It’s time to address a vital element of preparation for the final project: quick-pose drawings. Iliya works with his model to draw 13 short poses from various angles. First, he works with simplified construction, then contour, line, and direct tone. Drawing shorter poses from your live model or from reference will train your mind and hand, giving you the strongest possible understanding of your subject.

Join Ukrainian-born artist Iliya Mirochnik as he passes on a 250-year-old academic method preserved at the Repin Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia and seldom taught outside of the Academy and never before on camera.

The Russian Academic drawing and painting approaches were uninterrupted by the modern art movements that transformed representational art in the West, and as a result, they provide a unique and clear lineage to the greater art traditions of the past. As a powerful approach that is both constructive and depictive, it combines the two methods that prevail in contemporary representational art.