Monday Morning Art School: how important is drawing, anyway?
Drawing is the grammar of art, and color is art’s vocabulary. As with language, we learn them both intuitively and intentionally.
How to practice drawing (when you don’t feel talented)
Drawing is not a magic trick—it’s a series of steps like long division or attaching a sleeve to a dress. Anyone willing to put in the time can learn it.
Monday Morning Art School: what do you use for drawing?
What tools do you love for drawing, and why?
You can’t abstract if you can’t draw
Try reducing one of these paintings to a notan, and you’ll realize just how much drawing underpins this seeming simplicity. Plein air painting by Tara Will, courtesy of the artist. “Why are you teaching us self-portrait?” a student recently asked me. The human face is the most demanding subject to draw, because very slight errors …
Monday Morning Art School: Draw a face, yours or others
Have trouble drawing people? Here’s a way to get a good likeness in a hurry. Robbie, by Carol L. Douglas We’re going to be doing self-portraits in my classes during the next two weeks. We’ll be using mirrors, but this is a technique that works with pictures of yourself or others, from the live model or …
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The four steps of landscape drawing
Being technically accurate frees up your subconscious mind to analyze and interpret what you see. Main Street, Owls Head, 16X20, oil on gessoboard, $1623 unframed. Observation I once took an artist on a long loop to see all my favorite painting sites here in midcoast Maine. “But there’s nothing to paint,” she wailed. She was …
Monday Morning Art School: overcoming barriers to learning
“I wish I could paint, but…” What’s standing in your way? Breaking Storm, by Carol L. Douglas, available through Folly Cove Fine Art. Yesterday, our pastor listed these five common barriers to adult learning: Lack of time Lack of balance (juggling commitments) Lack of motivation Lack of flexibility Lack of a supportive community Lack of time …
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Monday Morning Art School: anyone can draw
Drawing is a series of actions, rather like dance. It can be learned, just like any other process. Teachers sometimes tell their students to hold the pencil fully outstretched. I disagree, because moving it up and down and sideways makes you move in an arc, as Sandy demonstrates, above. Drawing starts with measurement. Get that …
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Monday Morning Art School: start with drawing
Before you can paint successfully, you have to learn to draw. I love drawing in church, especially when there are sleepy teenagers. This drawing started with simple analysis of shape. One of the problems with writing about ‘how to do art’ is that you’re speaking to all levels of experience. Today we’re going right to …
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Drawing as prayer, play and thought
“Drawing is prayer,” Delacroix famously said. He could have added that it’s play as well. And thinking. The Giaour on Horseback, by Eugène Delacroix, c. 1824–26, by Eugène Delacroix, pen and iron gall ink with wash over graphite, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art Shelving books this week, I came across a small volume of drawings …