Bargue Plate Part 1: Blocking In Written by Mandy Hallenius

What is a Bargue Plate? A 19th century drawing course Teaches proportion, values, and other essential drawing skills Used by contemporary artists to increase their visual literacy

Why Copy a Bargue Plate? Many famous artists have copied Bargue plates to increase their drawing skills. This Bargue plate was done by Picasso! Pablo Picasso, Study of a Torso, 1893-94 (Musée Picasso), age 12 or 13

How does it work? Learn drawing skills by copying the plates as carefully as possible. Different plates are intended to focus on teaching different concepts. Some plates are more difficult than others to copy well.

Try it! Let’s start with the line drawing, known as a “block-in.” We will create the line drawing in stages.

Think Big to Small When drawing, always look for the biggest ideas before worrying about smaller ideas. One tool artists have to help them think big is the notional space box.

Notional Space Box Represents the amount of space that the drawing takes up. Touches the highest, furthest left, furthest right, and lowest points of the drawing.

Draw the Notional Space Box Draw the notional space box on your Bargue Plate. Use your skewer to measure the width and height Make a notional space box that is the exact same size on your paper.

Envelope An envelope is another big idea that helps establish the biggest shape in the Bargue Plate

Envelope A good envelope uses a small number of lines (this one uses 5) Envelopes can “cut through” minor parts of the drawing.

Envelope skewer Draw the envelope on your Bargue Plate. Use your skewer to measure how high up or over the envelope touches the notional space box Draw an envelope inside the notional space box on your paper

Follow-Through Lines Now that some big ideas have been established with the notional space box and envelope, we can use follow-through lines to further describe the arm. Follow through lines are big, straight lines that connect disparate parts of a drawing.

Follow-Through Lines Notice how this line connects the back of the arm to the forearm and fingers. The line starts at the notional space box and ends at the notional space box.

Follow-Through Lines Follow through lines help artists maintain control of their subject’s proportion by providing multiple reference points. Knowing where this follow-through line hits the top of the arm and the bottom of the hand helps artists make sure the forearm is in the right place.

Follow-Through Lines skewer Draw a follow-through line on your Bargue Plate. Use your skewer to measure how high up or over the follow-through line touches the notional space box Draw the follow-through line on your paper skewer

Make More Follow-Through Lines

Notice anything special about the follow-through lines?

Follow-Through Lines Artists often use repeating parallel lines to create structure in a drawing. Parallel lines also help to organize complex visual information - it’s a lot easier to focus on a few line angles than 100 different angles!

Follow-Through Lines Do you see the angles that intersecting lines create? Looking for these angle relationships helps artists to be more accurate, and help the eye see more nuanced visual information.

Follow-Through Lines Classically trained artists often use only a handful of different line angles in a block-in. Repeating parallel lines are part of the “design” that Charles Bargue intended to teach to the people who study his plates.

Continue Follow-Through Lines If your page starts to look a little crazy, don’t worry - you are doing it right! Try to find as many repeating parallel lines as you can!

Continue Follow-Through Lines Once you have a fair number of follow-through lines down, you can erase back the part of the lines that you don’t need. The basic shape of your subject should start to emerge.

Refine Your Block-In Now that you have set your proportions and found the basic relationships of the parts to each other, you can start using smaller straight lines to refine your drawing. These are all straight lines!

Final Touches The very last thing to do in a block in is to add any of the smaller details. You want your block-in to look as close to the one on the Bargue Plate you are looking at as possible

How Did You Do? Does your drawing have the same proportions as the plate you referenced? Did you use straight lines?

How Did You Do? Did you find some follow through lines that connected far-reaching parts of your image? Are your line angles accurate?

Secondary National Arts Standards:1.a, 1.d, 2.c, 2d, 6c Secondary Common Core Math Standards: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.CO.A.1 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.CO.A.4 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.CO.D.12 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.GMD.B.4 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.MG.A.1 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.MG.A.3 Secondary Common Core English Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.4 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.5 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.7 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.8