Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello, welcome and thank you for joining me. My name is Christina lawyer and I am a two-dimensional artist. Or you're looking to enhance some of your drawing skills or, or get the start of your drawing journey. And you'd like to learn how then this class is for you. I had been drawing and painting since I was a little girl and no surface was restricted in my opinion. There are some drawings on the walls and in books and sorry Mom, various places anywhere with the blood surplus. Basically. I've always been inspired and motivated by the other artists in my family, my grandmother, my older brother, and others. I've also been inspired by the beauty that surrounds me. I excelled and loved art throughout school and decided to get an art degree at the University of leverage, where I focus my studies on painting, drawing, and art history. I've always loved creating custom pieces and selling my work because the joy that it brings to others adds to my own joy in creating it. I've been teaching since I was in high school, and I love to teach dance, art and English. Here I am teaching art, sharing this with you today. In this lesson, we will learn the skills of grid drawing, which you might be wondering. What is that? Pencil shading, which probably sounds more familiar and tonal values using the skills, we will create a unique work of art, a pixelated portrait. Not only is it going to be a great work of art, it'll also augmented your skill to create a more harmonious and balanced composition of values for all your future projects. I can't wait. Let's get started. Let's go.
2. Project Overview: Alright, let's get started with what today's project is for this class. So all of our lessons will lead up to this project, which is a pixelated pencil drawing Portrait. Using our skills of grid making and shading, understanding those tonal values, you will be able to create your very own unique pencil drawing portrait as well. I chose this project because it really helps someone practice pencil shading without getting bogged down by trying to create an accurate depiction of what they're looking at. So I think it's a really great place for beginners or anyone just looking to practice their shading skills. One of the best tips for this particular project that I can give to you before you begin is to stick to your rules. So though there's not just one way to create this, there are different ways and things that I will mention as we go along. Especially when it comes to shading, create your rules for your project and stick to them if you're going to be using a blender, stick to that throughout the whole project. This example, I did not use a blender. I created my shading just with my pencil markings. With these skills, you can create all kinds of projects. I myself have used it in drawings such as trying to replicate an image or just make it more interesting. And especially if you're trying to scale it much larger than what it is, that can be really helpful to create a grid. Also, if you're creating a painting and you really wanna make sure that the proportions are accurate. This is a great tool to use and I've used it on some of my paintings when I wasn't focusing on my hand-eye coordination. And it was more focusing on color and shading and, and those things. You can also create really neat distortions like this, creating something like a pixellated image. Alright, let's get ready for that first lesson by opening up a new tab in your browser and searching and pixels.com so we can find the perfect image for your reference photo.
3. Selecting a Reference Image : Alright, so here we go. We're going to select a reference image. Why I put this at the beginning of the class and not wait until just before you're starting your project is because I find it really motivating once I've selected an image to get that ball rolling of, okay, how do I, how do I make this? How do I put this together? I want to do this project now because I have an image that I'm really excited about. So that's why I have this right near the beginning. Also, I want you to choose actually more than one reference image because it'll help you kinda decide. So choose three and then print those off on just a regular printer paper. I'm going to show you the ones that I selected and why I've selected them. Number one, I selected this piece here because if the dark hair contrasting with the light skin, OK, so keep in mind when you're printing, it's going to be black and white unless you have a color printer, in which case still, I want you to print it in black and white. But let's look at my second image that I've chosen. So this one I've chosen is mostly lights with some areas that are quite dark. So this is another good image to play around with because it has the contrasting darks with lights. So that's what you're looking for. Contrasting, meaning when you put them together, it's gone. Boo, boo. Just like with a got my dark shirt. You can see the line really strong because from dark to my very pale skin. Okay, and my third image there, it goes one out. Your omega space right now Orangi, I love