I was lucky to spend a few months at the Repin Academy in the 90s, they also emphasized understanding how light defines geometric forms in space. There was a fabulous anatomy theater with ecorches, and a museum in the school that had several casts of classical statues. Poses lasted weeks, and the stoic models were paid a pittance despite being naked in freezing studios.
that was a PACKED 10 minutes. Props for being humble enough to take lessons and critiques from another artist. There's a lot of power in diagonals, I've been forcing myself lately to embrace that. Turning my paper at an angle sometimes even... or if I'm doing digital coloring (always do traditional line art first), I'll rotate the pencils on my digital canvas until it looks more interesting/fills the frame better. But I like the idea of running "the most interesting details" or focal point along a specific diagonal as opposed to just eschewing everything by a certain degree. thanks for the great content-
I remember at Academy of Art University, we did exercises similar (in vine charcoal) like this, but it wasn’t explained in such an articulated way. Albeit it may not be “Russian Academic,” certain teachers like Henry Yan had us do a lot of tonal layin, then find specifics later. That was really hard at first because I was not used to vine charcoal or soft mediums and preferred charcoal pencil. I was always more of a draftsman. To this day, I still like working constructively, but this inspired me to go back and think about using tone. I think not having a concept, aside from “expressive mark-making” made the exercises too ambiguous for 19 year old me. This definitely helps to create a reason or hierarchy. You introducing choice of line as a compositional tool and not just for reinforcing structure in a contour/ cross-contour helps. Thanks for the free info, I’ll look into your Patreon!
Thank you so much for sharing this knowledge. Russian academic art has always fascinated me. They have such a unique and distinct way of capturing the human form that is aesthetically pleasing without detracting from the imperfections of the subject matter. The difference in philosophy caught me by surprise and I'm definitely going to have to go and do some studies with this in mind.
Fascinating. Thanks Stephen for sharing what you've learned about the Russian approach to beginning the drawing. I respect how you as an accomplished artist and teacher sought out this training from Loginov.
My dear friend, you are doing amazingly beautiful and great work and I enjoy seeing your work. I hope you will shine with millions of subscribers and I will be with you.
So so so good. I’m working on a large watercolor floral piece. I find myself struggling with the composition as I’ve put too much contrast in certain places, this is going to help me to adjust the piece.
The difference between the new American academy’s and the Russian academy (or all the other academy’s of the former Soviet block, that still exist), is exactly that: even when doing a study from life, meaning that observation and realistic rendering is the main goal, an “aesthetic” choice must be made on what to emphasize and what to leave out. That was my concern and sometimes criticism, when I was a student, for a short period, at the Angel Academy, where there was no place in a study, for any interpretation. ( I still enjoyed and learned a lot there…)
This is awesome Stephen! You have been a huge part of my drawing training as we worked together in the mentoring program...you are a fantastic instructor. Like you, the Russian drawing style has always intrigued me. So much so that now I am enrolled (online) at the FCAA - a Russian based academy in Florence. I am loving it there with the training. I plan to watch the lessons you made working with Ivan Loginov. Thanks for sharing this! @DaveEmersonArt
Beautiful drawing, love how elegantly the forehead highlights were brought out. Though I was waiting for that sharp horizontal shadow between the right chin and jaw to be smoothened out into a triangular gradient to show a more softly curved plane (or maybe with an S-curve shadow). Without that curve the chin looks perpendicular to the jaw, imho, like a tv set. Itching to reach into the screen to fix that area lol (also apologies for unsolicted comment)
Excellent presentation of this lesson. My HUGE takeaway is to focus on making a composition to include the subject versus a study of the subject. Wooooow! Wooooow! Wooooow! Thank you for sharing.🙏🏽😊💖✨💖
So glad to see a real artist on RUclips. Most are camera lucida frauds. Can tell right away my their "technique" that they've never stepped foot in an art class.
This was a revelation for me. Thank you. I've been watching some modern Russian digital artists like Kolesov and Kupriyanova - and now I see why they focus on composition design.
Ive been learning this concept in my painting class and it's been really helpful but also tricky learning what I find interesting and what I want my focal point to be. We have the control as artist and it's now what do we want to say about our pieces
Thank you so much for this! I also love the russian art and I was looking for some lessons that I could learn from it. Something that you mentioned that I liked and would like to know more it is about the philosophy behind so beautyful art style. Thanks for the great job!
