The Drawing Blog

It's a First for Us--See What's Coming in the Newest Issue of Drawing Magazine!

2012-01-31T04:00:00Z

Pages from Sabin Howard's drawing sketchbook and a finished sculpture. We just put a wrap on the winter issue of Drawing —you'll be seeing it in your mailboxes and on newsstands in February, and can order it in the Artist Daily Store as well. The cover of the new issue is something of a change of pace for us. Most of our past covers have featured arresting figure drawings created by some wonderful artists—Whitfield Lovell, Julio Reyes, Tony Ryder, and Susan Lyon are just a few...(read more)

Drawing Magazine Going Where It's Never Gone Before!

2012-01-30T19:49:00Z

Love to draw? Love to surf the internet? Then check out Drawing magazine's new Facebook page —featuring artists, tips on drawing basics, unique educational opportunities, and exclusive news about the magazine and the fast-paced world of drawing. Like our page , and stay up-to-date with helpful art updates! --Austin...(read more)

Drawing Skills that I Can Take Outdoors

2012-01-19T04:51:00Z

In a recent painting of mine, you can see the sky and clouds are the lightest value, the towering waves and rocks are the darkest, as they are more vertical to the light of the sky. The flat of the ocean is the second lightest of the values, equating to flat ground. Water (and snow) can be exceptions to the land mass being the second lightest value as there can be so much reflection from the sky. Whi le my subject matter of late has been the light as it falls on the human figure, I am equally interested...(read more)

What Would Rubens Do?

2012-01-12T04:04:00Z

Leah by Patricia Watwood, pencil on toned paper, 18 x 14, 2011. I have just finished two big projects. Foremost, my show Myths and Individuals opened at the end of October at Saint Louis University Museum of Art. In two months the show will open for it's New York City venue at The Forbes Galleries. As soon as I came home, I had to finish a new painting for the ACOPAL exhibit at the Butler Institute of American Art--which runs Dec 18, 2011 through Feb 27, 2012. I promise to tell you more about...(read more)

Art's Highest Achievement--Drawing the Portrait

2011-12-27T04:18:00Z

There are so many significant milestones that an artist can mark his or her career by, but the one that is most exciting for me is the possibility of drawing people and capturing their likeness, whether it is a certain gesture they have or just the interesting planes of a model's face. But this is no easy task! Learning how to draw realistic people, not caricatures, isn't something that always comes easily. That's where Drawing the Portrait with Anthony Ryder comes in for me. This DVD...(read more)

Drawing Basics: Working in Black and White

2011-12-22T04:40:00Z

A photo of the cast I am drawing. My drawing, in progress. You may remember that in the fall of this year, I discussed Darren Kingsley's class and his comment that we would be working for many weeks on our drawing of a facial feature in his class. Well, he kept to his word. We are still working on the feature we initially started with all those weeks ago. I chose to draw the cast of the eye of David. It has been a really valuable (excuse the pun) exercise in understanding value . We use both...(read more)

Drawing Basics: Grateful for Shades of Grey

2011-12-20T04:19:00Z

Figure drawing by Judith St. Ledger-Roty, charcoal drawing, 2011. I have been taking a figure drawing class that focuses on doing a comparatively long figure pose, working in charcoal. (We do one minute, five minute, and ten minute drawings, too, so 'long' is relative here!) Until I started taking classes at Studio Incamminati, I never really focused on creating or monitoring values in any medium. I know that probably reveals my lack of formal experience, but so be it. To complicate matters...(read more)

Drawing the Strength of Bones and Folds of Flesh

2011-11-22T04:12:00Z

Pastel drawing by Lea Colie Wight. At Studio Incamminati, it is not unusual for instructors or fellows who are not teaching a particular class to come in to draw or paint beside the students. This happened recently when Lea Colie Wight joined in a figure drawing class taught by Steven Early. (Lea is an incredible person, humble and so giving of her knowledge—she is also the recipient of a 2011 Certificate of Excellence, and 2010 and 2009 Honor Awards, from the Portrait Society of America.)...(read more)

Drawing a Nose for 20 Weeks...Really?!

2011-11-10T04:34:00Z

Drawing of a nose by Darren Kingsley with graphite pencil. The fall session at Studio Incamminati has begun, and I am taking classes with Darren Kingsley. One is in charcoal, and the other in graphite pencil . Last year as a new student, I was introduced to doing charcoal drawings in, for example, 60 seconds, five minutes or ten minutes. We did longer ones as well, but the emphasis early on was capturing the gesture of the human form, in one or a few straight lines. We moved to mass drawing as the...(read more)

Colored Pencils and Exploding Heads: Welcome to the Fall Issue of Drawing

2011-11-08T00:09:00Z

Kinder Love by Jason Bard Yarmosky, 2011, pencil drawing, 18 x 24. Frontal Study of Naked Man by Leonardo, 1503- 09, pen and ink drawing, 9 1/4 x 5 3/4. Looking East by Kerry Brooks, colored pencil drawing. I'm excited to report that the fall issue of Drawing is here—it hits newsstands November 8 and is now available at the Artist Daily store . This time around we have a great mix of stories about how to draw the figure, how to draw in colored pencil, and what the Old Masters can teach...(read more)

Drawing Basics: Varying Your Mark Making

2011-11-03T17:14:00Z

Last time we discussed the idea of switching up art practice techniques . The concept was that, while repetition builds skills, change keeps the mind sharp and the work lively. I've been thinking about ways I personally switch up techniques. The first I think of is variation in mark-making. Consider these two drawings. Both are from the same life-drawing workshop. The first is a 40-minute pose, and the second is a 20-minute pose. In the first figure drawing , I followed my ordinary practice ...(read more)

A Stress-Free Drawing Master Class

2011-11-01T03:50:00Z

This is a blog about drawing people from one of my favorite co-workers, Cate, the online editor of Cloth Paper Scissors . Enjoy! Proportion is key to life drawing. When I was a kid growing up in Michigan, I was privileged to take classes at Cranbrook Institute of Art. I have two memories of this experience. One is that the grounds were absolutely enchanting; I particularly recall the long Triton pool that I walked past to get to my class. I felt like I was in a storybook world. The other memory is...(read more)

Tall Order: Drawing the Windows to the Soul

2011-10-12T18:29:00Z

Click on any of the above images to see David Kassan's Drawing the Eyes . That is no small task, no doubt about it. Yet hundreds of thousands of us search every year online about how to draw eyes. Mostly, I think, because we take drawing eyes for granted. All you need is an oval, a circle, and a dot, right? That's all it takes. But once you leave the fourth grade, that kind of depiction just doesn't cut it anymore—I know, I've tried. But my problem was that I didn't even...(read more)

Shock to the System

2011-10-04T03:14:00Z

Am I built like Jason Statham? Hell no! But a parallel approach to art practice has helped me when I make pictures of guys who are. I find it useful to phrase the ongoing practice of painting and drawing in exercise metaphors. Whatever your daily practice (life-study drawings, still life painting, color studies, multi-hour drawings, short croakies), you can think of these exercises as your training. The more ambitious free-standing art that you make to express an inspiration, to show to others—that's...(read more)

Heading Back to School for More Drawing Basics & Beyond

2011-09-29T03:43:00Z

My early charcoal drawing. The charcoal drawing using the Studio's method. Once again, time for me to go back to school at Studio Incamminati . In preparing for classes, I have been reviewing my last year's drawings again. I am reminded of something I talked about in one of my first blogs— toning the paper or canvas . It just fascinates me that in one method of charcoal drawing the artist is working directly on the paper, using the tone of the paper as the mid-tone of the drawing. The...(read more)