Drawing Lessons of Portraits and Landscapes

This quick lesson along with the below post, are great practice exercises even for the mature.
Perspective drawing for me is almost as complicated as the face. That is what my mind tells me anyway. So turning aside from the artsy fartsy of it all, and more towards the science of it all, I don't want my mind telling me that "I can't do this"! "YES I CAN" and "I WILL". I hope this is enough to say this morning and to encourage you and spur you on also in your drawing skills.

Remember I made mention in previous posts, I learned abstract art, not realism. So if I didn't want to put an eye ball or nose where they go on the head, I didn't have too! Sound a bit rebellious, perhaps, but now, I want to understand and know!

So, copy artists work that you love and lay a piece of tracing paper over them, and begin to draw out where the horizontal line is in the painting or drawing that you are using. Use a marker if you want so that you can see your lines later (not too thick of a marker because it will bleed through the tracing paper). Keep the copies of the original art work so that you can practice again. This is a mental exercise to learn about where the artist was standing when they began to draw this landscape. Look at what was drawn or painted in the distance. That is the background, what is in the middle of the picture-that is the middle ground, and what is closest to you is the foreground. If there is a person in the foreground, draw a line from the tip of their head to the horizon line. Do that with as many objects that are in the painting to see where they meet up with the horizontal line. Select one point on that horizontal line where all the other lines meet. This will show you where the focal point is.
I am doing an example myself and will post to show you how if you are a bit confused.

CHECK OUT THE FLOWERS OF OUR BEAUTIFUL ARIZONA

The purpose of my Arizona photography is to share with you the wonderful colors in our landscapes.

If you look hard enough, you will see loads of color combinations in our very nature. COPY those colors into your art work. Perhaps you don't even have to paint or color a flower, just load your paint brush with a chosen color, apply it to your canvas or paper or cardboard, pick up a new color after you have rinsed your paint brush, and lay that down on the canvas in another spot or next to the first color. Keep on doing this with just two colors or three colors and fill up the canvas. You will see how colors change when they are placed next to a different color. Sometimes grey can appear blue. Check it out!

DRAWING

As you know, I have been drawing my grandson Justice, along with implimenting drawing in my collages with Petit dolls. I have been drawing since I was six years old and now am turning fifty. I have never had an excellent instructor, even in college, so my drawing has been self taught and is still on that road. When I go to the bookstore, I am always in the art section or craft section looking at the new mixed media books that are out.

One day, while scanning the internet for free videos and classes, I came across www.virtualartacademy.com. CHECK IT OUT. You will learn some really indetailed points on drawing and painting. Short videos teach some great stuff if you want to continue in your drawing skills. This teacher has many interesting concepts that I have only begun to learn. For instance,

using your straight edge of your ruler or paint brush to keep the angles in your drawing accurate. Barry John Raybould is the artist teaching. In the drawing tutorial, he keeps you focused on the triangle shapes of objects, figures, landscape... when you finally determine a particular triangle, you move from one point of that triangle to the next triangle you see in what you are drawing. He teaches you alot about perspective and making sure your angles in the triangle are accurate before you proceed.

I love this tidbit he taught in a tutorial: when you are looking at a painting, title it with three words. If you can not title it, then perhaps the painting has lost it's focus. This goes along with yesterdays blog when I talked about naming your art piece in a small notebook, and writing down the layers you have used in your collage so that you can redo that collage, or use the techniques in a new piece.

Barry's tutorials and classes (these you will have to pay for) are intricate and perhaps not what you want to study everyday, and perhaps you feel do not work for a collage, but the education that you can get is wonderful.