Thank you very much for sharing this! I have a question, why did you do so big contrast on the back of the scull? It is a distant, not focal point, can't really understand why it should be so contrast? For me it looks too prominent and distract attention from focal point.
I need to ask about portraits, how do you really draw a person that really looks like the person i always keep drawing but it doesn't look like the person of my drawing Id love it if you can make on drawing facial features and tips for them
I’m always confused on basically the divide between shadow and light. It suppose to be sharp if it’s direct . And it’s soft if it’s ambient. But I sometimes see a mix? This means the core shadow can be seen as a bit soft before it’s transition to halt ones, this means the light isn’t mathematically/ literally direct right?
FYI, from my experience in photography, light fall-off mostly comes down to how fast a form turns. A slow turn is soft, a fast turn is hard. Slow turn being a slow gentle arc, fast being an edge like a 90 degree edge of a cube. There are other factors such as spot lighting vs diffused lighting which have different effects too. If interested look up “light fall off, flash photography”. It’s a whole area of study.
A really interesting video covering something I've always wondered. Shame the clickbait looking title made me instinctually dismiss it but that's just how RUclips works I suppose. Very informative thank you for the amazing video.
hello Mr. Stephen i have been studying and drawing portrait for a months i already know bout general proportion, tilt, perspective, and basic lightning of the face shadow but i cant capture the likeness of my drawing, im getting frustrated easily but i badly wanna learn i know i still have a long journey to master this, pleaseee help me thank youuuu sir
The more experience you get,the slower you draw,because you spent more time looking at your reference. You have to take a good look,as also think,how you are going to create,the part that you just examined on your reference.
I love how historically Western traditions of Academic drawing were kept in Soviet Russia thanks to socialistic realism (while in the West abstract art won) and are called "Russian way of drawing" now. Chinese way was created after their Socialist revolution took place and along with the Atomic bomb Chinese "brothers" were provided with art teaching methods by the USSR.
This is great. Thank you. I haven't studied in Russia, but I have studied how the Russian Academy derived a lot of their foundation from the French Academy, ie. Bargue studies, etc. It's worth looking into. It's also interesting to see how Russian Academy drawing style, perhaps most clearly shown by the work of Nikolai Fechin, became a major influence on the art education for Chinese Socialist Realism during the days when they were the big Socialist states together.
I thought there wasn't going to be a lot of content in a 10 minute video. I was wrong. By the way, who is the author of that painting of Piazza San Marco?
I also like russian academic drawings but collaborating with russia based artist in a middle of the war seems fishy for me. What else can be expected from American though. Oh, yeah, I know culture has nothing to do with the war, yeah? 😂 What a pity that ruissians have never thought that way and always have used culture as a weapon to promote their agenda of great mother russia and just suck in all they can from their colonies while destroying and repressing their culture. Even Repin in honor of which they have academy is actually.. Ukrainian😅Also wondering how many of Loginov's taxes are going to the purpose of killing us 😅With all that being said, we in Ukraine also have quite similar academic approach with no less remarkable drawings (for example in Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Fine Arts which is btw on the constant risk of being shelled) and we don't destroy neighboring countries.
Such powerlessness when the world continues to glorify russia completely ignoring the fact that it is waging a bloody war killing Ukrainians, both adults and children, every day. But people immediately justify themselves by saying that it is "culture", completely not seeing the connections with the politics of russia, and they also accuse you of hating "innocent" russians. Anyone reading this comment, remember: culture is a weapon like missiles or bombs. For anyone who doubts, look up how russia uses culture to distract and absolve itself of responsibility for the crimes it commits, you can also read how for centuries russia destroyed the culture of other peoples, killing or appropriating talented people who did not identify themselves as russians
![Lethal Company Music Video 🎵 "Follow The Orders" [VERSION A]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QeooZB4Z7RA/mqdefault.jpg)
I was lucky to spend a few months at the Repin Academy in the 90s, they also emphasized understanding how light defines geometric forms in space. There was a fabulous anatomy theater with ecorches, and a museum in the school that had several casts of classical statues. Poses lasted weeks, and the stoic models were paid a pittance despite being naked in freezing studios.
