Drawing
Daily walk task 4 (or I nearly didn’t see that)
For this task, you need a nice sharp pencil to draw a character that could sit in the foreground of your picture.
Watch the video below as a wee guide to the level of detail I’m looking for and how to preserve the light bits on your picture.
Obviously, the internet is full of images you can use. But your garden is also a rich source of beasties, flowers and mushrooms, especially at this time of year. Look under leaves and stones – you never know what you might find.
Daily walk task 3
This exercise is similar to the two pictures that you drew last week, but you should spend twice as long on it.
The main difference is that I want you to think about contrast. Contrast in black and white pictures is the difference between light and dark in your picture. If a picture is said to have more contrast there is a big difference between light and dark. If the contrast is reduced, the difference between light and dark is lessened. If you’re messing with the settings on your television, increasing the contrast makes your pictures look more crisp and decreasing it makes the picture look more grey and flat. This can be used as a way to pull focus towards the front, or focal point of your picture.
Look at the picture below: the rhubarb leaf on the right has much greater contrast than the one on the left. It appears bolder and jumps out from the screen/paper more than the other two. Drawing in this way is a way to get viewers to focus on a particular part of your picture.
Now you’re ready for the lesson – download it below
Daily walk task 2
Last week we looked at drawing close-ups of trees. Today we’re going to draw the whole tree. Use the source images provided or search for your own then draw a larger picture of a tree. The surface texture of the bark will be much less important than the overall shape of the tree and the branches in this task.
Silhouettes are super useful in paintings, to show strong light sources and shadows. Getting the shape of trees just right will help with this a great deal.
Daily walk task 1
A Magical tree
With the group unable to meet at the school just now, Angus plans to share some of his lockdown lessons over the next few weeks. Called The Daily Walk, these will build pencil drawing skills and lead to the creation of a bigger piece.
Attached is the first lesson, where we will draw a close-up of a tree. Have a look at the work of an artist called Mark Frith, in particular “A Legacy of Ancient Oaks”, or Dina Brodsky‘s “Secret life of Trees” for some inspiration. (Do this after you’ve watched my wee film so my drawing looks less lame!)
Here’s some source images to get you started, or feel free to take a walk and collect your own. Looking forward to seeing the results.
Osprey inspiration
News of a wee competition for you all!
It’s Year of the Osprey and organisers are looking for artwork inspired by this magnificent bird.
There’s some nice prizes available for the best works.
Get more details by clicking here: LEAFLET2FINALFORPRINT (1)
Guess who 2!
More portraits this week, with Angus leading a string of varied drawing exercises for the class.
Using resources and each other as models (including Angus himself), members sketched their way through: drawing upside down; drawing while not looking at the papers; drawing using only straight lines; and using graphite pencils.
The class fell near silent as everyone concentrated on capturing the details of faces – though there was plenty of laughter when people went round the class to check out the results.
Coming up on Wednesday May 17 – more portraits and a painting challenge.
Guess who!
The main event last Wednesday night (May 3) was portraits, though the wonderful weather tempted a few members onto the roof for a wee sketching session.
Angus ran through the basics at the start of the lesson:
- draw an upturned egg shape for the head;
- eyes to go halfway down, with each eye taking up a fifth of the width and being spaced one eye-width apart;
- end of the nose halfway between eyes and chin;
- mouth halfway between nose and chin.
The brave grabbed a mirror and attempted self-portraits, while others used photographs of faces to have go. You can see the some of results below.
This week (Wednesday May 10) there’ll be more portrait work, with some drawing exercises designed to improve our sketching.
March 29: Finishing off
We’ve nearly made it to the end of another term – one of our busiest. This week we’ll be trying to finish off any outstanding work from the past few weeks – or if you’re supr-organised, starting something new.
Last Wednesday night, there was another opportunity to see your designs on bangles. And we also got our hands on our photo-ceramic transfers for blank mugs. Here’s a few wee pictures.
March 15: Tutoring
A chance to work on any ongoing projects you have – whether painting, clay or pastel.
For those doing clay work, you can have a go at glazing. But Angus is also offering the chance to have your drawing turned into a wee transfer for sticking to your ceramics. These are really effective in adding something extra to your piece.
They work brilliantly when they are a simple drawing so if you don’t have anything ready for tomorrow, you can have go during class.
However, these need to be sent away to be printed by a specialist so they need to be finished by the end of the lesson.
Blank ceramics will be available to those who have not made anything in the past few weeks, at a small charge (£1 per piece).
Please remember money for glazed ceramics (£2 per piece).
And there’ll be a selection of Cairngorm-themed images for inspiration.
See the pictures below for some examples of Angus’s use of the transfers.
Spey Art Group 