LESSON PLANS FROM

9-12 / DRAWING

BARGUE PL ATE

Written by Mandy Hallenius www.mandyhallenius.com

OBJECTIVES
Students will identify and apply a drawing
process
Students will practice observation skills
Students will discover and apply drawing
theory
Students will increase their visual literacy
through identifying errors in their drawings
and correcting them

STANDARDS
This lesson meets National Arts Standards
1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 2b, 2c, 4a, 4b, 4d, 5b
This lesson meets Common Core Standards
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.MG.A.1
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.MG.A.3
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSG.GMD.B.4
Bargue Plate from the Charles Bargue Drawing Course

SUMMARY
In this lesson, students will increase their
visual literacy by applying a drawing process,
learning new techniques for identifying and
correcting drawing errors, and practicing their
hand-eye coordination.

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MATERIALS
Barge Plates (attached)
Drawing Paper ~9x12
Pencils - 2B preferred
Kneaded Erasers
Masking Tape
Skewers/thin dowels, or other thing, long
straight tool
Drawing Boards or Foam Core Boards

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION
How Does It Work?
What Is a Bargue Plate?
Bargue Plates are part of a French 19th century drawing course created by Jean-Leon
Gerome and Charles Bargue.
The course was one of the first drawing curricula ever created for the equivalent of high
school students to improve their draftsmanship and visual literacy.
Bargue Plates teach students proportion, values, and other essential drawing skills, and are
used by contemporary artists to increase their
visual literacy. Many of the lessons found in
these plates are used by contemporary artists
in their artwork.
In fact, even abstract artists such as Pablo
Picasso studied Bargue Plates.

Students learn drawing skills by re-creating the

plates as carefully as possible, using methods
similar to that of the original artist. Different plates are intended to focus on teaching
different concepts, and some plates are more
difficult than others to re-create accurately.
For example, the plates exaggerate divisions
between light and dark so that students can
start identifying this important division when
their eyes encounter it in 3D objects that they
may wish to draw. The plates also show how to
organize a lot of complex information into a
few big shapes and lines. This teaches students
how to capture and organize visual information that they absorb from their every day
surroundings.
Vocabulary
Notional Space Box - the total amount of
space a drawing takes up when surrounded by
vertical and horizontal lines
Envelope - a big shape that uses a few lines to
surround the subject to be drawn.
Follow-Through Line - a line that goes all the
way through the subject that connects multiple
objects or parts of objects.
Teaching Notes
It is important to emphasize with your students that they arent simply copying a drawing - they are identifying and applying a new
drawing process that can be applied to anything they wish to draw in a realistic manner.

Pablo Picasso Copy after a Bargue plate,

1894

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In order to prevent students from rushing

through the drawing, introduce one step at a
time.

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BARGUE PL ATE
Please see accompanying PPT for detailed
information about each step. You can download the PPT at www.davinciinitiative.org

STEP 1

9-12 / DRAWING

STEP 3
Find the plumb line on the Bargue plate. Use
your skewer to measure where the plumb
line goes on your drawing paper and place it
appropriately.

Tape the first stage of the Bargue Plate next

to a clean piece of drawing paper on a drawing board.

STEP 2
Make a notional space box on your original
Bargue Plate, and then one the exact same
size on your drawing paper. Use your skewer
to measure the distances between sides to
make sure they are the same.

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STEP 4
Draw and envelope around the image on
your original Bargue plate, and then one of
the exact same size and shape on your drawing paper.

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9-12 / DRAWING

STEP 5
Extend lines on the original Bargue Plate so
that they become follow-through lines.

Above: Identify the shorter line

Below: Extend the line until it reaches the
notional space box. Transfer this followthrough line to your drawing paper.

Ask students if they notice anything about

the way the original artist uses line. Most
artists that work from observation will use
just a handful of line angles when describing an object. Using a small number of line
angles helps artists to organize a lot of very
complex visual information into something
easier to comprehend.

