Drawing Time

In this project, your primary goal is to study and emulate the crosshatching style of Michelangelo. The reference photo, of an adorable toddler named Madison, was taken with a flash; hence, I also show you how to modify the light source so her face doesn't look flat.
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This sketch of Mona Lisa offers a fun opportunity to practice the hatching techniques of Leonardo da Vinci. The primary goal of this project is to enhance your ability to identify and rendera full range of values, as well as high and low contrast shading.
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In this lesson, you attempt to recreate Leonardo's drawing styles and techniques, as well as create the illusion that the drawing is several hundred years old. To add to the challenge, you work in graphite instead of using a pen and brush with ink as Leonardo did.
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This is the third in a series of six lessons on painting with acrylics. In this lesson, you learn how to do an underpainting, blend wet paint into dry paint without leaving a hard edge, blend paints so colors graduate smoothly into one another. Finally, you put these new skills into action by completing the background of your own painting in progress.
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This is the second in a series of six lessons that takes you through the process of learning the basics of painting with acrylics. In this lesson, I show you how to set up a wet palette, mix paints, and paint a pattern of stripes.
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This is the first in a series of six lessons that takes you through the process of learning how to paint with acrylics.
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This heavily illustrated article guides you through one of the processes that I use for drawing a highly detailed caricature. Traditionally speaking, caricatures are rendered from life or memory; however, this particular drawing is done from a photo.
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This adorable Maltese (named Wesley) is the proud owner of my wonderful stepdaughter Renée, and her (equally wonderful) husband Dave.
Drawing a white subject on white paper is definitely a challenge. This project shows you how a softly rendered background can successfully separate a white subject from white paper.
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This advanced lesson has very few text instructions; rather, a series of illustrations takes you through the process of drawing a delicate sunflower. The overall values are low in contrast to depict the lights and darks created by the natural soft lighting of an overcast day.
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Squirkling works perfectly for rendering diverse highly realistic drawing subjects, including many found in nature as well as several made by humans. In this heavily illustrated lesson, you render a detailed drawing of an old weathered tree with a focus on textures and forms. Contrasting values define the many overlapping branches according to the lights and darks created by the dominant light source.
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In this project, you use graduated hatching to define the three dimensional forms and the fuzzy texture of an adorable teddy bear. The little model for this project was incredibly cooperative. He stayed very still, didn't talk my ear off, and didn't require any coffee breaks!
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The overall impact of a portrait of a smiling subject is only as strong as its weakest part. Drawing teeth poorly is often the cause of a ruined portrait, even when everything else is rendered perfectly. For example, drawing bold lines around each tooth is a huge no?no! In this lesson, I show you how to draw a smile with natural looking teeth by using gentle shading to indicate their forms.
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A basic knowledge of the physical aging processes allows you to accurately draw people of various ages. The age regression and progression techniques, discussed in this heavily illustrated article, can be invaluable for accurately portraying or modifying the ages of portrait subjects
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In this project, you draw an eye, with a focus on correctly rendering the structures of the anatomical forms surrounding the orbital cavity.
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Meet Katie – my sweet, lovable, mixed-breed dog whose pedigree includes Rottweiler and pit bull (and probably beagle). We adopted Katie from our local SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) when she was 2 years old . Today, (despite the horrors of her previous situation), she is very happy, and has the waggiest tail and the biggest smile you can imagine.

In this project, I show you a somewhat different approach to using a grid, as well as how to fade out a drawing by graduating the shading to white around the lower sections of your work. If you want to draw your own pet or another dog you can still follow along with my drawing process, but set up a grid using your own photo.
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With colored pencils and a simple fun technique called impressing, you create a gorgeous pattern on the wings of a butterfly cartoon. Butterflies come in many different colors and their wings exhibit various beautiful delicate patterns. Impressing helps you create a delicate pattern on the butterfly’s wings by using a pointed blunt object, such as a stylus, to make an impression in the paper. The surface of the paper is then shaded with colored pencils to enhance the pattern and/or texture.
