Date:  28th – 29th August 2024
Artist: David Hedderman and Yuka Tanaka
Medium: Charcoal, chalk and oil pastels
Participants: Maximum 9
Course level: Intermediate, all levels welcome, artists with some drawing experience will benefit the most

David Hedderman is an Irish artist and musician based in Berlin since 2008. He received his B.A. in Fine Art at NCAD in 2005. He established regular life drawing classes and workshops from his studio in Kreuzberg, Berlin (2011-2021), and was invited to teach and share his methods in Finland, Germany, France and Ireland (Masterclass in the RHA (Dublin 2019). David regularly exhibits his work both in Germany and Ireland. RHA annual exhibition in Dublin (2013-2022), winner of the Hennessy Craig Scholarship, at the RHA (185th) Annual Exhibition. In 2017, David was commissioned to write a book entitled ’Draw’, a graphic guide to life drawing, published by Ammonite Press. David has designed artwork for many Irish music artists including the Villagers album ‘Darling Arithmetic’ 2015.

Yuka Tanaka is a multi disciplinary artist whose work consists primarily of self portraiture. She holds B.A. in Performing Arts from Tama Art University in Tokyo (2012). Since 2011 when she started her career in life modeling, which brought her to work with Tokyo, London and Berlin’s top institutions and many individual artists who lead the scene of drawing from life.

David and Yuka started to work together in 2017. In 2020 they brought David’s life drawing class online. They developed an online life drawing space they call “artist’s gym” which incorporates music, and a variety of Berlin-based models into David’s class structures, allowing artists to exercise and explore drawing outside their comfort zone.

Course Concept

The three day course is aimed to help participants find their own tools to push their drawing practice forward. Through intensive portraiture and life drawing, participants will be introduced to David’s drawing exercises to jump through the invisible limitations blocking them from getting to the next stage.

As well as drawing techniques, Dave and Yuka will share their stories to explore subject matter: David’s 100+ portraits of friends, family and strangers from life and Yuka’s 10+ years of a journey of continuous self portraiture.

Participants can expect live demonstrations, slide show presentation, individual and group tuition, intensive portrait and life drawing sessions, structured in the three days as follows:

Day 1 : Focus on getting to know each others’ work and on becoming familiar with materials and techniques. Life drawing and portraiture with David drawing alongside visiting artists from unique and challenging poses by life model and sitter Yuka. Structured drawing exercises with music employed to facilitate artists focusing and achieving flow.

Day 2: Presentation from David and Yuka. Life drawing (short poses). Self portrait and/or drawing from images chosen by participants. 

Day 3: Long portrait study with David’s demonstration of and input on aspects of working with a life model. Group discussion on significance of practicing life drawing and portraiture today. Feedback and close.

* The course takes place in Artform modern light-filled seaside studio with 24hr access for each visiting artist, and runs from 11am to 5pm on the first day and from 10am to 4pm on the subsequent days. Cost does not include accommodation, on request Artform offers artist accommodation options. Details on art materials will be provided after signing up to the course.