ABOUT LIFE DRAWING ACADEMY

Welcome to the Life Drawing Academy™

This drawing course and the video lessons you are about to watch are dedicated to the part of life drawing we know as constructive drawing. Constructive drawing of portraits and figures from life will give you the necessary knowledge to do figurative artworks step by step.

You can learn good drawing skills whatever your level of skills, age or location. You can do it from the comfort of your home, starting right now. For students like you, we created the Life Drawing Academy. So, you could learn, without leaving your home, from talented artists and art teachers who went through Russian art education system themselves and teach art in the best art academies of the World.

There are two options available for you:

1. You can take the self-education Life Drawing Academy Online Course
2. Or, for one-to-one teaching, you can apply for the Life Drawing Academy Correspondence course

Online Course

Here's what you will get in the Life Drawing Academy Online Course: For a one-time payment, you will get a lifetime access to the online course. In this course, you will get 52 life drawing video lessons, which include more than 70 video-parts and have total playback time of more than 20 hours. You can watch those videos as many times as you want. They are available online 24/7; and you can watch lessons on any internet connected device.

The best way to learn here is to watch the video lessons one by one in sequential order.

The course videos are not "repeat after me" tutorials. You don't have to copy artworks you see on a computer screen. Such an activity is called "copying," not "life drawing."

Instead, get a sketchbook and write down the sequential steps of how to draw figures and portraits, note the proportions of a human figure, make comments about anatomical features, and write down the useful tips we give you.

After one video is over, do your own life drawing artworks using the knowledge you received in that video. Draw from life using the same sequential steps. Measure the proportions from life that you learned in the video and apply anatomy knowledge in your artworks.

Do as many drawings as necessary to learn the new information you gathered from a video. Then, continue watching the next lesson.

We recommend doing all exercises in graphite pencil on white drawing paper. This is especially important if you are not an advanced artist.

Human Body Proportions

You will get detailed tutorials on proportions and construction of a human head and body. In multiple video lessons, you will see the various proportions of a human body, head, and face. These proportions are not absolute rules. They are only a guide to what you should pay attention to and measure in life and in drawing. Every person is individual, and so are proportions. Your model will have different proportions to those you see in the video lessons. If everyone had the same measurements, all of us would look exactly the same.

You will discover various classical canons of proportions and detailed instructions on how to use them in drawing. There is no right or wrong canon. It is up to you what canon of proportions to use. We would advise you to learn the proportions presented in the course and adopt your own set of ratios that you can remember and use in your life drawing artworks.

You will learn how to draw realistic portraits and figures step-by-step with the necessary knowledge of anatomy.

Students Handbook

How to study in the Life Drawing Academy and all the important sections of this online course are described in the Students Handbook.

Assignments

There is a list of proposed assignments in the Life Drawing Academy online course. Those assignments are described in the Students Handbook. Proposed assignments are optional. You may work on your own creative projects instead.

If you need our feedback on your works of art or assignments, you are welcome to send your artworks for critique.

Personal Support

As a Life Drawing Academy student, you can rely on unlimited personal support from Academy tutors.

Such support includes:

• Artworks critiques
• Answers to your art-related questions
• Advice on how to improve your life drawing skills

Our personal support is provided for a lifetime and comes at no extra charge. No other art college or university will ever offer you the same deal.

Students Gallery

As our student, you will have the privilege to exhibit your artworks in our online Students Gallery. This way, you can connect with art lovers all over the world and get feedback on your artworks from fellow students and site visitors. You are also welcome to comment on other students' works of art there.

Life Drawing Academy Diploma of Excellence

Three months after enrolling in this online course, you will be entitled to apply for a Life Drawing Academy Diploma of Excellence at any time in a future. This diploma commemorates your achievements in completing the course.

We understand that three months are not enough to develop strong life drawing skills, and therefore you will continue to enjoy your lifetime access to the course's educational materials and personal support.

Here's how Life Drawing Academy Course compares to top-50 contemporary art colleges in the West.

1. Every video lesson of the Life Drawing Academy self-education Course gives more information about classical figurative drawing than students get during 4 years at a contemporary art college. After watching 52 lessons, you will know at least 52 times more about life drawing than an average art college graduate.
2. The Life Drawing Academy course comes with a lifetime membership. Just name any contemporary art college where you can study for as long as you want for a one-time low fee.
3. A contemporary art college would take 4 years of your time and requires relocation. In the Life Drawing Academy, you can study in the comfort of your own home. There are no deadlines here; you can study at your own pace.
4. In the Life Drawing Academy, you will have an unlimited personal support from the Academy tutors. Such support comes at no extra charge and is provided for a lifetime. Can you name any art college where you would get the same support?
5. When it comes to the price, a contemporary art college would cost you anything up to $100,000, including tuitions, relocation, and accommodation expenses.

