Guide To Drawing

[Alexandrin Chaples]

Ifind it helpful to do just a few of these warm ups at the start of a drawing session, it helps me to create smoother line work. And for beginning sketchers it can be helpful to loosen up and learn pencil control.

Often you will draw several loose lines in the first explorative stage, now is the time to decide on one contour line and define it with a solid line. Try to stay true to what you see in front of you.

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Hello, my name is Julia. I'm an illustrator, naturalist and I love to sketch.

On this blog I share my sketching adventures in nature, ideas for building a creative practice, how to live without social media, and my thoughts about how to be (and stay sane as) an artist in this strange world. Dive deeper into what I write about or browse the archives.

Easy to follow, free, step-by-step instructions on how to draw animals, plants, and popular cartoon characters. Great drawing ideas and easy drawing tutorials. Anyone can create great looking drawings!

I was using the sqaure drawing guide and it locked onto some cyan guide line and messed my square up and now it's permenatly off kilter by a few degreees. Who the hell thought that was a good feature?

My settings are set to lock onto to every 45 degrees, and when the outline for the guide is plumb square the actual guide (the dotted line inside that the line is drawn on) is not. Is there a way to reset this insane feature?

This book is a tremendous reservoir of knowledge, shared in an accessible and enjoyable way. It is a pleasure simply to read it let alone follow along with the wonderful exercises. I would recommend it as essential to any field sketcher or journal writer but it would stand up as a main textbook for a formal art or science illustration class as well!

In tone and content, the book radiates the wisdom, generosity, and experience that the author and his equally brilliant collaborator, Emilie Lygren, bring to their work as teachers and naturalists. And the effectiveness of its pedagogy extends beyond lessons in drawing and observation. At heart, The Laws Guide is a gentle manifesto for honing our powers of inquiry and cultivating a life of curiosity, humility, collegiality, discovery, delight, and meaningful engagement with the world.

Just received my copy! This is an awesome and inspiring book. I am blown away. I knew it would be good but never thought it would be this incredible both the poignant writing, the jaw dropping illustrations and the wonderful instruction on how we mere mortals can achieve finesse in our own journals. A real tour-d-force. Thank you.

Im trying to draw a horizontal guideline but Sketchup only seems to want to let me draw vertical ones. No matter what orientation I have the simple 3D block oriented in, or what edge/point I start the tape measure from, every time I click a second time I get a vertical aligned guideline. Is there a specific key or operation I have to do to draw a horizontal guideline after drawing 3 vertical ones?

I fully understand the locking of the axis/direction by using the shift key. What Im saying is that no matter what direction I drag the tape measure in, from whatever horizontal or vertical surface, the guideline always appears in the vertical. Im going to grab a screencast video to show this.

With a foreword by artist and field guide author David Allen Sibley. Drawing birds opens a world of beauty and sharpens our ability to observe accurately and deeply. The ability to draw is not a gift you are born with but a skill that anyone can develop. Whether you are a birder wishing to quickly sketch birds or an artist who want to understand and accurately depict birds in your paintings this is the book for you. The demonstrations and material in this book has been developed and refined in hundreds of workshops and will give you the techniques and knowledge you need to draw birds. Preview pages from the book and order your copy now. Read published reviews.

The characteristics of the cast shadow are dependent on the intensity of the light source. A hard light will produce a cast shadow with a sharp edge, a soft light will produce a cast shadow with a more blurry edge.

The longer the cast shadow is from the object, the softer the edge of the shadow becomes. Notice how the cast shadow is darkest right underneath the sphere and then it gets lighter and lighter as it goes out further away from the light source.

Also a cast shadow behaves predictability when on a flat surface, but when there are other levels or surfaces in the shadows path, the shape can be altered depending on the surface over which it falls.

Once you understand the basics of how light behaves, it is quite encouraging to think that a small amount of information can give you the knowledge needed to convincingly portray the illusion of form with any subject.

Hi Sue, great have you onboard. So pleased you found the article easy to follow. Lighting can get a bit technical at times but can be so helpful to you painting success. Really hope this lesson can help you to achieve a painting you can be proud of!

Hello Wiil,

Your sphere has a very immediate weight and presence, which I am enjoying looking at. It is so good!! I shall give it a try as well. Appreciate your explanation of the light. Thank you!

Lynne

So please you found the article to be timely for you, the added complication of textures can appear to take away from the smooth sides of an object, but as long as you think about the underlying form of the subject you will be able to add texture, and more mark-making into your drawings yet still create a compelling realistic effect.

I have just taken some of my work to a gallery for constructive criticism and was told to work on my lighting. Your lesson comes at a most opportune time for me. Thanks so much. Looking forward to the next lesson.

Thank you for this great lesson about understanding light. this is just what I need. I am hoping to order the portrait lessons soon. Will you be giving a lesson on how, what angles to put light on a live model to start portrait practise

Hi Debbie, lovely to hear from you, and thanks for your kind words on the writing, I would say grammatically correct might be stretching it for me though! Really pleased found the article logical and easy to understand.

Cheers,

Will

Hello Will, good to hear from you with another great piece of advice. You are keeping me on my toes with such informative lessons. I really must get the pencils and sketch pad out to brush up on my sketching and shading. All the best with your portraits.

Shirley

Hello Will,

What a great lesson. I did not know about those subdivisions of shadows. And also how easily you explained the tricky parts! Everyone will agree that you are a great teacher besides being a great artist. You explained it simply. You have a nice penmanship too. As a reader it never seemed too informative or boring.

Hi Will,

This is very good explanations regarding light sources, shadow and reflection. Your explanation is superb, so simple and so clear. I really enjoy a lot and am looking forward to the second and the third parts. I appreciate very much your generosity, it helps me a lot to understand and looking forward to applying it in my painting. Nualnapa

I have used the periscope app one time in my life. There was a person drawing and we the observers were as present as if we had been in the room. I mention this because should you ever decide to hold a class where you taught about light and shadow I would like to be in attendance. Just a thought.

Hi Will,

Thank you so much for creating these wonderful tutorials. Your explanations are clear and easy to understand. And as a new painter it is wonderful to be able to learn online from a talented artist like yourself. I wish you great success and thank you sincerely for sharing your knowledge.

Cheers

Jane in Ottawa, Canada

I think I may be a bit late on this whole comment thing, but thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with those who need it! I really appreciate these guides, they help me on my journey through art. My teacher is sending my class to your guides for isolation homeschooling, and I find that it really helps me understand the wonderful world of realism artmaking. Thank you!

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