Drawing lessons - illustrated lesson notes for teachers and students

Painting textiles No 1

Virgil Elliott is a master painter of silks, satins, and

diaphanous gauzes (as well as many other things). He offers

the following advice: 'The first thing I do is to arrange the cloth

in a way that suits my sense of aesthetics, so that its form

indicates what is beneath it, and at the same time adds another

element of eye-pleasing shapes to the composition which

comprise areas of secondary interest and lead the viewer's eye

from the main focal point, around the picture in a graceful

pattern (ideally), which ends up back at the main focal point

and starts the process again. It should reveal key forms in

some places, only suggest them in others, and conceal points of

interest in other places (mystery increases interest), while at

the same time incorporating its own interesting and/or pretty

shapes into the overall. In other words, I usually design the

shapes to begin with, before I start to draw or paint, unless by

happy accident they have already assumed a pleasing

configuration. Often I use a mannequin for this, as models tend

to object to having the cloth attached here and there with

straight pins, and won't hold still long enough. When I use a

live model for the cloth, I draw very quickly to get the shapes

noted before she or he has to move for whatever reason, then I

follow the drawing, which is generally just a guide sketch at this

point, when the model is back from the bathroom or whatever,

to rearrange the cloth back the way it was. I then follow the

sketch in designing the actual painting, but often deviate from

it wherever I see a way to improve the shapes further.'

Does your drawing suggest the pliability of the material? If it

does then you need no enhancement in the drawing stage.

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