How to Draw 101 Series - Episode 1

This class is about practicing the Basic Drawing Skills and making several Sketching Exercises.

If you are an absolute beginner at drawing, this one can be a perfect choice for your very first drawing class. Or if you are not a beginner, but you are having difficulties with your drawings, you are just probably missing some of the basic puzzles which can be easily fixed in these lessons.

This beginner class requires no previous drawing knowledge or special drawing equipment.
We'll be drawing with simple traditional graphite pencil on ordinary paper.

The first section is kind of an introduction to drawing.
I will show you

the drawing tools you need
optional tools for the future
how to hold the pencil to get a better drawing experience
how to see the world with the eyes of the artist

In the second section we will go through the basic building blocks of drawing. We will develop your basic drawing skills making a lot of fundamental drawing exercises.

You will learn how to draw

straight lines
parallel lines
simple 2D shapes like triangles, rectangles, and squares
curves
circles, ovoid shapes, and ellipses
simple 3D objects like cubes and cylinders

We will also develop your hand coordination by connecting dots with straight and curved lines.

The goal of these lessons is to gain confidence at drawing these simple elements that we will use to build more complex objects.

I will give you an introduction to perspective drawing discussing the most frequently used 2-point and 3-point perspective. I will also explain an important drawing principle called foreshortening. With this knowledge you'll be able to draw subjects convincingly in the 3D space.

In the third section we'll put the drawing skills you've learned into practice. We will make all sorts of sketches on real life subjects based on reference photos. We will draw

a chess pawn built from simple 2D shapes
a chair by drawing straight lines using the rules of perspective
a fish using a bunch of S-curves
a profile portrait to practice proportions
a chess pawn with simple shading
a pair of glasses
a dancing human figure for an introduction to gesture drawing
and an astronaut just for fun

At the end of the class you can check if your drawing skills have improved. I'm sure they will if you make all the exercises with me.

I hope you will enjoy this class as much as I did through its creation.

See you in my Basic Drawing Skills & Sketching class!

Amy McCarty

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