Draw like da Vinci: Classical Drawing for Young Artists, San Antonio, TX (2026)

10/19/2022

Lesson 3: "Draw like da Vinci" - Forget the Formulas!

As we saw in Lesson 1 and 2, drawing in the classical sense is learning from experience. No one else can learn for you but you yourself.

“Drawing like da Vinci” IS to draw like yourself, because it is YOUR learning and YOUR experience. Leonardo da Vinci is a model for us, since he was one of the first artists to discover this principle of research. In fact, he came of age in a lineage that worked from formulas and pre-set patterns all the time. To take up a notebook, and sit in front of the object and study its actual structure, as opposed to a formulaic pattern, or preconceived idea - this was, and still is, an extraordinary thing.

The question is not really how to draw, but how to learn. Lesson #3 goes into this process a little deeper.

A common question I get from my students is: “how do you draw an eye?” In fact, one of my students asked me this very question during last class. In a previous week another student asked about hands. They could have asked about cats, dogs, buildings, shoes, cars, birds, people, or clouds.

Now maybe you’ve seen the many arts instruction books in bookstores that teach you how to draw a cat in ten easy steps, or how to draw an eye. Take an eye, for example. First draw a football shape, to simplify the form of the eye, then sketch in a little circle inside, etc.

In other words, the steps to draw a cat are very different than those for drawing an eye. I could learn how to draw this formula-cat super well, but then I’d be at a loss for drawing a formula-eye, because I haven’t learned the steps. Everything under the sun has a completely different formula to learn and follow.

Exhausting!

Classical drawing, by contrast - in the lineage beginning with Leonardo - solves this by going to the root, to the source.

If I want to draw an eye, the task is not really about learning how to draw an eye, but in fact learning how to open up and respond to our living experience.

We can study eyes directly - by drawing a model, or by simply looking into a mirror. Thus I don’t need a formula to follow in order to draw anything. All I need to do is learn how to learn from the things I see in our actual experience. And that's what I teach.

The best part about all of this is that kids just love it, especially the kids who show some talent or ability in drawing or picture making. It's funny, because we have this idea that kids have a need to be "creative" - and so we have Art classes and workshops that go to great lengths to make a show of being creative, and anything goes. I think we've got it the wrong way around. Kids yearn for some real contact and communication with the real world of objects - perhaps even more, in our media environment. You can just see it, visibly, how engaged they become, how quiet and intense, when they are at work at the easel, studying the model: they have the sense they are pursuing something real - right there in front of them - and when their drawing begins to take real shape before them, they have a sense of real achievement that we all celebrate. And THAT is satisfying! Wouldn't it be great if more kids had this experience in art classes?

(Photo: The drawing below is a reproduction of an original drawing by me, of my lovely wife's eye, who so patiently modeled for me.

10/07/2022

A “Draw like da Vinci!” Dialogue: "Is this math, art class…or what?"

Teacher: (Finishing demonstration) So, as you can see with your own eyes, according to the model we have in front of us, you can always figure out the position of the light source, by the angle of the terminator in the form shadow. The ray of light is perpendicular to the line of the terminator.

Student: Wait, wait. Mr. Saussy. Hold on. I get all of the terms because you've gone over them. But is this math class? It seems like a math class all of sudden. (Slinks down in chair, face pale, looking worried.)

Teacher (laughing): No, this is indeed a drawing class. But it seems to you like math, because of the geometry?

Student: Well, yeah!

Teacher: Well, what about it? Do you get to draw beautiful pictures in math class, like we do here?

Student: Well, no. (Smiles) But I’ve never had an art class with math in it. I thought art is supposed to be creative!

Teacher: It IS unusual to have math in art class, you’re right. And we do have this idea that art is supposed to be creative…which I guess, means that math isn’t creative? What do you think?

Student: Yes, exactly! So isn’t having math in art class, like mixing oil and water?

Teacher: Well, it could be, if we’re right about math and art. But let me ask you this, and if you can’t answer it that’s okay, but just think about it. When did you first hear that art is creative? Where did this idea come from do you think?

Student: Oh, I don’t know, I guess that’s just the way it’s always been.

