Drawing skills critical to many forms of art
Richard Christian Nelson (Rich Nelson) will teach a five-day figure and portrait drawing workshop in Tryon Aug. 20-24. The class will take place at the Nelsons’ Skyuka Fine Art gallery from 9-4 each day.
According to Nelson, “Good drawing skills are critical to many forms of art, and yet the allure of painting, sculpture or another medium often speeds us past this critical skill before we can get a solid handle on it. We can then spend a lifetime regretting our poor drawing skills and not feeling confident of our abilities, or we can confront and begin to master this ability.”
Artists will work on the fundamentals of anatomy, form and light to improve skills at drawing the figure and portrait. The workshop is open to all media, but drawing in graphite and charcoal (on white paper, and on toned paper with white conte) will be emphasized.

The artists will concentrate on drawing from the live model. Nelson will provide lectures and demos, and there will be group “critiques” (mostly just putting the work along the wall and having each artist say “how it’s going”).
Nelson is an accomplished portrait and gallery artist who lives in Tryon. He earned his BFA from the College of Creative Studies in Detroit, Mich. in 1988. Rich taught anatomy, figure drawing and painting at CCS part-time after graduating. He has been working ever since as a portrait artist, gallery artist and instructor. He and his wife, Kim, opened Skyuka Fine Art (www.SkyukaFineArt.com) in 2010 in downtown Tryon.
You can view his work at http://richardchristiannelson.com or read about his recent awards and notable commissions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Christian_Nelson. Most recently, his portrait of “Jack” was the winner of a Certificate of Excellence in the Portrait Society of America’s 2012 International Portrait Competition.
The class size is limited to 12. For more information, visit http://richnelson.com/workshops, email rich@richnelson.com or call 828-859-0318.
– article submitted by Richard Christian Nelson