Learning how to draw is like learning a new way to see. All of us have the ability to visualize. There’s a rule in drawing that I apply every time I pick up a pencil. It is that drawing is 60 percent observation. The more we look for shapes that we can relate to, and try to see the relationships between these shapes, our visualization skills increase dramatically.

A most amazing revelation takes place the moment we realize that we can take what we see and then draw a picture that accurately describes what we saw.

It’s even more amazing when we can create things from our imaginations!

In our class, students will learn how to render value, tone and volume by capturing core shadows, midtones, highlights, reflected light and cast shadows. They will also learn how to draw portraits, still life and landscapes. I also teach a few modules on perspective drawing, focusing on architectural and structural elements.

Apart from developing good pencil technique, I also have the students working with other media, including coloured pencil, pastel, watercolor and acrylic.

I also teach a course that explores the wonderful ways that traditional media can be combined with digital art using tools like Photoshop and Illustrator.  The results can be awesome and are always lots of fun! We’ll also be drawing and painting using digital drawing tablets (students need to supply their own drawing tablets and laptop computers)

Here’s a couple of examples of digital painting in Photoshop and combining vector drawing in Illustrator with Photoshop painting:

Here are a few pieces that I did that combine pencil drawings, watercolour backgrounds and some graphic effects in Photoshop (the backgrounds were done by kids):