Art Instruction for Beginners and Professionals
It’s been a while since I recorded a new video for Youtube, but I’m glad to be back at it. This one features Kelsey, who is one of our favorite models to draw. The process documented here is the same one I use for all my drawings, and the same one presented in detail in […]
Today I published a new video to Youtube – it’s one of the time-lapse portrait drawing demonstrations I do from time to time. What I like about this one is the model. We’ve worked with DaLawn Simpson at the studio since we opened nearly 11 years ago, and he’s one of our favorite models. He’s […]
I’m not a big fan of “laws” in drawing and painting. There’s an exception to every rule, so it seems that whenever I tell a student that x is “always true”, there ends up being some damn reason why it’s actually not true in the particular case at hand – and then I have to backpedal. But […]
I love drawing with graphite. Nothing beats the control and precision offered by a sharp graphite pencil. But there’s one thing I hate about graphite: it gets “shiny” if you’re not really careful, and shiny drawings are ugly. If you don’t know what I mean by “shiny”, grab a soft graphite pencil and a piece […]
I’m currently working on a portrait drawing of my niece Frances. Actually, she’s not my niece. She’s my wife’s cousin’s daughter, which I think makes her my first-cousin-once-removed… But I’m not sure. In any case, I decided to draw her for a few reasons: because I thought it would be a nice thing to do […]
We had an argument at the studio yesterday. It preceded the opening of our exhibition at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, where we had some class demonstration drawings and lecture diagrams on display. We were printing exhibition labels for the artwork, and the argument was about what to call a white pencil.
In my last post on perspective, I distinguished between linear and atmospheric (or aerial) perspective. Linear perspective is concerned with the geometry of parallel lines or edges as they recede in space, while atmospheric perspective is all about how colors shift as they travel through the air. What both types of perspective have in common […]
The basic principles of perspective are a cornerstone of representational art and must be understood if we are to make convincing drawings and paintings. Yet many artists will confess to a grasp of perspective that is shaky at best. It’s a big topic and worthy of deep study; however, there are a few broad and […]
We get a lot of students asking us about oils… and what are the differences between all those golden bottles that are neatly lined up on the shelves of the art supply stores. I was given only a finite amount of information by my professors who usually had us use what they used for their […]
In the last couple of drawing tutorials I described how Comparisons of Size can help us work out the proportions of the figure – the size of each part relative to the whole. Equally important, however, is positioning – the alignment of any given part of the figure relative to the rest. It’s important to get […]