Teacher: Okay, that’s totally fine if you can’t say when you first came to the idea that art is creative. Can you tell me, then, if art is creative: what do you think it means to be creative?

Student: (Thinks for a moment) Well, I don’t know, I guess not with so many rules and math! (laughter)

Teacher (smiling): I think I understand. Tell me if I’m wrong. Rules tell you what to do and not do; but being creative means doing what you want?

Student: Yes, that’s it!

Teacher: So creativity is a kind of freedom?

Student: (eyes widen) “Yes! I can make a picture be whatever I want and however I want it. But in math, I can’t make math be what I want. I have to follow steps and rules.

Teacher: I understand. What you’re saying makes some sense. But let’s look into it a little more. I happen to know that you play the violin and also volleyball, isn’t that right?

Student: Yeah, I do. I’m not such a big fan of the violin. But I practice anyway. I love volleyball.

Teacher: Good for you! Keep after it - you might find you feel differently after a year or two about the violin. But let me ask you this: does volleyball have rules, or not?

Student: Yes, it totally has rules.

Teacher: Can you give me an example, so we’re on the same page?

Student: Sure. Out of bounds is one rule. If the ball goes out of bounds, the turn is over.

Teacher: Perfect. What would volleyball be like if there were no out of bounds rule?

Student (laughs): It would be crazy!

Teacher: Would it still be volleyball?

Student: Well, maybe not…well, sort of…no, I guess not.

Teacher: The violin also has rules to - the way to hold the bow, for example. The great violinist could play so beautifully if she didn’t hold the bow correctly?

Student: No way! Ugh. The bow hold is super hard.

Teacher: That’s because it’s new. Keep practicing, give it some time, and before you know it, it’ll be easy! So if you need certain rules for volleyball, and certain rules for violin, why should there be no ‘rules’ for the practice of art, in painting, drawing and sculpting?

Student: Well, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem right somehow. Maybe they’re different than art?

Teacher: Maybe, but maybe less than we think. Suppose our goal is to be able draw whatever we want that we can imagine. Are you with me?

Student: Yes, okay! Freedom, right?

Teacher: Something like that, yes. So let’s see how this works. Now you know, for example, what the exact relationship between the cast shadow and the form itself and the light source is, correct?

Student: What you just showed us, yes. The math part.

Teacher: If the light is in one position, the shadows will follow this exactly at certain angles. Suppose you want to draw a lion cub sitting in field, on a sunny day.

Student: Aw, a lion cub! Okay.

Teacher: Now without looking at a model, you could work out exactly what those shadows will be doing, both the form shadow on the cub and the cast shadow the cub casts on the ground.

Student: Oh! I see it! So the math you’re teaching us can actually help me work out things in my imagination! It’s not at all like oil and water. It’s like, something else…

Teacher: Like yeast in bread, making it puffier, or lard for tortillas, making them more delicious! (laughs) It’s odd to say, but throwing off all rules actually constrains us. The best rules actually prepare the ground for freedom, make mastery possible, whether in volleyball, violin or drawing.

Student: Wait. How do I draw a lion cub?

Teacher: Well, we could take a field trip to the the zoo! I think there’s a lion cub there. If not, we could draw lions. Better to draw the actual thing, and get as much experience as we can, than from photos - as Leonardo da Vinci said, why go to the waterjar when you can go to the source? The source being the actual lion.

Student: What, the zoo!? Mr. Saussy, is this biology class, or an art class, or what??

10/04/2022

Quick Lesson #3: The Pencil Hold. In this lesson, we look at two common holds, what I call The Pincer and The Stranglehold, and then we consider the natural way to hold a pencil, for maximum freedom of movement and control needed for classical drawing.

10/02/2022

Lesson 2: "Draw like da Vinci" - What does it mean to learn like da Vinci?

As we saw in Lesson 1, drawing in the classical sense is learning. No one else can learn for you but you yourself. Drawing like da Vinci IS to draw like yourself, because it is YOUR learning. But this means: the question is not really how to draw, but how to learn.

What is it to learn?

Leonardo da Vinci grew up in a world - very much like our own today - that largely ignores the way things actually appear.

