Drawing like the old masters - Glen Vilppu and Burne Hogarth lectures

Ok, I don't know what the hell happened at blogger recently, but it's almost impossible to embed videos now - it used to be easy. And every time I try this, I just get a copy of the Hogarth video embeded below. Fix it blogger!!! 

Meanwhile, since blogger is broken, here's just a simple link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SafAeTi0tss&feature=BFa&list=PLYmYK2GnAk7YZ7SqXpT598x03NWGVv_Z3

A Glen Vilppu video showing him sketching figures from a Tintoretto painting. This is an excellent idea!! Much better than trying to find random photos of people that are in good poses to draw - as long as you choose a dynamic artist then you're assured of good poses. Personally I tend to prefer classical drawings to the paintings, but in this case you don't want to use drawings or you'll just be copying the construction lines already used by the artist. The idea is to look at the painted figures and reconstruct them using your own construction lines. And I love the idea of using figure groupings rather than just isolated figures - you're dealing with placing figures together so they seem to be on the same ground and in the same environment interacting with each other. 

Plus I love the fountain pen/waterbrush combo so much I just ordered a similar set for myself. Heh - I'm so enamored of these Cambiaso drawings and others that I've also ordered a cream colored drawing pad and some brown ink, and even a quill pen made from an actual goose feather - I can swear looking at the drawings these guys did that their pens could move more freely across the paper than the sharp steel nibs I've been using in my Speedball and Hunt pens. After looking at reed and quill pens and a few others I decided the quill pens seem like the best option - but they're very difficult to make - you need a pen knife (guess why they're called that - think about it for a minute) and cutting the nib is actually more of an art than a simple task. You need to temper the feathers in boiling water and then in hot sand and make a series of like 15 carefully calibrared cuts at various angles, all skillfully placed - and apparently calligraphers can get maybe 6 pages out of a pen before needing to re-cut it (and you can only recut maybe 5 or 6 times). 

I also ran across an amazing video of Burne Hogarth delivering one of his incredible drawing demos:

There are also a couple of videos of Robert Beverly Hale delivering his famed lectures (they both taught at the New York Art Students League). Both of these lecture series are available on video for outrageous prices (priced for academic organizations I assume) but while it does seem you can pick up certain things better from watching the demos, the books are an excellent and much more affordable resource.