How to Draw Basics courses are designed to teach learners the fundamental drawing skills they need to be able to draw anything through an observational lens. Observational drawing is a method of learning to draw with three principles in mind: understanding of the subject, building looking skills, and practice of artistic technique. These courses combine lecture periods, worksheets, and free-hand drawing to ensure learners understand the material and get ample practice time. In my How to Draw Basics courses, students will learn basic art vocabulary, easily repeatable exercises to practice outside of class, and other basic drawing skills. During our drawing periods, I enjoy getting to know your learner and allow students to talk amongst themselves. I think art is most fun when it is communicative! 

HtDB: Figure Drawing Camp is a three day course will cover the absolute basics of figure drawing. In this class your learner will learn observational skills, basic human anatomy, how to draw a gesture drawing, and a figure study. They should come away with several pages of sketches, an ability to observe human proportions accurately, gesture drawing tools, and between one and three full-body figure studies. This class works GREAT as an introduction to gesture and figure drawing or as a refresher to gesture and figure drawing if your student has worked with figures before. The course does not encompass all aspects of figure and gesture drawing! 

How to Draw Basics: What is a Body: This class will include a PowerPoint lecture that describes three basic parts of the human form: bone, muscle, and joints. After we have covered why those elements of the body are important to us figure artists, we will move on to honing our observational skills through blind-contour drawings. The rest of class will be spent working on feature sketches or studies that are intended to encourage learners to use themselves as a resource and to practice drawing from life. 

How to Draw Basics: The Plunge into Gesture: Our PowerPoint lecture for this class will explain what gesture drawing is and break down gesture drawing into five steps in a tutorial-style format. As each step is thoroughly explained, learners may draw along, take notes, or just listen to the instructions given. Once the lecture has concluded, we will move to Line of Action one of many online tools designed to help artists practice figure and gesture drawing. While screen-sharing the website, I will take learners through one of the featured tutorials to encourage learners to seek tips and tricks outside of the class. Then, we will move on to practicing gestures together using the website.

How to Draw Basics: The Figure Study: Our final class is also free of formal lecture to allow students to draw at their own pace to encourage practice and experimentation. We will begin by jumping back into one of our online gesture drawing tools for a ten-minute warm-up gesture drawing period. Students will draw with two-minute intervals to encourage quick thinking, engagement, and fun, messy faces. They may choose to do blind-contour gestures. Once hands and eyes are warmed up, learners will proceed to spend the rest of the class working on their figure studies. During this class, I will also introduce students to figure studies done by a number of other artists and give them steps for where to go next if they would like to continue to practice gesture and figure drawing.