Great Value for Money

The real value of the Life Drawing Academy Online Course is $99 per every video lesson, which is $5,148 for 52 lessons; plus, personal support, which is priceless.

However, you can enroll today at a heavily discounted price of only $297 US dollars!

In each video lesson of this course, you will discover more about figurative drawing than any contemporary art college or university would teach you in four years.

If you want to receive personal tutoring from the Academy teachers, you can apply for the Life Drawing Academy Correspondence course.

Correspondence Course

Do you know what all great fine artists have in common? Every famous and skillful artist in the history of fine arts had a talented art tutor. There is no such thing as a self-taught Old Master. What has worked in the previous 2,000 years will work for you today.

If you really want to develop good drawing skills and become a professional fine artist, you have to have a professional art tutor.

Life Drawing Academy is your unique chance to learn from accomplished fine artists and art teachers - Alexander Ryzhkin, Vladimir London, and Natalie Richy - who can personally teach you strong drawing skills step by step.

All three teachers have exceptional art education and spent many years practicing and teaching art.

The drawing techniques and methods we teach are the same as students learn in the best art academies in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

To enter one of these academies, you would have to learn Russian and spend at least seven years practicing, just to get prepared for entry exams, under a teacher who graduated from such an academy. More than 50 students compete for every place available, so there is no guarantee you would ever have a chance to enter one of the best Russian art academies.

However, there is a solution. You don't have to learn Russian, and you don't have to relocate for seven or more years. You can study in the comfort of your home, and your top-quality art education can start today, right now.

We offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sign up for personal tutoring within the Life Drawing Academy.

Here's what you will get:

In addition to all the benefits of the Life Drawing Academy Online Course, you will also receive personal tutoring that is custom tailored to your current level of drawing skills.

This means that academy tutors will evaluate your drawing skills and will prepare an individual, step-by-step curriculum for you.

This curriculum will include up to 100 drawing tasks that you will do, one by one, under the guidance of the tutors. You will receive a detailed description of how to do every task and what to pay attention to.

Such drawing tasks will push your drawing skills to a higher level.

Here are just few examples of topics that we will cover in personal tutoring:

• How to use contours in life drawing
• How to avoid common mistakes in portrait drawing
• How to achieve likeness in portraits
• The geometrical forms of a head
• How to place facial features correctly
• How to use perspective and foreshortening in portraits
• How to achieve a three-dimensional look in portraits
• How to draw children's portraits
• How to depict emotions in portraits
• How to avoid common mistakes in figure drawing
• How to use perspective and foreshortening when drawing figures
• How to achieve a three-dimensional look in figure drawing
• Drawing figures in motion
• How to depict gravity in figure drawing
• How to draw the folds and wrinkles of draperies
• How to draw clothed figures
• How to learn to draw quickly—gesture drawing

Depending on your level of skills, you will also receive tasks on constructive drawing, tonal rendering, proportions, composition, and so on.

Here's how personal tutoring works:

1. When you sign up, you will get a dedicated art teacher, who will provide one-on-one tutoring, teach you how to do every drawing task, and assess your progress.
2. There are no entry exams, but before tutoring begins, you will have to make several drawings as instructed.
3. Your drawings will be assessed and in-depth detailed critique provided. This critique will explain the gaps in your drawing skills and what personalized curriculum you will need to follow to learn the missing knowledge and skills.
4. Drawing tasks will be given to you one by one, and a tutor will explain in detail what to do and how.
5. Your timing will be very flexible. You can study at your own pace, practicing drawing in the comfort of your home or a studio. When ready, you will send photos of your drawings to us.
6. We will assess every artwork you do within your individual curriculum, and we'll provide detailed instructions on how to improve.
7. The next tasks will be given upon successful completion of previous ones.
8. There is no way to fail. This personal tutoring is unlimited and comes for a lifetime, until you achieve your personal goals in drawing skills.

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By now, you might have some questions, and we can answer the most asked ones here.

Question:

What is a "personal tutoring" course you offer?

Answer:

We offer the Life Drawing Academy Correspondence Course. It is a unique, self-paced, distance education under the personal guidance of academy tutors. Here, you will learn traditional drawing techniques by following a curriculum tailored to your skills and needs.

Question:

Can I really learn how to draw without sitting next to the tutor?

Answer:

If you expect that an art teacher in some contemporary art college will show you how to draw by his or her own example, or explain how to improve every line you do, think again. This is not how contemporary art education is delivered.

Having a dedicated Life Drawing Academy tutor is your unique chance to get far better art education than any contemporary art college or university in the West would ever provide.

With access to the Internet, you don't have to sit next to us to learn the best drawing techniques. With the help of video lessons and written instructions, you will get all you need to improve your drawing skills.