this image because it just stood out to me with the expression first of all, so sometimes you pick an image because of the expression. Sometimes you might not even know why you pick the image and that's okay too. What I love about this one is look at this nice line right here. And then there's this bright white on the teeth. There's lights all through here at loved the dark, with the eyes, the hair, all of those areas where you're going to have nice contrastive tones will be really good for this project. If you have any questions about which reference photo to choose or you're really not sure you can use these ones. I will post them so you can use these ones. Select one from these, and we could get started. All right, so let's open up your browser and look for some three image sites that we can use because I don't like to just take anybody's image and use it as my own. I like to make sure I have the rights to use it. So peck cells is a popular one that I know about that I've known and vote for awhile so that one sticks out to me. Go ahead and try these other ones if you like. But I'm going to open up peck cells and we're gonna get started by looking through here. So when you first come on here, they have the search right away. They have photos right away as well. But I kind of want to look up black and whites that it can really see those contrasting tones. So search black and white portraits. I already searched it, so it showed up in my recent search history. I've logged in. And the benefit of that is when I liken image, it's gonna show up in my collection so that I can kind of compile them all to an area and be able to access them easily. And so I don't have to try and remember where it is or the name of it. Okay. So first off, I'm going to tell you what I think about some of the images and whether I would choose them for this particular project or not. And give you the reasons why so that it can help you select your own image. So this dog image, I think is great. It's simple in the background. I love that has bright whites and some dark darks and even some medium tones within the face, ears kind of areas. So that could work for sure. This one here has some really great dark darks. And if I brained up some of those whites when I work on the project and use the tones that I think that that could work pretty well otherwise, and maybe steer towards a different image just so I had more varying tones happening. This one here is quite dark, so I probably would steer clear of that. This one here has some really great bright whites in, in some interesting aspects to it. I don't love that the flowers covering the face, so I'd probably not choose I wanted just because of that, but that's just my own preference. I do like this image. I'd like that there's the dark, darks, but the whites don't get very light in this particular image, so probably enhance it in my mind. So just if you're a beginner, that might not be very easy for you. So this one here has some really great bright whites and some really great dark, dark, so very good contrasting. And this one, and this one here has some great contrasting for sure. But I think I just don't love the position of the picture. So for this particular project, I wouldn't use that one for that reason. So I hope that gives you some idea of how to select an image. This one here doesn't quite have enough to it. It's an interesting photo. But for this particular project, again, I want more detail, I want more variation happening, something interesting for what would be pixelated. So this one here does have good contrast, I think, but I don't really love the hair in the face. It takes away the intrigue for me. So go ahead and have fun searching. Like the images that you want to like. Like this one is really funny. It looks like it's jumping into a pool, but it's just upside down. So that's really fun happened with it. Find something that inspires you and, and share it in the gallery so that we can help you choose, or you can just share with you found and what excites you so we can get to know you better. Alright, you can also go onto Pixabay or these other sites and browse on their defined interesting images. I like this image here, but not for this particular project. I think I could like that one and save it, but I haven't logged into this on splash sites. So if anybody wants to do a goat, This one's really funny. And it has good contrast in it. So that could be an interesting one for sure. I might get that one saved and maybe login, join, join a Pixabay and be able to, to create that image. So if you do an animal one or person, I'm really curious to see what you come up with. And yeah, don't forget to share that image in the gallery. And also, what I like to do is I like to find out who took this photo and give them some credit when I end up sharing it in the end. And maybe they'll see your image that you create a two if you tag them on Instagram once you've created your picture and that kind of thing. Alright, so the takeaways from this lesson are to select three images with varying levels of contrast and print them in black and white at an eight by ten size.