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This article is designed to help you prepare a practical shopping list for buying useful brushes to enhance your painting experiences. Good brushes are a painter’s most important tools. I share many of my favorite types of brushes and discuss their uses. You also discover lots of basic information about brushes to help you become a better informed shopper when you finally hit the art store.
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In this lesson, you discover how to make secondary colors from primary colors, and explore a basic color wheel, complementary colors, and warm and cool colors.
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Even if you're an expert in botany, you'll have a hard time figuring out what kind of tree this is. The tree in this lesson doesn’t exist; rather it's a figment of my imagination. If you prefer, you can base your drawing on a more realistic tree (from life or a photo). Most beginners to drawing tend to draw only the branches that grow from the sides of the tree, without indicating those that are behind and in front of the trunk. The primary goal of this lesson is to provide learners with a strong sense of the three dimensional qualities of a tree.
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This heavily illustrated lesson takes you step-by-step, through the entire process of drawing a realistic rosebud. Text is kept to a minimum to challenge you to rely on your visual skills to render accurate proportions and add shading, using hatching and crosshatching graduations.
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In this article I offer suggestions for putting several different subjects together in a drawing. If you’re a fan of costumes and special effects makeup, I suspect you’ll enjoy the drawing I use as an example.
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In this lesson you will be taught how to draw curly hair and the step-by-step process presented can be altered to suit any hair style. Before you begin this lesson, you need to study J08-How to draw with charcoal where you will learn four popular techniques for drawing with charcoal. You might also consider enrolling into unit four portraiture in your pyjamas where you will learn another two hairstyles; long hair and short male hair as well as 8 charcoal techniques among many other wonderful things.
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As you draw a lifelike eye, you are challenged by the adversary of portrait artists' natural looking eyelashes. Eyes are the most expressive feature. The shapes and sizes of people's eyes can help identify their gender, age, and cultural origin. In a portrait, the eyes alone can often identify who the person is. Skills presented in this project include: understanding the various facets of an eye; correctly rendering eyelashes; using crosshatching and squirkles to properly depict an iris, pupil, and highlights; and adding shading to the white of an eye.
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A frontal portrait of a teenage girl challenges artists to draw long strands of realistic hair with contour hatching. A grid (optional) helps establish realistic facial proportions and render accurate outlines of the individual strands of hair. Crosshatching is used for shading the background, facial forms, features, neck, and jewelry.
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In this lesson, you first sketch the proportions of a caricature of a female adult named Kay within a grid of twenty-four squares. You then use hatching to add shading to the background, face, hair, ears, and clothing. Skills include using a grid to help sketch accurate proportions, and identifying and rendering values according to a dominant light source. This cartoon is an example of a unique style of caricature, affectionately referred to as Gigglecature, a word you will probably not find in any dictionary. The goal is to draw the face of a person as a cartoon that could be transformed into a puppet, doll, or stuffed toy.
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In this lesson, you sketch the proportions of a caricature within a grid of twenty-four squares, and then use graduated hatching to add shading to the background, and his face, hair, ears, and shirt.
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Cartoons are always fun to draw, and a lighthearted way to strengthen your drawing skills. My sketch of this mischievous looking toddler incorporates both crosshatching and hatching shading techniques.
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This lesson offers an ideal transition from beginner level projects into intermediate. Thirty-seven illustrations and simple step-by-step instructions bring together many beginner level skills.
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In this project, you draw a fun cartoon of a three-eyed alien, by using hatching and crosshatching to shade realistic eyes, and the three dimensional forms of a cylinder and two spheres. Skills presented include: drawing with curved and straight lines, identifying and shading light and shadow areas on forms, and shading graduated values with hatching and crosshatching.
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Meet Bill - the proud owner of my friend Lynn! In this project, you sketch proportions and then add texture to the various parts of his head and upper body.
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A realistic rendering of a Black Widow spider provides artists with an opportunity to enhance various drawing skills. Text instructions are limited; rather, you rely on fine tuning your visual skills to outline the fine intricacies of the spider, by closely examining large step-by-step illustrations.
