Free Art Drawing Lessons
I developed these art drawing, lessons, because in the beginning years as we learn to draw or paint, our main focus is usually just trying to control the medium we are using. If we can also get a decent likeness of our subject, we consider the effort a success.
I compare this stage to the time many years ago when my wife and I took ballroom dance lessons. Initially, I was so focused on getting the steps right (and not stepping on her toes) that I did not even hear the music. It wasn’t until I got more comfortable with those first basic steps that I could hear the music and begin to move my feet in time to the beat. The free "Shapes of Things" Drawing Art mini-Lessons are meant to help you begin to hear the music. Mini-Lessons 1 and 2 are from my soon-to-be-released "The Shapes of Things" Drawing Art Lessons course. These lessons will be a combination of seeing lessons, art drawing lessons and painting lessons that are not taught in any classes or workshops I've seen. In most classes and workshops I've seen the sole emphasis is usually on painting technique. Now, I’m not going to tell you that technique isn’t important, it is. It’s just that if you want to progress beyond the beginning stages of art, you need to think about more than technique. You need to better understand what I call the three S’s: See, Simplify and Structure.
Second, to develop your own unique way of painting, you need to use your inner eye, your imagination, to see and paint your subject the way you want it to be, not necessarily the way it actually is. I will talk about this important subject a little more in the free online art drawing and painting lessons listed below. I will also emphasize this in the Art School on DVD® classes.  To give you an example of what I mean, look at the human head. If we train ourselves to first see a head as a simple egg shape, we can easily start with that shape in our drawing of a face. As the drawing progresses, we can adjust it to get the likeness we want. Then we can use our knowledge of how light and shadow appear on an egg to simplify and show light and shadow on the head. That’s what I’ve done in the illustrations above. If we go further and add some imagination as we paint, we can get something more unique.
Whether you paint from life or from a photograph, there is detail everywhere. So, you need to remember that what you don’t put in your painting is often just as important as what you do. It is the job of the artist to decide what the painting needs. Noted pastelist, Bill Hosner has said, “Ignore the obvious, paint the necessary”. Knowing which details to eliminate and which to keep can help you create a more exciting piece of art. I will touch on this subject in various free art drawing lessons as I develop them and discuss it in more depth in the Art School on DVD® classes.  For now, look at the photograph of the Galway harbor boats. There is a lot of detail, not all of which is necessary for a successful painting. In these free seeing, art drawing and painting lessons, I am going to stress that we focus on the essential details. The rest can be eliminated or changed. If we do that and add a dollop of imagination, we can paint the boats the way we want them to appear. And painting them as I’ve shown is only one of many ways of depicting this scene. Every artist will have a different opinion of which details are the most essential.
In order for a good idea to be turned into a good piece of art, the artist must create an interesting structure or composition of its elements. Ignoring structure or design in your painting is like trying to build your dream house without any floor plans. You have a vision of what you want it to look like, but how do you get there without a structure? Too often beginning painters rely on photographs to paint from. They simply reproduce whatever design, or lack of design, is in the photograph. Instead, in any art drawing exercise you should first ask yourself: who or what is my center of interest – the star of my picture? What is most important? What do I want the viewer’s eyes to see first? The rest of your painting then becomes the supporting cast, there to be interesting but never to overshadow the star. The next important question then becomes: how do I do that? This subject is important and much deeper than I can completely cover in these basic lessons. I will touch on it in the free art drawing lessons, but it will be thoroughly covered in its own Art School on DVD® class. In these art drawing lessons I will mainly talk about the first two S’s, See and Simplify, plus some other topics that could be considered part of your foundation studies. If you are ready to begin, click on the first free art drawing lesson and start your journey past the beginning level. 1. The Shapes of Things Drawing Art Lessons 1
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