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...

Week 1: Lines, Shapes, Patterns, Overlapping

It's exciting to start with this new group of sketchers! We got right to work and started learning how to measure accurate proportions and how to hold the pencil while moving the whole arm to draw.

  Warm up sketches by Mariaelena (above,left) and Billy (above, right)



As they worked from reference lesson pictures, students learned about proportions (the sizes of shapes compared to other shapes) and drawing on top of mistakes. Luis was like a drawing machine for our first session. He made a lot of study sketches of the toucan (shown above), each progressing in accuracy of proportions as he drew light guidelines before finishing with darker outlines.

 

Maria's toucan (above, left) and Ashley's puffer fish (above, right) show how students got into adding light and dark tones to their drawings. 

Highlight of the day: While learning how to show depth of space by overlapping the frog's legs, Jasmine dropped into the Zone, gained control of holding the pencil on its side, and put together and excellent sketch (left).


To view everyone's sketches and reference pictures...

Welcome Louden Nelson Sketchers!

I look forward to drawing with Louden Nelson Community School. This is the official blog for all students to view their drawing lessons, along with my comments and suggestions.

Here's how the first 8 weeks of the course will be set up (2 weeks for each topic):

1. Lines/Shapes: pencil grip, guidelines, outlines, different kinds of lines, combining shapes, overlapping
   
2. Patterns/Textures: repetition, rhythm, surfaces
3. Space: positive/negative space, edges, foreground/background, scale, composition
4. Form: contour lines, light/shadow, perspective

We'll meet each Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. at Louden Nelson . I'll post your drawings the following week. You'll see suggestions on what to practice for the next lesson, and ideas for you to explore.

If you would like to try more advanced lessons from this blog ("Start a Lesson" section) along with your weekly class lessons, I'd be happy to coach you through them on this blog. Talk with me about it, and we'll get you started.

Louden Nelson Sketchers, get ready to draw! --Rob