Organic Sketching

A unique, and satisfying application of Sketching Techniques…

Organic Sketching (OS) is a relaxing, natural, and pleasing way to express our concepts, ideas, and dreams into their first visual stages. It’s a combination of learned skills, observations, employing creative techniques, and endless practice. Sketching is typically the very first step in almost every genre of art, be it drawing, painting, sculpting, architecture, or design. Unreliable skills make starting a sketch frustrating for some people and can even make the experience of sketching a fearful hurdle! I am here to help make first sketches exciting, more accurate, and something to look forward to!

OS builds eye-brain-hand connections, instills confidence, and allows our visions to comfortably and smoothly come to life by returning to very basic sketching skills. OS is a non-mechanical freeform way to think your ideas through as you lay them out. Pencil-control and finesse become second nature over time, the act of sketching becomes liberating and sensual. 

OS is designed around finding mass and volume, making decision lines, commitment lines, examining light, depth, and understanding effective line-crafting. Tool-familiarity is emphasized, as it’s an easily correctable issue some people don’t even realize they have! We will learn to “see” an object as opposed to just looking at it, developing natural pathways from our brain to our hand. In the end we find life in our sketches!

OS teaches self- critiquing and observation. You’ll find “freedom from resistance” allows you to become emotional about your images as they develop. Sketching, more often than not, is the endpoint of most concepts… they’re worked and reworked, exploring variation after variation, never culminating in a “finished” piece. And that’s great. Because sketches are sometimes the goal, not the means to a goal. Have you ever seen a sketch that took your breath away, or told the whole story in a tangle of lines and gestures? The success in capturing your ideas is the life in their lines, the motion in their figures, the belief you have in its tangibility! That, my friends, is Organic Sketching! 

This fun educational experience is very unique and vibrant, unusually interactive, and not like any class or workshop you have ever explored! From beginner to advanced, you will leave with new skills and techniques, new desires to create, and a higher confidence level than when you first sat down. Don’t bother bringing an eraser, we won’t be using one!

Class is held at our SOUTH SALT LAKE location.

Instructor: Chris Maggio

Supply List: 

It’s an easy one… not much but very particular!

•Pencils: Prismacolor COL-ERASE pencils in three colors… 3 Blue, 3 Green (darker green of the available greens), 1 Orange. Available online or at Blick. “!!These are NOT the round “Premier” pencils, but have the flat sides like a regular pencil.

•Paper: Hammermill Digital Color Copy. 11 x 17 inch. 

NOTE: The paper will be supplied for you for the first class only, as I want to make sure you don’t buy the wrong paper and several people may want to buy it together as it only comes in reams of 500 sheets!

Minimum Enrollments and Refunds:

We need a minimum of 5 participants to be able to provide the class. If we don't reach our minimum enrollment, we may need to cancel the class. The best way to ensure your class goes on is to get your friends to join in on the fun!

This class is NOT eligible for students to drop-in or use Flex Passes. This class builds from one week to the next.

If you are unable to attend the class, we are able to process refunds up to 2 weeks before the first day of class. After that date, we can either transfer you into a different class or offer you a credit towards your account up to the first day of class.

Please note: The first two classes in this series are critical to attend, as all the techniques, philosophy, and processes are delivered then. If you know you will not be able to make them both, please consider taking the full course at a later date, as this information is quite voluminous, as well as used immediately for the entire course, and there is no additional time for the instructor to backtrack. This is also not a drop-in course. Your understanding of this is appreciated.

Please contact our office if you have any questions.