Intro to Drawing

Paul Suhre, Illinois "The catcher's glove and ball challenged my abilities to capture the correct contrast of each shadow."

Think drawing is a "gift" that has to come "naturally"? You would be surprised to see that it is actually a skill like any other. Let us show you how easily it can be learned.

Drawing is as much about learning how to see and think about form and space as it is about technique. The drawing part itself is just marks on paper. But those marks come together to tell the viewer something about the world that you, the artist, have experienced.

Drawing also gives you a deeper understanding of the subject you are trying to capture. As you progress through the excercises in this class, you will develop a better understanding of the forms you are observing and become more skillful in representing those forms.

Course Instructor:
Jordon Schranz is a New York-based fine artist and designer ... get bio

Course Developer:
Ingrid Capozzoli Flinn is a fine artist whose work spans traditional and digital media ... get bio

Develop an understanding of the tools used in traditional and digital drawing.

Develop an understanding of the techniques of blind and open contour drawing.

Create open and blind contour drawings of everyday objects, demonstrating a basic proficiency with contour lines.

Identify and draw positive and negative space in a drawing subject.

Create drawing studies of mechanical objects demonstrating the ability to see the relationships between negative and positive space.

Identify and draw different levels of light and dark tones on a subject.

Identify and draw the structure of basic forms: sphere, cube, cylinder, and cone.

Create drawings of simple and complex forms showing contours and areas of light and dark and basic variations in tone.

Outline:

LESSON 1 Working on the edge — contour line drawing What is a contour? You may say it's the edge of a form, and you would be correct — but that's not all a contour is in drawing. The contour may delineate an edge, a break between spaces, or a break within a form. In this lesson you will come to understand the contours of a form by drawing only the defining edges and breaks of an object.

LESSON 2 Looking at nothing to draw something: negative and positive space What is negative space? I can assure you, its not "bad" space. Whenever you represent an object on paper, you are also representing the space surrounding the object. In this lesson, you will learn to see a shape by looking at the empty space around it. By drawing only the negative space of an object, you will see what an important part it plays in observing the object itself.

LESSON 3 Putting light on the subject: the theory of light and modeling form What makes a two dimensional object look three dimensional? We have all marveled at how real and three dimensional some drawings look. A big part of creating this effect is understanding how an object interacts with light. In this lesson, we break down all forms into a combination of spheres, cubes, cylinders and cones. By studying the effects of light and shadow on these simple shapes, we build a foundation for rendering any shape, man-made or found in nature. In this lesson we will render a simple sphere, and then a more complex form, using a strong direct light source.

Tuition: $252 US