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Dynamic Forms & Organic Construction Workshop with Chris Maggio

  • Workshop SLC 153 2100 South South Salt Lake, UT, 84115 United States (map)

Date: Thursday, October 21st, 2021

Times: 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Cost: $80

Only 8 spots available




Workshop description

It’s time to stretch your realism design skills to the next level by introducing easy and effective techniques that help make more believable 3-D organic forms and objects!

This is highly recommended for Intermediate to Advanced artists and is a follow up to the Organic Sketching Workshop designed to enhance and reinvigorate your development in both realistic and cartoon genre’. 

When creating objects which intertwine, or interact, or are deformed by inside or outside forces, the original shape is altered, and understanding how these dynamic forces affect the subject is key to making them believable. And believability can be the most elusive of ingredients when starting a sketch or drawing!

• So… think stretched - bloated - twisted - bent - squished - compressed - swollen - folded - tension - pinched, and a thousand other descriptors. Having the ability to envision or predict how a material or substance is altered and the surface changes they undergo is a geometry, physics, and architectural experience, and it requires both observation and a keen imagination. This unique workshop will focus on the physical interactions and how we as artists can both subtly and expressively show the interaction of forms in an understandable manner. 

Cloth, rubber, flesh, wood, wax, and bubbles all react differently to the same forces, so how do we depict their alterations and new forms? When two objects attempt to occupy the same space what is the physical transformation and what surface deformation we can expect? Where will it wrinkle, or bulge, and where does the internal mass go when forced to move? What happens to two dissimilar objects, which happen to be stuck together, are being pulled apart? How do I depict an object melting?

Self test: WITHOUT these objects in front of you draw a knotted rope, a screw, and a balloon animal. If you are extremely happy with your result then you don’t need this… but if you are the rest of the 98% and see a weakness in your technique or your thought process please consider being part of our experience! 

This is a “pencil-oriented class” with emphasis on repetition and observational exercises, and you will leave with a greater understanding of the altered world around you and new dynamic skills to recreate both real and imagined 3-D forms, in both real and cartoon styles.


Supply List

• HB and/or 2B graphite-type pencils or Prismacolor Verithin pencils in dark colors (blue/green/black)  (try to keep firmer leads for clarity of our exercises)

• Inexpensive 11 x 17 paper (copier paper is cheaper than padded drawing paper and just fine for this class)