4. Creating a Grid - The Why: Okay, so now you're ready to learn how to create a grid. Why is it important to learn how to create a grid? In my opinion, for me when I am creating a piece, I like to view it in sections when I'm drawing it on or sketching it through. It is nice to be able to view at, even if I'm creating a mental grid, how it's pieced out and where my thirds are, what section is standing out? What's the center focus of that image? So let's take a quick look at this one here. So when I've created this grid, it will help me know where the center is. So when, when I'm creating a painting, I'm not doing an extensive grid with so many lines as I've done here. But what I'm doing when I'm creating a painting, for instance, is I might section out in my mind just either across section or just straight down the center and across to find a center point. And recognize as I'm looking either at my scenery or the reference photo, where my central library, my horizon line is where these other aspects of my painting are going to be placed. And then if I'm doing something were a really needed to be accurate, grid drawing is really helpful for that. So if I commissioned to create a piece for someone and they wanted to be like spot on realistic. You might want to consider creating a grid so that you can get those proportions nice and accurate. It also depends on what medium that I'm choosing when I'm using watercolor, I tend to not use these grid methods as often, unless I don't mind my grid showing. If I'm using acrylic paint, then I can paint over my grid and have it disappear. Sometimes I don't mind my grid showing. It's okay. It's not a big deal, but that just depends on what aesthetic you're going for. In the end, most people when they're asking for a commission don't really want this grid showing. So that's something to consider making sure that when you do paint, your are going to be painting over it. That grid making is a cheating way of drawing unless you're saying that you're drawing it from your just your hand-eye coordination. I mean, that would just be an ally. But if you're just trying to learn how to find where the composition is coming to place, follow those lines, then grim making can be really wonderful exercise for you. Now for this instance, we're making a pixelated portrait. Now with a pixelated portrait, were making small squares that are of equal size all throughout the image. Now in order to do this, most people cannot just draw by hand a grid without a ruler, with measurements. So we're going to do that and I'm going to show you how to do it. You don't have to worry about your knowledge of math as long as you've printed on an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper, that's just your regular printer paper. And I've printed the image at eight by ten, you'll be finding it very easy to put together a grid.
5. Creating a Grid - The How: All right, so let's get started with what materials you'll need it. So we have our reference photo, will need something that we're going to draw the final piece on. So you're going to create the grid on here, and we're going to create our tonal pattern on here. We want a ruler, a pen, or pencil, and then we have a piece of paper. And this is a trick that you can use for any of your product. So I'll show you what that's for. This is just a scrap paper. It doesn't matter what color it is. Really just make sure it's clean and that's pretty much it. Oh, and pencil sharpener as well, that will be helpful to keep our pencils nice and sharp. So now that we have all our tools, let's get started. Alright, so with your reference photo and your ruler and your pen in hand, we're gonna get started by making little dashes all along the edge of our paper. Now if you have a darker image like mine, then I want to make them marks so I can see them on the end. So I'm gonna make a mark every half inch. Make sure that you're also perpendicular to the paper. You're not, you're not putting a ruler on an angle. And then as you can see, I've already started making a couple of the lines. No, I started with a pen that was actually tearing Some of the paper. So that was unfortunate. But then I tried the pencil and the pencil wasn't working either. Just depends on your image that you're working with. So this might tear off a bit of the image. Once I switched over to this malted ink pen, things went a lot smoother and I wasn't tearing my paper. So maybe find an inconspicuous spot on your reference photo to test it out. See what you already have before you go out and buy anything. And about this ruler is it has this one has a cork on the back, so helps it prevent slipping. So one thing is if you have a really slippery rule or you might have one side down and they looked to the other side and then the other side's like slipping around. So turned to consider. So now we want to do the line's going the other way. Let's line them up. Great. Now that we have our grid complete on a reference image, I'm going to label the Square's kind of like when you're playing Battleship or something. So you can start, you could do numbers or letters across and then the opposite on the other side. So you could start with just assume numbers across the top. So you give each row a name. Basically. This is so that we can verify from the reference image onto our actual project that we're using the correct square as we go along. And I'm going to go a, B, C. I like to keep these different, do the opposite because it just makes it a bit easier when you're working with that. So there you have it, your grid is ready. And I'm going to get started by marking down. Now, if we want to keep it the same size, do the exact same 2.5 inch markings and half inch markings. But I'm gonna make it a bit smaller. So let's start with the smaller little bite-size. Easier to digest. Ok, now my page is nine inches. So we'll start 2.5 and make now making marks every quarter inch. Edsel, Let's look. Five is going to be about down here. So I'm just gonna make a mark right there so I know how long it needs to be. Okay. So it's going to get started down a route here. And then we're gonna go with the 2.5 mark, making markings, tiny little markings every quarter inch. It's better to not make them too big. And again, we're doing this process of going across. Now if I started over here, I'd be sliding my ruler across all my lines. So I'm going to start on this end. So I'm not gonna do that. And let's see, the mechanical pencil doesn't have a big space, so I'm going to get pretty close. I'm gonna go dot, dot, dot, dot. When you hold your ruler, you're actually going to make a line of further to the right unless you're using something with a smaller lead like a mechanical pencil. So just keep that in mind. If you extend beyond the dot, that's okay. That's not a big deal. We know were we're at least are five inches, so try not to rub my ruler around or my fingers around because you're gonna smudge your pencil so you haven't beyond that one and that's okay. It's not a big deal. I'm okay with it. Keep making your lines. Now if you're using just a regular pencil, you might need to sharpen it every once in a while to make sure that you're making really clean lines that don't get too wide. Be sure to label the top inside the same way that you did on your reference photo. And when you start putting your hand over top of your grid, use that scrap paper to prevent smudging and so just place it on top. And there you go.
