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  3. Life Drawing: The Body

Life Drawing: The Body (FINA10036)

Undergraduate level 1Points: 12.5On Campus (Southbank)

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Overview

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This Breadth subject uses life drawing to explore the human body as a subject. It will explore how we visually perceive the human body, how we think about the body and how we theorise the body within art practice.

Within the practical studio classes students will be introduced to drawing through the foundational skills of observation and drawing techniques. These skills will be developed and extended so that students are able to explore and visually articulate their observations of the human body with increasing sophistication and complexity.
Lectures will introduce the history of the human body in art, focusing on the particular role that drawing the human body has played from pre-history to the present day. This will enable students to contextualise their own drawing practice, extending their conceptual understandings of the body and drawing, and assisting towards essay preparation.

At the completion of “Life Drawing: The Body” students should have a foundational understanding of drawing practice with knowledge and skills enabling them to visually communicate the human body as a subject.

Though this subject is designed for students who have little or no previous art making experience, it will also suit students who have previously undertaken a visual art Breadth subject or similar.

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of this subject, students should be able to:

  • demonstrate drawing skills required to effectively represent the figure from direct observation;
  • discuss how the human body has been represented in both art historical and contemporary art;
  • use pictorial and technical experimentation to explore visual and conceptual ideas relevant to the representation of the human body;
  • produce original images leading to materially and conceptually developed artworks;
  • demonstrate independent research in the field of figurative art;
  • evaluate technical processes, creative outcomes and their own development.

Generic skills

On completion of this subject students should be able to:

  • display an awareness of the graphic possibilities of a variety of concepts, materials and practices;
  • exhibit evidence of skill development both pictorially and technically as a means of independent image making;
  • indicate evidence of individual research in the relevant area of practice;
  • demonstrate capacities for artistic imagination, creativity, transformation and interpretation;
  • demonstrate practical skills in respect of critical analysis, problem solving;
  • demonstrate an open, independent and inquiring attitude towards contemporary cultural developments and new ideas.

Last updated: 14 January 2025