was also a finalist in the international London Calling Exhibition at Scream Gallery, London (2009) and in the Power of Self Exhibition in New York (2011). Nic Plowman is represented by James Makin in Victoria and Anthea Polson in Queensland. He currently works out of his Collingwood studio in Melbourne and is the new Education Manager for Zart.

Adam Cusack

Australian Artist Adam Cusack (Winner – 2016 Jacaranda Drawing Award) will lead a hands on workshop focused on creating realism through the moulding of light and shadow in drawing. Spend some time learning how lighting a subject can add depth of meaning and unwritten narratives to an artwork. Using a range of drawing materials and techniques master draughtsman Adam will share some of the hard earned lessons from a career spanning 32 years at the drawing board.

Adam Cusack’s practice explores ideas of authenticity and identity in popular culture. Using a process of conceptual development, photography then drawing or painting to realize the artwork, Adam is interested in showing real things in provocative ways; assembling unrelated objects together to bring about relationships that challenge the perception of the original items. His creative approach honors the traditional picture plane utilising simple methods, applying charcoal or pigment on the prepared surface. Adam is represented by M. Contemporary in Sydney New South Wales and The Stockroom Kyneton in Victoria. He lives and works between his Melbourne and Kyneton studios.

‘The act of making something to ‘look real’ is not what’s necessarily important to the work. However, I have found that spending time on rendering the subject gives value to the idea, which in turn allows the audience to consider it’s ‘unrealism’ and engage with my practice’