Question:

What topics does the Life Drawing Correspondence Course cover?

Answer:

This depends on your level of skills and goals. A unique curriculum will be created especially for you.

If you are a beginner, your individual curriculum might include fundamental basics such as rules of perspective, constructive drawing principles, techniques of tonal rendering, and so forth.

If you are an intermediate student, we will give you drawing tasks to cover any areas you are missing. These might be proportions and anatomy of a human body, how to use perspective when drawing figures and portraits, how to drawing hands and feet, and so on.

If you are an advanced student, your curriculum will concentrate on the areas you would like to develop further; for example, how to depict emotions in portraits, how to draw dynamic figures, and how to portray personality.

Your drawing tasks will grow with your skills. Tasks will advance from simple to more complex topics. Your curriculum won't be set in stone. If you decide to learn specific topics, they will be incorporated into your studies.

Question:

How does communication happen between my tutors and me?

Answer:

All communication will be via email. This will help to keep track of all correspondence, drawing tasks, images and artworks. You will have all communication in writing, so you will never lose or forget what was said, what advice given, and what critique provided.

Question:

Can I talk via Skype or over a phone to a tutor?

Answer:

Verbal drawing instructions and answers might be forgotten by the next day, but written guidelines will stay with you forever. For this reason, we won't waste your time over a phone or Skype call but will correspond in writing.

Question:

How can I learn life drawing in a correspondence course?

Answer:

Good life drawing skills have to be based on a strong foundation of constructive drawing, anatomy for artists, and proficient drawing techniques. It is perfectly possible to learn all this with our distance tutoring, by doing the drawing tasks you will receive.

Question:

Will I need to hire models or purchase some extra materials?

Answer:

Before hiring any models, there are many things you will need to cover to be ready for life sessions. You don't have to hire models unless you want to. There are many other free ways to draw figures and portraits from life, and we will cover those possibilities in the course.

Regarding art materials, this course is not about drawing mediums, but skills. A drawing board, a few graphite pencils, a couple of erasers, a crafts knife, and access to the Internet are all you need for this course.

Question:

When will my personal tutoring be completed?

Answer:

There will be up to 100 drawing tasks. Your study will be accomplished when you do all of the tasks, one by one, with the required quality. This is a self-paced art course. You can take as much time as you need to complete it.

Question:

How long does it take to learn drawing under your guidance?

Answer:

It depends on you. If you do one drawing task per week, it would require two years. There are no deadlines, no time pressure. Even if you have only 20 minutes a day, that will be enough to keep going.

Question:

Will I receive a diploma at the end this course?

Answer:

Yes, a diploma in your name will be issued to commemorate the completion of the Life Drawing Academy Correspondence Course.

Question:

What would happen if my dedicated tutor became unavailable?

Answer:

There are several art tutors in the Life Drawing Academy. Your art education will go smoothly regardless of what tutor is available at any given time.

Question:

Will personal tutoring work for me?

Answer:

The question is actually the other way around: "Will you work to achieve your goals?"

Generations of fine artists were taught the same traditional drawing techniques we offer you. As long as you follow our guidance and tutoring, your drawing skills will grow from task to task.

Question:

Can I purchase one or several individual lessons?

Answer:

The Life Drawing Academy Correspondence Course is one unit, designed to advance your skills to a professional level. It is not divisible into isolated lessons to be purchased separately.

A lesson you would like to receive might require other drawing skills you don't have yet. That is why we offer one continuous sequence of drawing tasks to ensure that you receive all the necessary knowledge and skills in each task to progress to the next ones.

Question:

Can I cancel this correspondence course at any time?

Answer:

We value our time very highly; it is the only commodity that cannot be duplicated. That is why we would like to have like-minded students who are serious about becoming professional artists and have self-motivation and a burning desire to learn drawing.

If you are thinking about signing up and dropping out later, you would better look for other opportunities. Because our time is limited, places are limited. Please do not take someone else's place if you are not sure whether you want to go to the end and complete the Life Drawing Academy Correspondence Course.

Question:

How much does individual tutoring cost?

Answer:

When it comes to pricing, consider this. A contemporary art college or university will cost you anything up to $100,000 with no guarantee that you will graduate with good drawing skills.

The Life Drawing Academy Correspondence Course is different. Here, we teach drawing the same way art students learn in the best Russian art academies.

In this course, you will receive one-on-one personal guidance from academy tutors, who will teach you traditional drawing skills in 100 drawing tasks. Every task will have in-depth instructions, including several discussions, critiques and pieces of advice on improvement. The value of such tasks is $99 each, which is $9,900 in total.

However, for a limited number of students, we offer this course for only $997. When the places are filled, we will suspend enrollment or put the price to its real value.