6. Tonal Values: Okay, so let's look at tonal value for a moment here. This image here has dark, darks to light lights, but isn't really black, black, like look at my sweater here. I sweater is pretty dark. I don't even know if my sweater would be the darkest tone. There is. We have tonal values everywhere, but we don't see in black and white. So we're not really aware of our tonal values. As if we did see in black and white, there are areas that look darker than others that kind of differentiates what we actually see. So the more dark you have for dark darks in certain areas with light, lights in an image can create some really beautiful harmony and unity within an image in a composition. So think about the world in black and white a little bit when I haven't drying. And if it's just all one tone, It's not going to be very visually interesting or pull me in when you're selecting your reference photo, your eye most likely goes more towards dynamic images. And dynamic images have bright, bright, and dark darks within them typically. So let's make a tonal value chart and work on some different shading techniques. You're gonna need. Pencil or pencil set. I suggest blending stump kneaded, eraser, ruler ends and paper. Here's a set that I'll be using in this demonstration. But you can use any brand that you have. And if you only have an HB pencil, that's OK. So quickly lay out a grid depending on how many pencils you have in your set will be how many rows down you need. And then I'm doing seven across. So I'm doing two centimeter by two centimeter squares for my grid, but feel free to make your grid as bigger smalls you'd like depending on how big you want to practice your shading poetry you want for shading. So I'm starting off with five age, so I'm gonna go my lightest all the way down to the darkest. So the lightest is the highest number of H that you have. If you have the set that has h or maybe says H, H, H, H, that just means five pages. So that means it's a hard led made mostly of clay compared to graphite. And when we say lead, it's actually, there's no lead in these pencils anymore. That might be how they used to make them, but don't worry, there's no lead in them now it's graphite and it's a mixture with clay for these type of sets. So I'm doing a motion where I'm using my pencil on the side so that I get a flat, more even edge. If I use the tip, I'm going to get harder lines. And I'm using a bit of a swirl motion that's continuous, slightly circular, oval shapes to kind of keep that line from keep my lines kind of invisible. I don't really want to see lines. I want to just see a nice smooth texture. Okay, now we're going on to four h. So this is quite similar to the 5h. So what we're gonna do here is a similar circular motion, kind of oval motion. When I say circular does what I mean, a little bit of an oval motion going on here. I'm going to go over and over. I'm starting light. Don't start as heavy as you cant even though you're in the darkness section on the right, you don't want it to be too strong right away because you're going to dent your paper. And then you can't build on that. Once you've dented your paper and created these, embossed her, he has of your paper or holes, you might even do so carefully again, using the edge of the pencil on an angle. This time, we're going to bring out that blending stump and we're going to blend. So we're going to try a different technique here. The top one, I just used my motion to create a smooth effect. This one we're going to use a tool. So if you don't have a blending stump, no worries, you can either buy one or you can just use your finger. Finger works quite well. Also, just make sure you have you have your kneaded eraser. You can clean off your finger in between each section. And then again, blend it with whatever tool you have to use. And as we move to the left, we're getting lighter and lighter. So this is representing how bright or lights can get with this tool and how darker darks can get. So that's what this chart is showing us. How dark can each LED that we're using get and how light can it get to give us this range of values? And that's what we see. We see a range of values. We don't just see one dark and one light. So