Today, parents should know that art classes teach young artists one of two methods: a paint-by-numbers approach, or an ‘anything goes’ approach. Often the second is mixed with the first to add color and appeal. Neither approach actually allows young people to learn, to look deeply into the world that appears to them in their own experience, apart from preconceived ideas, and outside what appears on the screens of smartphones and tablets. Students with talent aren't very well served by this regime of art education. But apart from the talented few, there's a natural impulse to draw in all children, as there is to speak - an impulse to stretch out and connect with the world of meaning and relationships - and this impulse is simply not being met and nourished by art education.

Learning for Leonardo, and for us, by contrast, means going to the source, to learn the way things actually appear and to discover the principles that shape them, as opposed to merely copying our prejudices about the way things look.

What this means is that - even though we are familiar with the looks of all sorts of things under the sun - we don't *really* know what things look like in our familiar experience, beyond our barest ideas! It's strange to say, but true. With pencil and paper, we can put our conceptions to the test, and see it for ourselves. Because learning puts us up against our familiar habits, and pushes beyond them, wonder is a regular experience we have in the studio or out in the field. The familiar world undergoes a sea-change, and transforms into something rich and strange...

09/30/2022

Quick Lesson #2: Erasers, Erasers, Erasers!

The most important thing to remember about erasers is this: in classical drawing, we think of erasers as positive drawing tools, like pencils.

Now we usually don't think about erasers this way (i.e. as drawing implements). Our first exposure to erasers in schools (with pink pearl erasers for example) is to use them to eliminate, totally get rid of, pencil marks. But in the classical sense of drawing, we have to reframe our ordinary mindset: erasers can be used to shape our drawing.

There are two special kinds of erasers we use for our drawing. The first one is the white Tri-Tip style eraser. The second one is called a "kneaded eraser." The Tri-Tip style is useful because the gently pointed ends help us to be precise in our erasing. These erasers are only used in the *very first stages* of drawing. When you do erase with one, always erase very gently - you want to make sure that you are not digging into the 'tooth' of the paper. Otherwise the paper gets scratchy, and then this becomes difficult to work with in the later stages.

In the later stages of drawing, the kneaded eraser is your tool. You can "knead" or shape them into a pointed tool for use. You use these erasers differently than the Tri Tip eraser: rather than erase by rubbing gently, you use the kneaded eraser to lift graphite carefully from the surface. Thus you can use it in all sorts of subtle ways to shape the light and shadow and texture of your drawing.

See Quick Lesson #1: Pencils - below!

09/30/2022

Lesson 1: "Draw like da Vinci" - What does it mean to draw like da Vinci? Does drawing like da Vinci mean I can’t draw like myself?

To draw like da Vinci, we have to learn like da Vinci. For da Vinci - and all those who come after, through Van Gogh and Cezanne - drawing is learning.

Learning is not a question of trying to copy da Vinci, to copy his style and go no further, or to simply reproduce his methods to the letter (even though we can learn a great deal doing these things), but rather to learn how to learn. I teach a classical approach to drawing that helps young artist learn how to learn for themselves.

The great secret about learning is that even at the highest levels, learning never ceases: it's not just an 'elementary thing', but it is a 'mastery thing'. Leonardo and Michelangelo were still learning, all the way to the end of their lives. In the classical approach to art, learning is the beginning and the end of the greatest works, not passion alone, or creativity. Learning is what fuels each master's unique artistic visions. True mastery is always willing to go back to the beginning, to see with fresh eyes.

To Draw like da Vinci is to draw like yourself, because there is no one else who can do your learning for you, but you yourself.

Next Lesson: Lesson 2: What does it mean to learn like da Vinci?

09/27/2022

What is "classical" drawing? Classical drawing is not about how Art was done in the past, but about what can be seen with the eyes and admired with the heart, here and now in our experience - and at all times and places. Classical drawing is the rediscovery of the magic of the world here and now, as if hidden under the debris of modern ideas. Like harmony in music, we uncover the beauty that flows from the harmony, proportion and order native to forms in nature.

