Cours de Dessin: My old pencil case and the Cours de what?

A long time ago...

After a long absence from drawing and painting, (1991 was the last time I wielded a paint brush or pencil with any intent) I decided to pick up my pencils and find some blank sheets of paper to ruin. After a bit of research and to help me get back up to speed I've started a 9 week course using the Cours de Dessin method, the Cours de what, ah got your interest now, read on. This blog will track my progress, successes, failures and observations over the next 9 weeks. The first 3 paintings and drawings were done in the late 80's and early 90's. The last few sketches are more recent. I want to do a compare and contrast as each week goes by and share it.

Cú Chulainn and Lugh from the Táin (Gouache)

Restarting

With all that elapsed time I was a little rusty - to say the least! But with the Internet (which was 2 years from existance in 1991) and YouTube there are now lots of online courses and tutorials, and then there's Pinterest to save reference material. But I was frustrated and struggling with getting the time and the discipline to sit down and work my way through the material. And, if I was to be honest, I've always had issues with my figure drawing, having had no formal training I just winged it. For the Leaving Cert Art I had simply applied the exam, sat it and got a good result. After that life got busy in college, girlfriend, marriage, mortgage, kids etc.

Cú Chulainn kills Ferdia (pen and ink)

What is the Cours de Dessin?

So, April 2016, I started looking around for art classes. I didn't want to do a general art or painting course and I knew I'd struggle and get frustrated attending any of the life drawing workshops around the city. So what to do? After a bit of research I came across The Drawing Studio in Merrion Square, Dublin 2. Its focus was on promoting drawing skills of the human body using the Cours de Dessin method. Drawing skills thats what I want, but what the heck is the Cours de Dessin, sounds French must be high-brow, like the art version of Opera or something! Oh yes, ask Google (sorry Bing). It turns out during the 1860's in France the Inspectorate of fine arts (yes this was a government department in France) was appalled at the low standard of basic drawing skills that were on display at a major exhibition. To rectify the problem the department appointment Charles Barque and Jean-Leone Gerome to create a course based on the works of great masters from the Renaissance and else where that could be used to teach artists how to draw the human form. Cours de Dessin simply means The Drawing Course.