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Weeks 11-13: Lines, Shapes, Proportions, and Realism

Lots of new faces and lots of wonderful drawings at Louden Nelson! Advanced sketchers forged ahead with realistic drawings and new students got started drawing with lines and shapes.  

To view everyone's drawings click 'Read more' at bottom.

Above left is a study of pumpkin and large-format charcoal drawing by Forrest. 

Above left is Briana's pumpkin and to the right is her large-format charcoal drawing.

 

Advanced students also got into studying proportions of a skull and face. Shown clockwise, starting upper left: Skulls by Luis, Emilio, Amanda, and a drawing of Leonardo da Vinci's sketch of an old man by Amanda.

Above left is Mariaelena's egret showing positive and negative space and above right is Ashley's dog showing accurate proportions and contour edges.



Students learned to sketch like Vincent Van Gogh. Above left is Cesar's drawing and to the right is Maria's interpretation of Van Gogh.

Dragonfly drawings show how students learned about accurate proportions and realistic contour edges. Upper left is by Jose, Upper right is by Anthony, bottom left is by Forrest, and bottom left is large-format charcoal drawing by Jose.

New students learned to hold the pencil on its side while moving their whole arm while drawing with lines, shapes, and accurate proportions. Drawings shown clockwise, starting upper left: Nicole; Oscar; Arastas; Daniel

To view everyone's drawings click 'Read more' below...

Weeks 7-10: Form, Contours, Tonal Values, Positive/Negative Space, Perspective

Louden Nelson Sketchers got into the zone and cranked out a lot of sketches of pumpkins, squash, shells and various objects. Using contour lines, everyone learned to show the roundness and edges of objects as we concentrated on drawing accurate proportions. We also explored using large format paper and charcoal and studied texture, light, and shadows.
 

 

 Above left is Maria's study of pumpkins and to the right we see her putting the finishing touches on her large-format charcoal drawing.

Above left is Luis D's study sketch and to the right is his finished charcoal drawing.

 Luis D's contour line drawing of the coyote (above left) is a wonderful example of accurate proportions, foreshortening (making something look like it is coming toward you), and shading. And Jesus' contour study of the antique iron shows excellent line work.

Upper left is Emilio's contour line drawing showing the edges of the aloe plant, and upper right is a drawing by Luis G. showing the gray tonal values of green. Lower left is Rielly's tonal drawing and lower right is the aloe plant drawn by Isa.

Sketches above left and right show Azalia's use of positive and negative space to draw the contour edges of the egret.

Ashley (above left) and Caterina learned to use 1 and 2-point perspective (without rulers!) to draw 3D buildings.

Check out Amanda's cool eXpReSsiOn sEsSiOn drawing, shown below.

Click 'Read more' below to see everyone's drawings and Rob's comments...

Weeks 5 & 6: Positive/Negative Space, Contours, Tonal Values, and Getting Abstract

Using artwork by artists such as Kandinsky and Mondrian everyone worked with lines, shapes and patterns to create abstract drawings. Students also ventured into drawing realistic form and contour lines.  Scroll down to view everyone's drawings.

Abstract drawings (clockwise, starting upper left) by Emilio, Jesus, Isa, and Maria

Students also worked on drawing realistic form and contour edges. Rielly's egret (upper left) and Brianna's egret (upper right) show how they used positive and negative space to find the form and contours of the bird's body. Ashley's study sketches of the aloe vera plant (below) show how she drew the contours of the leaves; then added lighter and darker tonal values. BIG steps into drawing realistically!

 
Click 'Read more' below to view everyone's drawings...

Weeks, 2, 3, & 4: Form, Contours, Positive/Negative Space

 Lots of excellent drawing happening here! We started learning to draw realistically while learning to see positive and negative space and draw contour edges. Ashley's study sketches of the egret, shown above, are wonderful examples of making corrections to show accurate, realistic curves in the neck.

Jesus' dragonfly sketch (upper left) shows spot-on proportions (sizes of shapes compared to other shapes) and realistic contour edges. Luis took his jaguar to large format paper while keeping accurate proportions. He also explored various graphite pencils.

Louden Nelson Sketchers continued with solid progress in drawing with lines and shapes. Azalia's tiger (upper left) shows how she drew on top of mistakes to find accurate proportions. The proportions of Isa's touch (upper right) are very well drawn.

Jasmine made some cool Halloween sketches while looking at one of my how-to-draw books.

Click 'Read more' below to view everyone's drawings...