Drawing Techniques

Growing up, my sister and I have always loved art. We made dioramas, polymer clay charms, mixed media canvas' etc. But when it came to drawing and coloring, I was always the drawer and she was the colorer and it pretty much still's the same. So when I decided to learn how to watercolor for my senior project, my art teacher suggested I take drawing classes at the Memorial Art Gallery along with my water coloring classes to improve my skills. I always did drawing randomly just for fun. But since I've been taking my classes with Joe Tarantelli at the Creative Workshop, I've learned so many techniques. I signed up for the 5 week Monday classes from 6:30-9:30 pm and the classes are almost coming to an end but I need more! I didn't think drawing involved more than just the use of a basic pencil and paper. I didn't even know that lead pencils came in so many different hardness'.

    Our first drawing exercise was to to draw an image while looking at it upside down. This exercise allows the artist to focus on the relationship of the lines rather than the image as a whole. (lol excuse my messy work space)

We also did blind contour drawings. In this case we used our hands as the object to draw. Without looking at the paper, we drew an outline of our hands and then went in with the details afterwards. This exercise develops hand-eye communication. After that, we practiced while looking at both the paper and our hands.

This is just a page full of random observational drawings I did during one of the past classes.