Well, the last 8 weeks seem to have flown by and here we are at the end of the course, I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.  We didn’t finish off with anything easy though – we looked at how to draw reflective objects.  It’s very time consuming but really worth the effort as it can give some fantastic results.  You’ve all come so far with your drawing skills since the start of the course, especially as some of you were complete beginners!  Well done, be proud of yourselves!  The drop in sessions will be starting from next Wednesday (see post above).  So I hope to see some of you there.  If not, then have a lovely summer and I hope to see you all soon at future Leeds Art Group courses.

Wendy

Sadly this was the final week of the course and I really think you all saved the best for last!  We tackled “Reflections” this week.  It’s a really tricky thing to do but you all did brilliantly and created some amazing drawings!  It’s been great teaching you all over the past eight weeks and seeing your individual styles emerging.  I’ve loved seeing the work you produce each week and you should all be really proud of what you’ve achieved.  I hope you’ll continue to practise your pastel drawing skills and I hope to see you all at future Leeds Art Group courses.  Have a great summer!

Wendy

This week we practised drawing hands as people often find these difficult to draw.  You all did really well.  I think the hardest part was keeping your hand still.  Sadly it’s our last week of the course next week but don’t forget that the drop in sessions will be continuing from May 14th, same time, same place (10am – 12pm).  You don’t need to book in advance for these sessions and you can come to as many or as few as you like – just turn up and draw.  The cost per session will be £7.  See you all next week.

This week we practised drawing the human figure.  A couple of quick sketches first to get the hang of it and then one long pose.  You all took to this really well and I can tell that you are all thinking a lot more about proportion in your drawings and making sure you get this right.  Some great drawings as usual.  Special thanks to our model Ellie for doing such a  good job.

What fantastic self-portraits you all did this week!  Using some basic proportion guidelines and then putting in your own characteristics.  Well done everyone, they looked great!

We tackled self-portraits last night with emphasis on using lots of different colours to create skin tones.  I think you all did brilliantly and you were soon fearlessly using all the colours in your palette!  well done everyone.

We did some timed drawing exercises to help us speed up the way we sketch out the initial stages of a drawing.  These exercises should help you focus on the key elements of a composition that you need to jot down when you first start a drawing and before you add any detail.

In this lesson we looked at scale and how enlarging small objects to fill a much larger piece of paper can create really interesting drawings.

This week we used a grid as a guide to enlarge a photograph.  You all took to this really well and hopefully it will be a useful technique for you in the future.  It’s a handy tool for a beginner and will help improve your proportion skills.

This week we forgot about colour for a while and focused on using just 3 pastels to create all the different tones.  The ripped paper surfaces you prepared created really interesting backgrounds for this more sketchy style.  Not easy to get the hang of at first but the results were some fantastic drawings.