that was a PACKED 10 minutes. Props for being humble enough to take lessons and critiques from another artist. There's a lot of power in diagonals, I've been forcing myself lately to embrace that. Turning my paper at an angle sometimes even... or if I'm doing digital coloring (always do traditional line art first), I'll rotate the pencils on my digital canvas until it looks more interesting/fills the frame better. But I like the idea of running "the most interesting details" or focal point along a specific diagonal as opposed to just eschewing everything by a certain degree. thanks for the great content-
The diagonal of hard edges definitely was something I've never thought about. Super interesting! Thank you for sharing this.
You bet!
I remember at Academy of Art University, we did exercises similar (in vine charcoal) like this, but it wasn’t explained in such an articulated way. Albeit it may not be “Russian Academic,” certain teachers like Henry Yan had us do a lot of tonal layin, then find specifics later. That was really hard at first because I was not used to vine charcoal or soft mediums and preferred charcoal pencil. I was always more of a draftsman. To this day, I still like working constructively, but this inspired me to go back and think about using tone. I think not having a concept, aside from “expressive mark-making” made the exercises too ambiguous for 19 year old me. This definitely helps to create a reason or hierarchy. You introducing choice of line as a compositional tool and not just for reinforcing structure in a contour/ cross-contour helps. Thanks for the free info, I’ll look into your Patreon!
Thank you so much for sharing this knowledge. Russian academic art has always fascinated me. They have such a unique and distinct way of capturing the human form that is aesthetically pleasing without detracting from the imperfections of the subject matter. The difference in philosophy caught me by surprise and I'm definitely going to have to go and do some studies with this in mind.
the video editing on this video really helped me to see what you were talking about when you were talking about it.
Oh my goodness this is actually brilliant advice!
saturating the paper stump with graphite... that alone was a huge revelation to me. so obvious yet i never thought of it.
There is always something new in drawing 👌
Thanks for the stump-shading tip! I feel silly not figuring that out on my own.
Russian and Chinese artists are built different, love this
It’s called good education
Thank you so much Stephen !
No worries!
Love that my teacher is still a student!
I'm glad I found your video.
I'm wanting to get better at my drawing.
Thank you!!
Fascinating. Thanks Stephen for sharing what you've learned about the Russian approach to beginning the drawing. I respect how you as an accomplished artist and teacher sought out this training from Loginov.
Glad you enjoyed it
This is awesome! Always wanted to learn the russian academic style 😄
Go for it!
Thank you, this was very interesting!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for sharing these concepts.
I love to see, that even someone as experienced as you, still has the attitude of a learning pupil
I've just come across this video and I'm so happy! It's incredibly useful, thank you, Stephen
Glad it was helpful!
Absolutely spot on advice!!
Thanks!
I'm learning so much here.
Very clearly explained and illustrated
My dear friend, you are doing amazingly beautiful and great work and I enjoy seeing your work. I hope you will shine with millions of subscribers and I will be with you.
Thank you so much 😀
Stephen you’re the best, thank you for sharing your knowledge, one day I’d love to be able to get one on one teaching from yourself in this capacity…
So so so good. I’m working on a large watercolor floral piece. I find myself struggling with the composition as I’ve put too much contrast in certain places, this is going to help me to adjust the piece.
What a' amazing class, thank you so much. Wrote down all these tips he gave you and will definitely try implementing it in my next drawings. 🙏
Glad it was helpful!
excellent work! Thank you!
Many thanks!
WOW! Learned many important techniques. Impressive and interesting. Great information and love your final composition.
The difference between the new American academy’s and the Russian academy (or all the other academy’s of the former Soviet block, that still exist), is exactly that: even when doing a study from life, meaning that observation and realistic rendering is the main goal, an “aesthetic” choice must be made on what to emphasize and what to leave out. That was my concern and sometimes criticism, when I was a student, for a short period, at the Angel Academy, where there was no place in a study, for any interpretation.