now on to two h. So as we get closer to h b, so we're getting closer, we're getting darker. So it's going to be easier to make it darker. That doesn't mean I want you to give a lot of pressure on that paper, lighten up, do a little stretch, do a little meditation, Breathe in. Breathe out. Okay, this one I'm doing a different type of shading. I'm going to do these small circular motions, but I'm using more of the tip of my pencil so that I can create a textured look. So this may or may not be something you want to do, but give it a try. Try something different for each row so that you can see what you like and practice. So again, I'm getting lighter and lighter now when you're doing a textured type, whether it's cross hatch or these swirly curly lines. You're going to do fewer of them to make it lighter as well as less pressure. So I'm lightening up on my pressure and I'm also doing fewer rows. Okay, so HB, we're onto HB. You're probably most familiar with this pencil. It's the one you might have had to use and make sure you had on hand when you had any multiple choice exams. Those are the HP has a good blend between ability to shade and blend, so it's gonna smudge more. You can see I'm using my smudging paper. So my little scrap paper under my hands. So then I'm not smudging pencil all over the place, making it messy and. Runing my whole tonal value chart. Okay, you guys, here's a pro tip for you start blending from left to right, especially if you're using your finger to blend. But even with my blessings from, I'm going to start from left to right because it's going to get dirty or as you go along and have your kneaded eraser on hand so you can clean off any excess graphite that's on your fingers. Moving forward with B. So B LED is good for blending. It's going to be a softer lead, more graphite in the mix and the movement. We're gonna give it a try and you can follow along with this method or try your own is corner to corner and then up and down. So just trying different stroke directions can help minimize the lines that you see. So I'm kind of making those even and then I'm going to add more on top. It's much better to start light and then add more layers to make it darker than to just, oh, this is the darkest one. So I'm going to press really hard, so start light and then get darker with more layers. My preference is to make it darker by adding layers rather than by increasing my pressure. You do need to increase pressure a little bit. But if you want that nice blending, smooth look, then hold it nicely in your hand. Don't press with your fingers hard. Let your risks do some work and just rest that pencil in the hand as I'm doing on 2B. And To be or not to be. That is the question. The higher the number before your b, the more graphite to lead proportions. And so it's a softer lead. It needs to be sharpened more often. And as you can see, I'm gonna give it a try blending with hmm, a brush. This is a soft brush, kind of like a watercolor type of brush. Something soft bristles. And we're gonna see if this works, how this does with this tool. Alright, we're rushing through into the darker, from lighter to darker and oh, it's erasing it a little bit so it's not blending into the page as well. But that could serve some purposes, maybe for doing skin. And you wanna keep it. Just a light, fluffy look. Maybe that would work. Maybe you're trying to take away some of the darkness, then maybe that could work instead of using eraser. All right, for this last one, I wanna use my blending stump. And I'm going to start from left to right again. And I think I went a little bit messier there. It is more textured the higher the number of b's you're at. So the darker the lead to more graphite in it, the softer and it's also makes it a bit more messy. As you can see, I'm erasing my edge a little bit that got muddled from as it was blending. And then we're gonna go over top a little bit to just darken it again and see what effect it is. When I do the shading with the pencil, then blending with the stuff, and then shading again on top. So which one is your favorite? It's time for you to choose. So pick your favorite shading method and stick to that throughout the project so you have a consistent look.
