Beginner’s Guide to Drawing

In week one, Steve Huston will provide you an introduction to starting your journey as an artist. You will join Chris Legaspi and Heather Lenefsky in exploring various tools and materials that artists use to draw.

In week two, Heather Lenefsky and Chris Legaspi will walk you through how to use and sharpen your pencil. You will begin to experiment with different mark-making techniques through multiple drawing exercises.

In week three, Joshua Jacobo will introduce you to a crucial lecture on value and shadow scales. This lesson not only trains you to judge values but also helps strengthen your hatching and blending skills.

In week four, Chris Legaspi will introduce you to drawing forms in three-dimensional space. You will learn how to plot basic shapes in perspective, construct forms from imagination, and break down a household object into simple forms.

In week five, Chris Legaspi and Heather Lenefsky will show you how to apply light to simple forms and use halftones to enhance the sense of 3-dimensional space.

In week six, you will learn from Mark Westermoe the techniques for creating texture in a drawing. You will also study how master draughtspeople such as Charles Danna Gibson and Fortunino Matania utilize different rendering techniques in their work.

In week seven, you will learn how to set up a still life with Bill Perkins. Then, Heather Lenefsky will demonstrate how to develop thumbnails of different compositions for your still life drawings.

In week eight, you will continue to learn from Heather Lenefsky how to create 3-value compositional thumbnails for your still life drawing. You will use everything you have learned about light, shadow, and form to develop and refine your artwork.

In week nine, you will learn how to use rhythm and gesture to create a sense of movement and character within your figure drawings. John Asaro will demonstrate how to find and utilize the center axis line. Then, Bill Perkins will teach you how to find the rhythms within the forms and contour of the figure.

In week ten, Mark Westermoe will show you how to start a plaster cast drawing. You will learn to use the lay-in drawing to describe the forms of the face. Mark will introduce you to several sculptures to study and take inspiration from.

In week 11, Mark Westermoe will show you how to take your plaster cast drawing to completion. You will begin by laying down a flat mid-tone to establish the shadow shapes. Then, you will use your knowledge of value and form to add the final touches to your drawing.

In week 12, Bill Perkins will show you how to use value to strengthen the compositional designs and readability of your landscape drawings. You will learn how to use value matrix, a powerful tool that allows you to quickly simplify the values within any image.

In week 13, Bill Perkins will introduce you to the differences between major and minor keys. You will practice creating diagrams that help you better understand the ideas of major and minor keys; from there, apply them to the design of your artwork.

In week 14, Bill Perkins will teach you how to establish a value matrix within a landscape drawing. You will learn to create two and three-value matrices.