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.

We used charcoal and chalk this week to draw natural forms and used a viewfinder to help enlarge the small objects to fill a sheet of A3 paper.  Both charcoal and chalk take some getting used to, so well done to everyone for having a go, I was really pleased with the work you did.  Back to good old pencil work next week and we’ll be drawing from photographs.  I have plenty of photos for everyone but if you’d like to bring in your own then please do (it needs to be about A5 size).  See you all next week!

Well it was a tricky one this week – drawing white objects on a white background without using any black.  Not an easy task but you all experimented really well with colour and found out what colours to mix to create the shadows you needed.  Then you looked at the tints reflected onto white by other bright objects.  You did some fantastic drawings and I just wish we’d had more time to spend on them.  Find out next week what we’ll be doing with the textured surface we prepared.

So this week we moved onto manmade forms which are generally a bit trickier than natural forms but you rose to the challenge and did not disappoint me.  We practised our proportion and shading and not forgetting those ellipses!  Thank you to everyone who brought in their own objects to draw.  It helped to make a more interesting composition.  Remember it’s charcoal next week!  So wear something you don’t mind getting messy.

Last night we looked at natural forms and different ways of mixing colours.  Well done for trying out all the different techniques.  As the course progresses you’ll learn which ones work best for you.  You all created some really vibrant drawings last night and you can see your individual styles emerging.  See you next week and don’t forget to bring in a white object to draw!

Thanks to everyone for coming yesterday, it was nice to finally meet you all and put names to faces. You all created some lovely drawings of natural forms and well done on tackling those pesky shells!  Don’t forget to bring your manmade object to draw next week.

Thanks to everyone for coming last night and getting stuck in with the pastels.  You all produced some beautiful drawings based on Impressionist paintings.  Be very proud of the work you did and I’ll look forward to seeing what you can do next week.