STEP 7
STEP 6
Make more follow-through lines. It is
important to extend the smaller lines every
time. This way you can discover patterns
and repetitions in the way line is used by the
original artist.
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Once you have extended several lines and

found their pattern, it is ok to erase back the
part of the line that you do not need. Continue placing lines until all of the lines from
the original plate are placed on your drawing paper.

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9-12 / DRAWING

STEP 8

STEP 10

Tape the next stage of the Bargue Plate over

top of the first stage on your drawing board.
This stage looks similar to the first stage, but
has more information on it.

After completing the second stage of the

Bargue plate, tape the final stage onto your
drawing board.

STEP 9
Use the same process of creating followthrough lines on the second stage of the Bargue Plate. Be aware that there are some shifts
that happen when placing the second plate
because the original plates were lithographs
and each plate is a new drawing.

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9-12 / DRAWING

STEP 11

STEP 13

Fill in the shadow shape with one even dark

value. Do not press so hard that you kill
the paper. Build up the value gradually. Pull
out light spots with your kneaded eraser,
and fill in light areas with the point of your
pencil.

Working from the shadow towards the light,

lay down value with your pencil to match
the values that you see in the plate. Remember that the shadow areas are much lighter
than the darker areas in the light. The small
amount of light in the beard, known as the
reflected light, is actually quite dark, even
though it seems light. Work slowly and carefully until your drawing looks the most like
the original as possible. Careful observation
will increase your visual literacy, and help
your eye to see more nuanced differences in
other subjects that you observe.

STEP 12
Find additional details by finding the big
shapes first. For example, on the hair, see if
you can find the big triangle shape before
breaking it into smaller pieces.

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BARGUE PL ATE

9-12 / DRAWING

VERBAL ASSESSMENT

OBSERVATIONAL ASSESSMENT

1. How did your drawing change from the

beginning to the end of this drawing process?

1. Does the student correctly utilize a notional

space box, an envelope, and follow-through
lines?

2. If you could do your Bargue Plate drawing

again, what would you do differently?

2. Does the student fill in the shadow shape

with one flat value?

3. What do you see other students doing that

you like?

3. Does the student work from the dark areas

to the light areas in the drawing?
4. Does the student apply any of the skills
learned in this lesson to other projects?

RUBRIC

3 pts

4 pts

5 pts

Notional Space Box

The notional space box

does not accurately reflect
the proportion of the original image.

The notional space box almost accurately reflects the

proportions of the original
image.

The notional space box

accurately reflects the
proportions of the original
image.

Envelope

The envelope is a complex

instead of a simple shape,
and/or student did not
use straight lines for the
envelope.

Student mostly uses one

big shape to encompass the
image on the Bargue Plate,
and most lines are straight.

Student uses one big shape

to encompass the image on
the Bargue Plate. Envelope
lines are straight.

Follow-Through Lines Some line angles are care-

fully observed. Most lines

are straight and go through
the entire image.

Most line angles are carefully observed. Most lines

are straight and go through
the entire image.

Line angles are carefully

observed. Lines are straight
and go through the entire
image.

Values

There are many values that

are too light in a dark area
or too dark in a light area.

There are some values that

are too light in a dark area
or too dark in a light area.

Values are organized so

that all the lights group
together and all the darks
group together.

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BARGUE PL ATE

9-12 / DRAWING

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Art Renewal Center
Online Image Museum
www.artrenewal.org
Charles Bargue Drawing Course
Charles Bargue drawing course: with the collaboration of Jean-Leon Gerome
Charles Bargue - Jean LeonGerome - Gerald M.Ackerman - Graydon Parrish - ARC
Edition - 2003

Classical Drawing Atelier: A Contemporary

Guide to Traditional Studio Practice
Juliette Aristides - Watson-Guptill Publications - 2006

Lessons in Classical Drawing: Essential

Techniques from Inside the Atelier
Juliette Aristides - Watson-Guptill Publications - 2011
Measuring Methods for Artists
by Larry Withers Format
DVD

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