Continuing our exploration of the elements of drawing/painting now leads us to Value. Value is the term we use when referring to how dark or light a shadow is. This is extremely important as we progress towards painting because every color also has a darkness. We will be exploring the value of color in subsequent lessons.
Another important thing to remember is that every object because of it’s color will utilize a different section of the value scale. In the interest of clarity we will assign each differnt darkness on the …

This lesson will deal with learning how to create a unit of measurement. You will use your pencil to measure and draw a still life which will be set up in front of you. In the first drawing by Honore Daumier you can see that the practice goes back many hundreds of years. People still use it, because it works.

All you have to do is hold a pencil or brush at arms length, close one eye, and move your thumb up or down the pencil to make a measurement. then …

Now that we have got a good grasp of line, and the importance of varying our lines in our drawing we are going to continue on to another huge element of drawing/painting. That important element is form.  Correctly understanding form will give your paintings/drawings more depth. Traditionally schools have taught students to look for four key forms. These are The Cube, The Cylinder, The Sphere,  and variations and combinations of these forms.

Using combinations of these three basic forms can enable to draw virtually anything on the planet. It is no …

Line Variation.

Drawing #13 “Line Variation Shoe”

In these drawings you are going to be exploring line variation. It is important that the lines in your drawings have varying thicknesses. Because of its versatility and ability to make highly varied lines we will be using a brush and ink. This will make the drawing appear more lively and dynamic. Later on will start exploring how different line thicknesses can also give a drawing “weight” but for this first drawing just trust your intuition and vary the thickness of your line. Before you …

Gesture Drawings and Observation

In the following drawings we are going to work at getting loosened up. One problem many students encounter is that the more they concentrate, the harder the hold the pencil, the stiffer their arm becomes, and the tighter the drawings look.

We are going to loosen up our drawings by loosening up our arms. Before you sit down do some simple arm stretches and take some deep breaths. Sit down at a comfortable table and begin by drawing these circle spirals across the page. I …