CASCADE'S SATURDAY ART CLASS: BASIC DRAWING LESSONS FOR BEGINNERS

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Last 2 May, 2020, I gave a free Basic Online Drawing via a live feed in Cascade Art Studio's page.  I accepted about 8 participants but 2 were not able to join due to technical issues.  Many reacted on my post and my officemates asked me that they'll join when I had another one.  So as to share the same experience to my followers, I added this blog so that they can review and share the same experience.

The Content of the webinar included the following lectures:

First Lesson - Understanding Drawing Materials

Second Lesson - How to Sketch?

Third Lesson - Shadowing techniques

Fourth Lesson - Workshop activity

Now let us go into details.

The Webinar started with the introduction of each participants.  Then a quick run down of the following house rules to ensure that the presentation run smoothly.  I you will join our next Saturday Art Classes, please take note of these house rules:

FIRST LESSON: UNDERSTANDING OUR DRAWING MATERIALS

1. DRAWING PENCILS

Drawing pencils comes in different forms.  They are named or labeled based on their output.  H pencils are hard-led pencils, which is used for light sketching, or for creating finer lines.  Examples of Hard pencils are the one we used in our schools, with #2 labels.  For drawing pencils, you can select from HB or 2H-6H.  

"F" stands for finer point pencils.  If you need to draw the lashes or the teeth, you may use F.  This is darker compared to usual H pencils.  I usually use it for outlining my sketches.

"B" stands for Black.  These pencils are softer compared to "H" and produces darker lines.  These B-type pencils are usually used for shadowing.  In drawing portraits, I keep in handy a 2B, 4B, 6B, and 8B pencils.

Charcoal pencils are much different compared to B-pencils.  They are very dark and usually takes skill in controlling its balance.  Look at the slide below to see the differences produced by these pencils.

The Top image used HB pencil.  The drawing of 2 guys are drawn with 6B pencils.  The last image is a charcoal drawing.

If you are to draw using charcoal and 6B pencils, we recommend that you also have the following tools:

2. The KNEADED ERASER can be shaped so that you can erase very fine details in your drawing.  Rubber eraser tends to break paper when not used properly.

3.  DRAWING PAD

In drawing, we also want to emphasize that the thickness of paper also helps in drawing properly.  If you uses thin GSM paper, tendency is you must not make so much error so that you'll not need to erase often, which causes holes or breaks the paper.

4. KNEADING ROLLED PAPER is used for shadowing, by getting some powdered charcoal pencil.  It produces fine shadows and distribute the shadowing smoothly on paper.


SECOND LESSON:  SKETCHING

Sketching is like creating short, lighter strokes, creating an image or shape.  You keep on adding lines to refine the drawing, until you reach the exact appearance or drawing that you've wanted.  To illustrate, here's an example:

THIRD LESSON:  SHADOWING TECHNIQUES

There are four (4) shadowing techniques discussed here.  These shadowing techniques would help you produce better portrait drawings or pencil drawings.

1. HATCHING.   This is done by doing simple strokes or one directional strokes and then you layer it up to produce darker shadows.

2.  CROSS HATCHING.  Almost the same with hatching, cross hatching is done by doing criss-cross line drawings or creating two different direction of lines, overlapping one another.

3.  CIRCULISM.  This is done by creating small circles and overlapping them until you create the desired shadowing.  I usually use it for creating textures.

4.  CONTOUR SHADOW.  This is done by following the shape or contour of the object that you are producing.  Layer the pencil lines until you reach the desired volume of your drawn object.

To understand further how to do shadowing, you need to find the "Source of Light".  The Object that stopped the light from flowing is called "Terminator" zone.  This cast the darkest part or shadow.

Let us look at the sphere below.  The brightest part of the object is called the Core Light.  Next to it is the Highlight.   The darkest part of the sphere is called the Core Shadow.  Between the Highlight and Core shadow, the slightly lighted part yet a bit dim is called the Mid-tones.  The reflected light is a bit darker compared to Mid-tones.  But it's saturation is quite near the color of the mid-tones.

Using the image below, let us do a quick workshop on shadowing.  Copy the shadow of the sphere below, using any of the shadowing techniques.  (In my video, I used the hatching and cross hatching technique).

For the assignment, please do a drawing and add shadowing for the image below.  The lines are the sources of light.

Send me a picture of your output and I'll give you feedback. You may use the e-mail link on this page or you may send it to our page, which you'll find below.

If you are interested to get our services for a one-on-one tutorial, please register here:  (REGISTER)