About This Class

What if I told you have a secret weapon when it comes to drawing and you’ve been using it your entire life, without realizing it?

Hi! I’m Joe Smigielski, a Top Teacher here on Skillshare. I’ve been drawing and painting professionally since 2000. We tend to draw from the wrist becuase that’s how we learned to write, with arm on the desk, relying on the wrist for movement.

In this class we’re going to explore drawing from the arm.

Welcome to class!

While it’s an very important part of the drawing process, the wrist provides a limited range of motion. If we rely too heavily on the wrist, it can stifle our mark making and crimp our creative process. Drawing from the arm opens your range of motion, allowing you to craft marks freely and to create fluidly.

Drawing from the arm can help you craft marks with confidence and control.
The free movement can encourage spontaneity.
It helps your compositions develop organically, rather than in pieces.
Working with the instinctive motions of the arm can help develop your natural voice.

Drawing from the arm is natural way to work. I’ll take you through a series of exercises exploring the subtle movements of the arm and how it helps you craft marks.

We’ll begin with a fun exercise working from the shoulder and elbow only, exploring their motion and precision.
Next we’ll add the fingers and wrist, giving our marks more complexity.
Then we’ll explore how the arm helps us apply pressure to our marks.

Finally, we’ll do a quick illustration together, drawing forms and discovering how the freedom of movement can spark our creative process.

The class is beginner friendly and it doesn’t only apply to drawing with traditional mediums. Working from the arm benefits digital artists and painters as well.

This class is for traditional as well as digital artists!

Traditional artist need a pencil and paper.

Digital artists will need your favorite illustration app and a pressure stylus or pencil, choose a pressure sensitive brush.

After earning my degree in Art education from Wayne State University in Michigan, I spent several years in the classroom teaching art education. In 2000, I left to become a full time artist and have been happily creating work ever since. In addition to line art, I am also an accomplished oil and acrylic painter, as well as a digital artist, who has sold my work online, in art festivals, as well as brick and mortar stores and galleries across the United States. My work has been featured both in print and on television.

Be sure to hit follow on my profile so you’re always notified whenever I post a new class.

Are you ready to experience the power of the arm? Then come join me in class. Let's get started!

Music credit: Sunset Rag by Jamie Rutherford on artlist.io (license on file)

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