Sketchbooks, drawing, painting, daily practice

The studio is still closed. I'll open up again when it is completely safe. Until then I'll be taking a sabbatical, sharpening my pencils and filling my sketchbooks. I treasure all the photos I have from passed travels and am really enjoying sketching from them. They may just stay in the sketch books or become small cards. Lets see where it goes. 

One of favorite places, Burno, Italy. I could spend a month here just drawing and painting everyday, all day. #fromwhenwecouldtravel

These 2 will be part of the  Dear Ballard Greeting Card Campaign that will have handmade cards available October 1st,  all funds raised going to charity.  A great project that got me started painting again.

I've also started working on my Urban Sketching and quick figure drawing skills....so much fun! A friend recommended SkillShare and in particular James Richards Urban Sketching classes. I highly recommend it!

 ...and I'm brushing up on my french with Duolingo

Bonne Journee!

Summer Camps have a few spots open...

 Summer Camps at Studio-Kids have a few spots open. Register today!

Poofy loves to pose, Poofy loves to be pet... 

 Life drawing with Poofy...

Poofy poses patiently for pastel portraits.

Drawing Lesson for Kids in Shading

We had a fabulous lesson in shading last week. We spent the first half of the class performing exercises to better familiarize ourselves with the many shades of gray. For example, we practiced using a single soft pencil to fill in, or shade, multiple simple squares; first we began with a white square, and slowly progressed to our darkest gray square. After pencils, we moved on to the much more fun Chinese drawing inks.

Next, we practiced cross hatching (a technique used to create shading effects by drawing closely spaced parallel lines) with pencil, and later moved on to cross hatching with pens. Its so exciting to watch the light bulb go on in a child's head when they realize just how powerful an easy to learn technique like cross hatching can be.

For the second half of the class, I set up a simple still life consisting of boxes and cylinders wrapped in plain paper. The idea is to minimize visual distractions so the children really focus on observing the light and dark areas of the still life. It was a wonderful day, so we had lots of beautiful natural light casting some great shadows. My young students really looked closely at exactly where shadows were falling, and seemed quite challenged -- the kids had to erase more than a few times.

A lovely drawing by one of my 10 year olds.

Another fine example of shading by one of my 7 year olds.

Blind Contour Line Drawing

Blind contour line drawings are great warm up exercises, and one of my favorite ways to get kids to slow down and observe their subjects and not their drawings. During last weeks class the kids were drawing each other, it was, however, very tempting for the students to keep checking their drawings and make corrections. This week I'll bring in mirrors to do self portraits using a large paper grocery bag trick. The kids will put their sketch books inside large grocery bags and draw.

Learning to Draw

Learning to draw is like learning and mastering anything else. We sign up for a class, hire a personal trainer or teacher and then we have to practice. We need to set aside the time several times a week to draw, do some warm exercises, and then focus on observing our subject and drawing what we see. A comfortable place to sit, pencil, paper  some nice music in the background and that's it.

I came across this last night while I was researching some fun projects for an upcoming class.


Drawing is one of the most important activities you and your students can do. Drawing not only provides the basis for other creative activities - like painting, sculpture and printmaking - but it also provides a direct link with reading, writing and especially mathematics. The connection between drawing and geometric shapes and measurements simply cannot be denied. And do you know what else? Drawing is the single most accessible form of art available. All you need (to begin with), is a pencil and a sheet of paper.
~Andrea & Jan

http://www.kinderart.com


Now go draw!