09/26/2022

Class Notes: Who said art doesn't involve thinking and problem solving? Below I've shared a picture of a quick sketch of notes for tomorrow's Coppini class, on light and shadow. My students (ages 11-16) have been learning the definite and lawful character of the structure of shadow: "terminator", "form shadow", "cast shadow", "reflected light", and "highlight." These concepts are usually not taught in school art programs. We notice that the shadow, like a rainbow, requires three things: observer, object, and light source. Shadows are not just "black" - they are full of light, subtlety and endless variety.

The shadow, amazingly, appears differently depending on the posiition of the observer relative to the illuminated object.

Now #1. with a flashlight and a white lacrosse ball, find experimentally the angle that holds between observer and object to make each "phase". #2. Working from imagination and your experimental knowledge, develop a "solar system" of spheres, represented all the phases, in a spherical space!

One of the core principles of "Draw like da Vinci" is that the knowledge we can win from our studies of nature and experience in fact aids the work of our imagination. Why? We can work out the shapes and structures of things in a convincing and natural way, following the internal logic of natural forms, and even on this basis invent new things!

09/26/2022

Quick Lesson #1: On Pencils. If you've ever tried to shop for art and design pencils for your young artist or for yourself, you might be bewildered by the variety: H, 2H, HB, F, B. 3B. What are all the H's and B's about?

Here's the story: Against popular mythology, B does NOT stand for "Black, and H "Hard".

Rather, "H" stands for the French "Haut" - in English "High" - and the "B" for "Bas", or "Low" in English.

Like pigments in paints - whether oils, acrylic or tempera - fine graphite particles need to be compressed and held together by a binding agent. For oils, the pigment is bound by oil. For acryclic, acrylic is the binding agent. For tempera, egg yolks! In the case of graphite, a high amount of this binding agent makes the graphite harder - hence, "haut". A low amount makes the graphite softer - hence "bas". The harder the graphite is, the lighter the line will be, because the binding agent keeps the particles from separating and transferring onto the surface. The softer the graphite is, the darker the line. Why? Because there is low (Bas) binding agent, which allows the particles to loosen and transfer to the surface.

In my classes, we generally use 2B through HB pencils, for working on a white paper surface.

My teacher Anthony Ryder in Santa Fe told me once that he is absolutely convinced that if Leonardo da Vinci knew about pencils, he would have used them. I think he's right. Leonardo was the leading pioneer in the use of oils - and was always interested in improving means and techniques. By the way, here is a fascinating little book on the history of the pencil, an overlooked engineering marvel: "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance" by Henry Petroski.

09/24/2022

Drawing is as natural for children as learning to walk, to sing, dance and speak. Education should provide the conditions which satisfy whatever it is in children that yearns for completion. Therefore, at the earliest ages, make lots and lots of paper and pencils - or whatever other drawing implements - available to children. I know one family who even went so far as to paint certain walls with white board paint so their child could draw at will!

Tip: when you give your child paper (or whiteboard paint lol), be careful not to push them too hard to make pictures look like anything. If we force kids to draw things we recognize all the time, we disrupt their thought process, and they settle into formulas and stop growing. Let 'em play and roam and build, freely inventing. Here’s a drawing by my 4 year old. He worked on it over several weeks before his piano lessons with the lovely Brenda Boyd at the Musical Arts Center of San Antonio. What is it? He will tell you exactly what it is. But what *I* see is not scribbles but a variety of mark-making, a real effort at attention, to build and think through something meaningful. With this inner effort at thinking things through taking place, he's already drawing like da Vinci. It’s not until ages 10 or so that I would in all seriousness begin to present drawing from life.

09/23/2022

Welcome! My name is David Saussy, and I teach classical drawing for young artists at the Coppini Academy of Fine Art. I witness first hand how capable our kids are: not only can they learn the skills and acquire the knowledge of classical drawing, but this knowledge empowers them: they flourish with it. The question that needs to be pursued is: why are the skills of drawing from life - which are well within our kids capacities - not being taught in our schools?

09/23/2022

A set up for 'Draw like da Vinci!' Young Masters class at the Coppini Academy of Fine Art in San Antonio, TX.

Draw like da Vinci: Classical Drawing for Young Artists

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