( I still enjoyed and learned a lot there…)
This is awesome Stephen! You have been a huge part of my drawing training as we worked together in the mentoring program...you are a fantastic instructor. Like you, the Russian drawing style has always intrigued me. So much so that now I am enrolled (online) at the FCAA - a Russian based academy in Florence. I am loving it there with the training. I plan to watch the lessons you made working with Ivan Loginov. Thanks for sharing this! @DaveEmersonArt
Glad to help! And great to hear from you Dave!
Beautiful drawing, love how elegantly the forehead highlights were brought out. Though I was waiting for that sharp horizontal shadow between the right chin and jaw to be smoothened out into a triangular gradient to show a more softly curved plane (or maybe with an S-curve shadow). Without that curve the chin looks perpendicular to the jaw, imho, like a tv set. Itching to reach into the screen to fix that area lol (also apologies for unsolicted comment)
Excellent presentation of this lesson. My HUGE takeaway is to focus on making a composition to include the subject versus a study of the subject. Wooooow! Wooooow! Wooooow! Thank you for sharing.🙏🏽😊💖✨💖
Excellent!
So glad to see a real artist on RUclips. Most are camera lucida frauds. Can tell right away my their "technique" that they've never stepped foot in an art class.
Thank you excellent commentary and lesson ❤
You are so welcome
Great job sir
Cool drawing! It was interesting to watch!
Such a valuable lesson to learn! Thank you so much
You're so welcome!
Very, very interesting. I will implement this with my drawings and paintings. Thank you sharing this. 😊
My pleasure 😊
This was a revelation for me. Thank you. I've been watching some modern Russian digital artists like Kolesov and Kupriyanova - and now I see why they focus on composition design.
valuable information as always!
Thanks again!
Thanks for sharing this ❤👍
Your human anatomy knowledge is good.
Ive been learning this concept in my painting class and it's been really helpful but also tricky learning what I find interesting and what I want my focal point to be. We have the control as artist and it's now what do we want to say about our pieces
Exactly 👌
Like shadows , highlights have a trail(tail) also.
Thank you so much for sharing this
Any time!
So does this mean there's a more complete lesson on this on your Patreon page? I'm very interested!
Yep. For this and dozens of others
Thank you so much for this! I also love the russian art and I was looking for some lessons that I could learn from it. Something that you mentioned that I liked and would like to know more it is about the philosophy behind so beautyful art style. Thanks for the great job!
There is a lot more where this came from. We are currently developing parts 2 and 3 in this lesson for my Patreon page.
Thanks! This was a really helpful video
I've learned much from this short video.
Very cool indeed.
Thank you- that was very helpful xx
I know the russian artist Alexander Ryzkin,he's a wonderful artist and scientist of anatomy. You and Alexander are my favorite artist!😊
Thank you so much 😀
That was cool 👍🏻
Grazie Stephen!
Prego!
this was an amazing video!
Thank you!!
Thank you very much for sharing this! I have a question, why did you do so big contrast on the back of the scull? It is a distant, not focal point, can't really understand why it should be so contrast? For me it looks too prominent and distract attention from focal point.
I think you’re right. That’s a mistake 😳
Great detailed info.
Ivan is the Login to great drawing 😉
oh wow!
Very interesting, thank you!
My pleasure!
I need to ask about portraits, how do you really draw a person that really looks like the person i always keep drawing but it doesn't look like the person of my drawing Id love it if you can make on drawing facial features and tips for them
How about the skulls of other creatures?would be cool
Awesome
I realized many things unmentioned (anywhere,anybody)
i come to your channel cuz i know youre great portrait artist
Arrr! I've graphite on me stump!
Love this
bro was a model in 1999
I’m always confused on basically the divide between shadow and light. It suppose to be sharp if it’s direct . And it’s soft if it’s ambient. But I sometimes see a mix? This means the core shadow can be seen as a bit soft before it’s transition to halt ones, this means the light isn’t mathematically/ literally direct right?
Shadow edges come in all shapes and sizes. Best to not rely on a formula.
FYI, from my experience in photography, light fall-off mostly comes down to how fast a form turns. A slow turn is soft, a fast turn is hard. Slow turn being a slow gentle arc, fast being an edge like a 90 degree edge of a cube. There are other factors such as spot lighting vs diffused lighting which have different effects too. If interested look up “light fall off, flash photography”. It’s a whole area of study.