7. How to Find the Median Tone: Alright, so what is the median tonal value? Okay, let's grab some paper and pencils. Just two random pencils. Hopefully you have something more than just HB. If not, that's okay. Just take a look and understand through observing scribble, one of them to the side on the right scribble and the lighter one to the left with a bit of a space in-between. Or you can draw square. Now, when we're looking at these two values, we can see that one is clearly lighter than the other. I'm using a 2B in an HB. Now folks trying to find a middle point between these, I could use the idea of my tonal value chart and just shade in the in-between tone, that's not too difficult now if I was to take both of them together and add them both together, it's going to be darker. It's actually going to be further to the right on my scale, on my, on my tonal value chart. So we don't want to just blend the two, making them darker. We want to find the average tone that meets in between the middle. So that's what we mean by median. So let's give it a try. I'm gonna take the HP because it's the lighter one. So take your lighter one and just scribble and you don't have to fill in the whole square. You can if you want. Now I think I went a little too dark, so I'm gonna take my needle bull eraser. And if you do, if this does happen, no problem. Just take your needle racer, make it kinda flat. Stamp it on there and look how it comes up. Kinda cool, right? So actually it now looks like it's too light. So I'm gonna go back in with my HB and shade in a little bit more trying to get that middle tone because my HB, 2B, they're really close LI related. So that is your median is the average tonal value of the tones that you're working with. And how does this relate to our project? Well, let's draw a little square and let's do a little experiment here. So quickly dress character to do. And now, what if you come across a square on your reference image with black and white lines that are kind of rigid. So here I've got some black lines thrown in there with bright white behind it. I told you to get a contrasting image. So how do we create this into a single tone of value? Well, let's look over it. Now. This is going to be the challenge, transforming what looks like lines and that kind of thing into a smooth tonal value. Now I'm currently using a 4B pencil. When I look at these dark lines and the bright whites, I kind of tried to think of the average darkness of it. So you can think of percentage or whatever helps you in your mind. So imagine if you're blending the square with your blending stump. Where do you think you would land on that? That's another way to think of it. So let's shaded in start nice and light. And our eyes are amazing. Our minds and our eyes, they're really good at deciphering comparisons such as if you have ever looked at a picture on a wall, you know, when it's not straight, right? And yet we can't draw a straight line very easily. So that's kind of an interesting thing that our mind is able to decipher these things. So now what if you have a square that has dark circle in it? Maybe it's the eyes. You probably will come across this if you're doing a portrait. So if i as his dark round circle, what do you do? Well, again, follow the same process. What percentage of it is dark compared to Wait. What are you to do if it's to blend it with the blending stump, what would what outcome would you have? It is the majority of it is quite light. So if I start blending it now, I'm just gonna make it look a little bit more like an i there for a second. Because I'm pretty sure most of us will come across these eyes that can really challenge us and throws off. So let's take our pencil and start shading it in nice and lightly to start. Do my diagonal and up and down and all around. Like to maintain that circular motion. And I'm making this one a bit darker than the one above because that is a dark spot and that needs to be a bit darker. But so what is the Middleground? If you're not sure, look at your tonal value chart, you made that and now you can use that throughout all your future projects, not just for this one. So it's gonna be a really good reference guide to keep with you. Now let's take a look at the project I completed with this male reference photo. Look at that. I he's got really light eyes. And so that can be confusing because when we think of eyes, we'd probably think, oh, that's going to be dark automatically. Now, if I use a viewfinder, which would be really helpful tool if you're feeling like It's overwhelming and you can't figure out the tonal value and other parts are getting distracting. It isolates that one spot, that one square. And then you can look at your tonal value chart and try to think of the percentage. Now, look at how I ended up doing it. I ended up doing it quite late actually. And part of that was because of the relativism to the eyebrow, which was quite dark. Over all. My image is quite late, so I kept it over all the average, lighter than what I might've thought in my mind. So if I look at the eyebrow square, I'll call it, it's mostly dark. I would say maybe 60% dark. And then you compare it to the one just below. Talons really light the one below the eye. So that one's a bit easier because there's not any lines in it to throw us off. But look down at this beard. Oh man, that can be very challenging. Confusing. What do you do here? Well, there's still the lip showing, but there's these dark hairs in there. What I wanna do is compare, compared to the other squares. And what kind of Darkness is it compared to the other ones? Use your I, use your viewfinder and you're tonal value chart to help you out that you can kinda see now where the beard is and where that LIP part is. Because they pull it out. Initially you what it's like if you let the image blur and you can use this with your camera or you can use your eyes to blur it out if you squint. So then you can compare your pixellated image that you've drawn to the reference image, both blurry and otherwise clear to see how it turned out for you. And just as a reminder, each square should have a single tonal value. Now it's your turn. You're ready to complete your pixellated grid.
8. In Conclusion: So what's next? Once you've finished, please upload a photo of your completed pixellated grid alongside your reference photo, like this or like this. I'd love to see it in the gallery. So please share so we can all enjoy it. If you completed more than one, please feel free to share both. I really hope you enjoyed this lesson. Would you mind taking a minute to just let me know in the feedback section, did it be your expectations and what did I do really well? I'd also love to hear about how I can improve my lessons for the future. And don't forget to follow me so that you can find out when I have my next class publish and ready to go. Congratulations on completing this class. Thanks for joining me. See you next time.
Kristina Moyor, fine artist
