Learn how to get the most out of your drawing tools!

Join artists Paul Richmond and Melissa Forman for a class focused on drawing tools. Learn the fundamentals of working with drawing tools and put them to use! We'll start with an overview of the tools and a chance to experiment with them. Next, we will create a viewfinder to help select dynamic compositions. Then we will do two rendered drawings, the first using only one soft pencil and the second using the full range of pencils. Finally, we will add a graphite base to a piece of paper and then make a reverse drawing on it using a combination of pencils and erasers.

This class is for everyone - from beginners to more experienced artists - with an emphasis on foundational skills.

As professional artists and teachers, Paul and Melissa have met many artists who commonly face a lot of the same issues when creating their art. Learn how to master those struggles and add refinement and polish to your work. It’s never too late to get back to basics!

Materials

You are welcome to work with any materials you'd like, but here's a list of everything we will be using in this series:

Drawing pencil set (4H-4B)
Kneaded eraser
Sketchbook
Blending stumps
Charcoal pencil
Vine charcoal
Plastic eraser

Lessons

Introduction
Overview of Tools
Viewfinder
Drawing with One Pencil
Drawing with Full Set of Pencils
Reverse Drawing
Closing Thoughts

About the Instructors

Paul Richmond is an internationally recognized visual artist and activist whose career has included exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States as well as publication in numerous art journals and anthologies. His work is collected by individuals around the globe. As an illustrator, has created over four hundred novel cover illustrations. He is a co-founder of the You Will Rise Project, an organization that empowers those who have experienced bullying to speak out creatively through art.

Melissa Forman spends her time creating a richly visual world filled with characters created from an opulent, mysterious, and often eerie imagination. Her lovely, idealized figures seem lost in their own worlds, drifting between the 16th, 18th, 19th and 21st centuries. Melissa has been drawing and painting commissioned portraits since she was 14. She attended the Columbus College of Art and Design and graduated with a BFA in 2002. She now lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio. Her personal work has been shown in galleries around the world, from New York City to Seattle to Los Angeles to Berlin, Germany to Bristol, England.

Kayla Showers

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