 
 

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When looking at a drawing by an accomplished artist, have you ever noticed that one specific item catches your eye more than others? This is not an accident! Accomplished artists know a few secrets to bring attention toward what they consider the most important part of their chosen subject. A telltale sign of a drawing by an amateur artist is a hodgepodge of subjects (or sections of a subject) without one dominant center of interest. In this article, I discuss various ways of implementing a strong focal point(s) into your drawings to create more interesting and professional works of art.
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A telltale sign of a professional artist is the ability to render a neat, clean artwork. Yet, quite often in early stages of the creative process, a potential masterpiece becomes irreparably smudged, soiled, or damaged. This wonderful simple technique shows you how experienced artists transfer the primary components of a drawing (or other image) to a fresh clean sheet of paper. As an aside, this technique is unknown to many students of art, but is certainly not new; in fact, it can be traced (pun intended) back to the great masters of the Renaissance.
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During my lengthy career, I’ve made tons of mistakes and learned from them. With necessity being the mother of invention, I’ve also discovered numerous easier and more efficient methods of working. These tips and helpful hints are designed to make your drawing experiences more pleasurable and less frustrating!
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With a focus on improving your observation skills, this project offers simple illustrated instructions, to guide aspiring artists through the process of sketching the proportions of a cartoon of Fluppy the puppy, and then developing and working with a shading map to add simple shading with hatching lines.
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The primary goal of this project is to strengthen your skills with drawing curved lines. You first outline the various contours of a cartoon snake within the squares of a grid, add shading (optional), and then outline Cuddles with a fine?tip black marker.
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This heavily illustrated lesson is ideal for beginners who feel ready to take on more intricate and time-consuming projects.
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In this project, you set up the facial proportions of a Jack Russell Terrier named Jumpin Jack, add blended shading to his eyes and nose, and add texture to his fuzzy face with hatching. Curriculum is designed to help improve your skills at drawing curved hatching lines.
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This project relies completely on freehand drawing without the help of drawing tools such as a grid. You first draw a simple line drawing, and then add shading with hatching to make Kevin’s face and body look three-dimensional, and his spotted fur look furry.
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In this project, you first sketch Rocky’s proportions within your drawing space and outline his forms. You then use short thin lines to make his forms look furry and three-dimensional. This drawing relies completely on freehand drawing without the help of drawing tools such as a grid.
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How many times have you tried to draw a person, and finally given up in frustration saying ?I can?t get this right?? Be patient with yourself and don?t give up! Mastering figure drawing may take several years; however, with practice, your skills gradually improve and your drawings of people begin to look better and better.
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This heavily illustrated project invites you to use a simple grid to outline a realistically proportioned face of an adorable baby named Brandon (who just happens to be my grandson). Hatching is used to add shading to the face, clothing, and hair.
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A profile of an infant’s tiny face, shaded with hatching lines, provides insights into his or her facial proportions in relation to the head size.
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With a focus on improving your observation skills by drawing upside-down, this project guides you through the process of combining lines with simple shading to draw a realistically proportioned face of a young child.
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Rough, gesture, or action sketches are usually rendered very quickly, sometimes in less than a minute. The benefits of making rough sketches are in the process, rather than the creation of a magnificent work of art. Hence, you only goal is to capture a mood, expression or gesture on your drawing paper.
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Before you attempt to draw adult faces, it helps to know how to plan a place for everything, sort of like a blueprint. Even though the heads and faces of adults come in many shapes and sizes, the same basic guidelines for proportions apply to almost everyone.
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This lesson is designed to introduce a beginner to several aspects of shading, from preparing and holding a pencil to creating and blending shading.
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In this project, you draw a three dimensional cartoon by using contour hatching to shade the four spheres that define the forms of the head, nose and eyes.
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Tulips are among the most beautiful flowers and are also quite easy to draw. In this project, you use slightly curved hatching lines of various values and lengths to draw a tulip, as well as a section of its stem and leaf.Detailed step-by-step instructions take you through every aspect of setting up proportions, establishing the shape of the individual parts, and adding shading to create depth.
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This fun project takes you step-by-step through the process of drawing a seahorse. You first sketch proportions, then outline the various contours, and finally add hatching lines.
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