The Artist's First Steps

Hi,

I'm so glad you've joined me this summer for our first lesson of 2021. Children to adults can sometimes be tripped up by the first steps to drawing from observation. I'll discuss ways of drawing that will help you get those first lines on paper with ease. Yes, I truly think you can greatly improve your skills in drawing in just one summer. Once we understand the underlying construction used to turn a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional drawing, we can focus on those practices in drawing that take us to our desired goal. 

I can't tell you how important drawing is. Any fully-rendered, shaded drawing or colorful painting relies completely on those first lines that you put onto the paper. If your line drawing is off, no amount of shading or coloring will make that better. That's why I'm starting at the beginning by showing ways of constructing or structuring the objects in your drawings. 

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL...

Hi! 

I'm so glad you've joined me for our final drawing lesson of Summer 2020. I'm so proud of you for drawing so many different types of objects this summer. I know that some of them were perhaps a challenge, but you tried them anyway. You worry less about mistakes and you go for it in what appears to be an effortless way as you start your drawing with a plan.

I want you to keep that attitude as you delve into drawing more deeply, getting past first lines, and exploring other topics like texture, values, and shading within our books. You might even add color and paint to your line drawings using one of our books on color. Whatever kind of art you make, it most likely starts with a line drawing. Now I'm sure you feel more confident in making that drawing because you've done it again and again, making the neural pathway for drawing easier and smoother. 

Be sure to write to me and let me know how this series has affected your drawing or share any ideas that you'd like...

Hi!

What does it mean to get the lines right? Well, it usually means getting the lines closer to what you see when you look at the object in the real world. However, artists like Picasso and Cezanne would often leave lines within their work that didn't line up. They liked showing the objects within their paintings from different angles. So when considering whether a line is good or bad, right or wrong, what you are really contemplating is whether you like it or not. You are the artist. You are the decision maker for your own art. That is why we should not give free advice to a younger artist that has not asked for it. It is their art and if they like it, then we can appreciate its qualities as well. They may like it for entirely different reasons than what we notice about the picture. 

So with a note of caution let's talk about how to judge our own picture when we do not like a part of it. What exactly are we looking for? What exactly should we change? That's the topic of my...

Hi!

Thank you for joining me today. Have you ever thought about how many times we make art to show others our ideas? If your art is to communicate to others, people must see your ideas on paper. People cannot visualize what you say with words in the way you imagine the idea. So, now and in the future, it will be important that you develop a way of drawing that is easy for you. 

I want you to be able to draw any object that sits in front of you with lines on paper. I want you to know where to start and how to change lines that you see to make the lines match more closely what you see. I want you to always start with one of the three plans before developing any one part of the picture. Drawing with a plan was covered in #007. Today, I use a new plan, a grid. The grid lines are used just like we use the outside edge of the paper to mark distances. The grid lines give us more fixed points to make judgments about distance, so that we can be even more accurate in our drawings. I...

Hi!

Some people worry about making mistakes when they draw. I don't look at lines as mistakes, so in that way there really are no mistakes in drawing. The first lines tell you where the next lines should go. The next lines will probably be better than the first lines. Lines lead you to the solution. In that way of thinking, you can only improve your lines to match closer and closer to what you see. 

Others of you do not worry about mistakes in art and that puts you in a good place for trying new ways of drawing. You do not see lines as being wrong, but as a flexible tool that can be changed, erased, or made better. Taking risks by trying new methods may not turn out as good as you'd imagined or they might turn out better than you imagined. They may lead to a way of working that you like and continue. Risk taking is a part of art. We can imagine what the results will be, but until we get our marks on paper in the way we imagined, we won't know.

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis,...

Hi!

In this video I talk about awareness. Yes, you think you are aware of everything around you, but in fact, unless you have purposely set out to see everything around you, your brain is editing out a lot of details that aren't important to your survival or interests for the moment. It does this so that we aren't faced with overwhelm or too much information. This allows us to focus on what we want to do. 

Today you can purposefully look at something that is always with you, but that you pay little attention to. Watch the video and find out just what I'm talking about.

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, author of ARTistic Pursuits.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• How to wake up the brain so that you pay attention to what you see
• Looking for the new to find good subjects for art
• How to see the familiar in a new way

Note: The sled on a snowy hill is a reference to a topic discussed in #001 to show how a task gets easier the more often we do the task. Like going down a...

Hi! 

What happens when we step back and take in a full view such as a landscape or a busy street? It can be overwhelming. Young artists typically shy away from this type of subject and focus on one tree or one object within their view. That's okay, if that's what you want to draw. But, there might be occasion when you want to show a subject and what surrounds it. 

Today, I will show you how to approach a complicated subject like a landscape. This photo was taken near the Rocky Mountains. Objects fill every part of it, including a pretty complex group of clouds in the sky. But all can be handled easily when we know how to look at the objects within. I always tell my students, "We can draw anything we want, but we can't draw everything." There's a reason we don't start with drawing every leaf that we see. 

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, author of ARTistic Pursuits.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• Our skills in art are never improved with information alone. We...

Hi!

Children will draw an object by giving attention in their drawing to what is important to them.  We all draw the things that are most important to us. While adults and older children may be very interested in drawing an object to look three-dimensional, young children will be far more interested in drawing that curved tail, because what is a dog without a tail? Here is where we get to be grown up and not criticize or even point out that strange third-dimension that is so important to us, but may have no meaning to a young child. Every drawing is unique. Every person is unique. I love it all. 

With that said, I do want to point out the third dimension, depth, for my older audience. So jump into the video and you'll see that drawing depth at times is just drawing lines where we see another edge.

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, Author of ARTistic Pursuits.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

1. Drawing from observation lets us draw ANYTHING we see in our world.
2. ...

Hi!

I hope you can practice intentional wandering today, even if it is in your own backyard or a nearby park. Today we talk about walking with a purpose and how that purpose, the act of looking for something specific, helps wake up our brain so that we pay more attention to those things around us. Design your trip. What will you look for? Will you draw outdoors? If so, a simple clip board or any hard surface to back up your piece of paper is all you'll need to add to your pencil, copy paper, and eraser. 

Happy Wandering!

Brenda Ellis, Author of Artistic Pursuits.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

Seeing is building a body of knowledge that we can pull from as we create on paper.

A basic drawing strategy is to:

• start with a sheet of paper that is one or two inches larger than the small object you want to draw.
• use light lines when you first begin to draw (so that they can be erased or moved easily)
• focus on the edges of the objects you see, drawing simple shapes to get...

Hi!

We have drawn a lot of small subjects and improved our drawing skills by reaching for that goal of making our drawing of the objects the exact size of the actual objects. I've designed your course this way to help those who drew too small, and to heighten your awareness of the edge of the paper and distances to that edge and the edges of objects within the space. 

I should mention, however that you can draw an object larger or smaller than it actually appears. I can put a whole quarter mile of train track within a 9 x 12 inch piece of paper if I want to. I can also draw a dime the size of a baseball. So please do not feel like you can only choose small things in every drawing. 

With that said, today we will draw to size, so find some objects that will fit within the space of your paper and tear the paper to make it smaller if necessary. 

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, author of ARTistic Pursuits.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• How to draw an object to size
• Use...