Lessons
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.
Looking for a lockdown lesson?
Hello again and hope you are all doing well and keeping busy.
Just in case you haven’t explored the website lately, we want to point you towards our lessons page. Here you can find a host of presentations about how to paint subjects, including landscape and portraiture, and using different media.
Click here to get stuck in!
Keeping creative
Hope you are all keeping well and not going too crazy being stuck at home a bit more than we would all like.
Luckily that gives you more time to do art! And there’s lots of inspiration going around online at the moment, including lessons and virtual exhibitions.
We’re going to try and keep you entertained with a few of the most amusing and bizarre ones over the next few weeks – or for however long this all last. Fingers crossed it’s over soon and we’re back together on Wednesday nights.
And we’d love to see the art you are working on – if you’re on Facebook, do share a wee picture with us at our page.
First up, we thought you’d like a laugh. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has challenged people to recreate a piece of art using things they’ve found around the house. There have been some inspired results. You can click here to see some of the best via Twitter.
And if you get bored enough to have a go, let us see what you did.
Light and Shade
A great lesson from Angus last night on how to use a limited palette to create light and shade in your painting and drawing.
Xmas is coming…
Xmas trees was the idea but some wayward students went for something a little more individual! As you can see the results were all very creative and fun was had by all . Tonight (13th Dec) is flowers and mixed media so remember to take along something which will inspire you. If you don’t have anything, don’t worry as Angus will have plenty of inspiration for you. Enjoy….
Creative Stitch Class
Ally Wardlaw’s creative stitch workshop at Nethybridge community centre is currently waiting for confirmation re dates for the group to meet.
Selected dates at the moment are;
Sat. 2nd Sept.
Sat.7th Oct.
Sat.4th Nov.
Sat.2nd Dec.
Time.10am-2pm.
The intention being that the group would meet to share ideas, learn from each other, and pass on techniques old and new to one another. Ally is happy to demonstrate some processes etc. to those unfamiliar with textiles but hopes the group will all work together creatively.
Please contact Ally direct to find out costs.
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.
Spey Art Group 