You telling 100% right
Very interesting. Thanks
Very welcome
A really interesting video covering something I've always wondered. Shame the clickbait looking title made me instinctually dismiss it but that's just how RUclips works I suppose. Very informative thank you for the amazing video.
The YT ecosystem is such that certain thumbnail/title conventions must be followed. Thanks for watching!
Just posting the first comment as an appreciation of how much I've learnt from you.
I appreciate that!
Superb
This is great insight into the Russian academic drawing. I'm excited to implement this in my drawing studies. Thanks for sharing.
Glad it was helpful!
what is this pen or whatever called that you are using to draw shadows of the skull?
hello Mr. Stephen i have been studying and drawing portrait for a months i already know bout general proportion, tilt, perspective, and basic lightning of the face shadow but i cant capture the likeness of my drawing, im getting frustrated easily but i badly wanna learn i know i still have a long journey to master this, pleaseee help me thank youuuu sir
I’ve noticed professional artist apply their medium like they are hanging out, killing time. Not like they are racing to a goal like me
The more experience you get,the slower you draw,because you spent more time looking at your reference. You have to take a good look,as also think,how you are going to create,the part that you just examined on your reference.
Interesting video
❤
Bien 👌
I love how historically Western traditions of Academic drawing were kept in Soviet Russia thanks to socialistic realism (while in the West abstract art won) and are called "Russian way of drawing" now.
Chinese way was created after their Socialist revolution took place and along with the Atomic bomb Chinese "brothers" were provided with art teaching methods by the USSR.
Wutang forever
This is great. Thank you. I haven't studied in Russia, but I have studied how the Russian Academy derived a lot of their foundation from the French Academy, ie. Bargue studies, etc. It's worth looking into. It's also interesting to see how Russian Academy drawing style, perhaps most clearly shown by the work of Nikolai Fechin, became a major influence on the art education for Chinese Socialist Realism during the days when they were the big Socialist states together.
Very impressive!
What do you think about Ukrainian artists?
Maybe some of them inspired you before?
For sure. There are many artists from this region that I love.
I thought there wasn't going to be a lot of content in a 10 minute video. I was wrong.
By the way, who is the author of that painting of Piazza San Marco?
Etorre Tito
The paper stump thing is a good idea. You shouldn't share your secrets too readily.
Thanks for your time.
You’re welcome 😊
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
5:25
what style?
Tiger style
Say some unmatched things about their academy .Any female nude drawings ?
🙏🙏🙏🙏……..
Who impress the Ivan (Russian artist) . 2. Any American he liked (impress him),to emulate
Ive always loved the Russian style
u really had to shape all that out.....
Isn’t this kind of what John Singer Sargent and other great masters does? Loosen and tighten up portions of silhouettes they prefer?
I also like russian academic drawings but collaborating with russia based artist in a middle of the war seems fishy for me. What else can be expected from American though. Oh, yeah, I know culture has nothing to do with the war, yeah? 😂 What a pity that ruissians have never thought that way and always have used culture as a weapon to promote their agenda of great mother russia and just suck in all they can from their colonies while destroying and repressing their culture. Even Repin in honor of which they have academy is actually.. Ukrainian😅Also wondering how many of Loginov's taxes are going to the purpose of killing us 😅With all that being said, we in Ukraine also have quite similar academic approach with no less remarkable drawings (for example in Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Fine Arts which is btw on the constant risk of being shelled) and we don't destroy neighboring countries.
Such powerlessness when the world continues to glorify russia completely ignoring the fact that it is waging a bloody war killing Ukrainians, both adults and children, every day. But people immediately justify themselves by saying that it is "culture", completely not seeing the connections with the politics of russia, and they also accuse you of hating "innocent" russians. Anyone reading this comment, remember: culture is a weapon like missiles or bombs. For anyone who doubts, look up how russia uses culture to distract and absolve itself of responsibility for the crimes it commits, you can also read how for centuries russia destroyed the culture of other peoples, killing or appropriating talented people who did not identify themselves as russians
Great but The mouth and teeth are off
The skull was eating too many sweets and lost a tooth,while he was trying to draw it.AND dead,do not go to the dentist.
Great drawing, super boring voice over though if I'm honest, didn't make it to the end
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