
Discover how truly seeing, not just drawing, transforms your art through time-tested observational drawing exercises that build a solid foundation, improve proportions, and help you deconstruct subjects.
Develop drawing skills by focusing on observational seeing; build a foundation through studies, exercises, and experiments that train the eye and hand to draw what you see.
Choose simple subjects like apples or vegetables to train observational skills, study curves and outlines in contour drawing, and rotate objects in three dimensions to capture textures.
Practice fundamental warm-up drills with inexpensive paper to loosen your wrist, build confidence, and improve hand-eye coordination through scribbles, circles, lines, and shapes.
Practice blind contour drawing and continuous contour by looking at the subject, not the page, tracing outlines to train eye-hand coordination and sharpen observational skills.
Practice contour drawing by observing a real subject, varying line quality from light to dark, and translating three-dimensional form to two dimensions through outlines, proportions, and negative space.
See form in three dimensions through cross contours and lines that trace the subject's shape. Practice with fruit to observe how lines curve with the form and improve shading realism.
Practice value drawing by varying pencil and charcoal pressure from dark to light, squint to judge value changes, and study light, shadow, and highlights.
Explore color and value through quick studies that prioritize value first, then color. Squint to observe darks and lights, mix colors, and practice likeness and volume across mediums.
Deconstruct subjects into simple shapes and lines to master proportions, observe form, and develop your own drawing style through flexible, practice-driven experimentation.
Challenge yourself with a real class project by drawing a complex, varied scene from household objects to nature, focusing on seeing, value, and color studies to build a strong foundation.
Drawing is hard. You keep trying and trying and barely make any progress. I remember being there and how frustrating it is. But what if I told you that’s probably just because you don’t know how to truly observe?
I had to learn the fundamentals and rules of drawing before I could break them. A lot of self-taught artists skip the process of learning to see and the deliberate practice that is involved and this leads to holes in their drawing skills that they don’t know how to fix. That’s why I made this class!
I will show you time tested drawing exercises that teach you to truly see and to get good at putting that down on paper; because seeing things as they are and not as your brain thinks they are is the most important core skill in drawing.
Our brains tend to try to fill in the blanks and if we don’t practice truly observing, we’ll never make realistic or believable drawings. In this class, we will do many observational exercises that will help us to truly see our subjects. Once you learn to truly see, your drawings will be more realistic and believable. Even if you heavily stylize your art as I do, you will benefit a lot from learning to truly see first.
I’ll finish off the class on a lesson for deconstructing and stylizing what you see, but this class is mostly on how to improve as an artist by working on the core skills needed. Think of it as a drawing college course that’s sped up. There are tons of exercises that you can do and some are more fun than others, but all of them will make you improve much faster! The only way to get better is with practice and if you do these exercises you will get the best practice you can get to improve as quickly as possible!
So, let’s dive right in! :)