Advance Drawing Notes
Subject Overview
Advance Drawing builds on Basic Drawing to develop each student's own visual language as a designer, directly connecting drawing skill to surface design where a fabric pattern is a translation of a designer's own rendering on paper. You'll study and copy works by great masters like Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Picasso, take field trips to draw monuments and places of visual interest, then move into model drawing of the human body and still life, and close with perspective drawing and quick sketching. This is a 2-credit core practical paper across 3 units, assessed on a target of 500 sketches over the semester.
Subject at a glance
3
Units
15
Topics
2
Credits
3
Infographics
Unit-wise Syllabus
3 units — click WhatsApp below to get the full notes for each
Unit 1: Studying master artists & field drawing
- Copying sketches and works of Rembrandt
- Renoir
- Mondrian
- Van Gogh
- Cézanne
- Dali and Picasso
- field trips to monuments to study perspective
- space
- angles and planes
Rembrandt
Light and shadow (chiaroscuro)
Van Gogh
Expressive brushwork, colour
Cézanne
Simplified forms and planes
Mondrian
Line, grid and primary colour
Picasso
Multiple viewpoints (Cubism)
Dalí
Imagination, surrealism
Study guide
This unit has you copy the sketches and works of artists such as Rembrandt, Renoir, Mondrian, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Dali and Picasso and draw monuments on field trips to study perspective, space and planes. Copying masters teaches how experienced artists see.
Unit 2: Model and still life drawing
- Model drawing to familiarise with human body proportions
- still life
- human figure studies
- Standard figure
- About 7.5 heads tall
- Fashion figure
- About 9 heads: elongated legs
- Halfway point
- Around the hip line
- Shoulders
- About 2 head-widths wide (men)
- Arms
- Wrists reach the upper thigh
Study guide
You practise model drawing to understand human proportions, still life and human figure studies. Learn the proportions of the figure as a ratio of head lengths.
Unit 3: Perspective and quick sketching
- Perspective drawing of forms like buildings
- understanding depth/angle/proportion from a distance
- quick sketching without an eraser in 3-5 minutes
One-point
One
Looking straight down a road or corridor
Two-point
Two
Corner of a building
Three-point
Three
Looking up at tall buildings
Study guide
You study perspective drawing of buildings, depth, angle and proportion and quick sketching in 3-5 minutes without an eraser. Quick sketches build confidence and speed.
Why Advance Drawing Matters
Figure drawing and perspective are essential for fashion illustration, pattern design and communicating concepts clearly to clients.
How to Prepare for Advance Drawing
- Practise figure drawing regularly with live or photographic models.
- Draw in perspective from real buildings.
- Do quick sketches daily to loosen your hand.
Advance Drawing: Frequently Asked Questions
Why copy master artists' work?
Copying helps you understand composition, line quality and technique by seeing how experienced artists solved visual problems.