The Artist's First Steps

Hi!

Today we will look at the darkness that a few different kinds of pencils make, including a good quality #2 writing pencil. 

We will look at the first part of the drawing process! You'll find out why you may not want to finish a small part of the drawing and then work out from there as a type of drawing process. Instead we use a special shape that contains all the small parts and will ensure that the objects will fit well within the space of the page. 

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, Author of ARTistic Pursuits.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

1. Soft pencils make a darker mark and are used near the end of the drawing to create contrast with the white of the paper.

2. Hard pencils make a lighter mark and are used and the beginning of a drawing so that those first lines can be erased easily.

3. How to use an aggregate shape to ensure that the objects within the still-life fit into the space of the page. 

Hi!

Today we will expand our ideas of what to draw by looking at objects from different angles. I want to emphasize that there are always options in art. Each person is an individual and will want to make a plan that fits their personality and drawing style.

I want to remind our older students that these simple types of assignments are the types of activities that adult artists use in order to keep their eye and hand coordination on target and their skills sharp. 

I want to remind our younger students that your drawings are beautiful. Don't compare what you can do with my drawings or the drawings of others in your family. I love what you see. I love what you draw. We all draw differently and that's the beauty of art. I love the art that you create!

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, Author of ARTistic Pursuits.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

1. Drawing from memory is limited.

2. Each object is a subject for drawing and each can be seen in many ways: angles, viewpoints. 

3. How to draw ...

Hi! 

I'm so glad you've joined me for our third drawing lesson of Summer 2021. Many objects in our homes and in the world of nature can be drawn using a combination of simple shapes like circles, ovals, rectangles, and triangles. As you analyze an object that you've chosen, look for shapes. These shapes will not be perfect geometric shapes, but will vary from those types of shapes. These are called natural or organic shapes. 

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, author of ARTistic Pursuits.  alltheanswers@artisticpursuits.com

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• Learning to draw anything you are looking at. Real objects give us more information and details.
• Looking for shapes in a natural object with parts. 
• Use big general shapes. Refine the shapes by adding details. 

Hi! 

I'm so glad you've joined me for our second lesson of Summer 2021. I hope that in each drawing you make, 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. Today we will look at drawing construction lines. Construction lines are not lines that we see. They are a way of drawing more accurately by what we know about a round object like a vase.  

Enjoy Drawing!

Brenda Ellis, author of ARTistic Pursuits.  alltheanswers@artisticpursuits.com

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• You can find your own problem areas in your art and make the changes in those areas to get your artwork back on track. 
• How construction lines help us build the object more accurately.
• Locating distance from center to the left and right sides.

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 DISCOVER

1. Why memorizing a patt...

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 me to cover next...

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 discussi...

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 hope you a...

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, author of...

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 hill, the pathwa...