Drawing at the RISD Museum

The spring semester of 2022 I took a class through the Providence Art Club which was Drawing in the RISD Museum (Rhode Island School of Design) lead by instructor Frances Middendorf.  Frances has been living in Italy and teaches at the Rome Art Program so we are fortunate to have her teaching through PAC. 

For our class we were given assignments and a group of artworks from which to select one or more to draw in pencil while observing and studying these work(s) at the museum. Each week we had a different assignment and each week we were to incorporate our lesson into a piece for homework and critique. Below are some of the my drawings from the 8-week class which I really enjoyed and I feel this class has helped my artistic style to grow. 

This Mary Magdelene (left) was painted by Lippo Memmi in 1330. On the left is my drawing of this painting. I chose it because I like this style of gothic painting inset in the fancy gold leaf panel. This panel was once part of an alterpiece in a church possibly in Siena.

This sculpture in the RISD Museum called Standing Figure was created by artist Arnold Price, carved from soapstone. For my homework project I chose to draw it among a grouping of vases.

For our landscape assignment I chose to draw this Louis-Jules-Frédeéric Villeneuve painting titled Aqueduct near Tivoli, 1827. I wanted to portray the beautiful light shining on the stone arches against the dark of the sky.

This lesson was in conjunction with an exhibit called Trading Earth, Ceramics, Commodities and Commerce. The exhibit focuses on global trade, ceramics made to store and serve, and luxuries of commodities such as sugar, tea, tobacco and alcohol. It looked at the trade routes for production, trade and consumption and the diversity of classes. We talked about oppression, slavery and exploited labor. In my drawing I have included three of the objects in the exhibit as well as the wealthy persons turning away from the realities of slavery. 

For this small colored pencil drawing, I chose to put my small still life objects on a print out of tapestry we studied and drew in the RISD museum. 

The top pencil drawing of the tulips is from an etching we studied by David Hockney. The vase of tulips were in front of a window. In my bottom drawing I have recreated the tulips in front of a window and added a scene. Our assignment was also to show the tactile qualities and textures of the objects we drew.

I drew this Japanese print by Utagawa Hiroshige in pencil then in colored pencil. The original print is a long vertical but I chose to make it into more of a rectangle or square format. Below is an Indian (attributed) drawing called Circle of Rabbits.  I recreated this drawing with colored pencils on textured paper. 

My final drawing (below) is one by Vincent Van Gogh titled View of Auvers-sur-Oise. I chose to draw this piece because I liked the contrasts of the rigid buildings against Van Gogh's traditional dramatic brush strokes in the sky and foreground. Drawing this colorful painting in black and white pencil can be a challenge getting values to correspond with colors in the painting.