I am always dismayed when I find courses advertised to teach someone how to draw but they only teach how to draw a specific item (i.e., a specific feature of the face or how to draw a flower or a bird or an animal). Having been an artist for most of my life as well as having taught drawing, I know these lessons are woefully inadequate instruction.
The latest advertisement for a course I saw recently states that it teaches in five modules how to draw an eye, a nose, a mouth, ear, and hair.
If they are drawn in one particular angle, what happens when a student wants to draw those features at a different angle or want to integrate individual features into an entire face? Look at each of these facial features. Do they look like an integrated face? No! They are all jumbled. Does this course give students enough training to integrate them? If not, wouldn’t a student end up frustrated and assume they don’t have talent and give up on their artistic endeavors?
Does this teacher show students how to really see so they can draw the features from any angle? Because if they learn to really see by judging distances and relative proportions, they will be able to draw anything. Will this course address proper placement on the page, teach students the value scale and how to use it, identify the basic shapes and value masses of the composition, and teach them to lightly block in the entire portrait loosely before starting in with details, avoiding detail until the larger areas are massed in?
If it doesn’t address these core principals, I can just imagine the eager, struggling artists who would purchase this course only to be disillusioned and disappointed. It’s like giving a man a fish instead of teaching him how to fish. With all the students I have taught and all the artists I have observed and worked with, I know achieving a likeness is far more than merely rendering a feature. It seems cruel to tantalize customers with false claims.
Many amateur artists want to learn the fun details (like the expressive eye or the luxurious hair) or want to learn how to draw one thing (a tree, a puppy, etc.), thinking this will enable them to draw well. Or they may pick and choose “how to” videos which are sometimes beyond their abilities, not understanding they need to learn fundamental principals first.
I believe my online drawing course “Drawing Secrets Revealed,” www.drawingsecretsrevealed.com does address all of these essential drawing principles and more. Beyond that, I’m proud my program integrates them all into a cohesive, college-level course that not only gives students the tools and techniques of drawing, but also shows them exactly how all those tools and techniques work together in producing a work of art.
I provide a core foundation in a way that is easy to grasp and explicitly builds on basic concepts. I feel my course is a much more balanced, organized program that takes the guesswork out of drawing and facilitates student’s progress. Unlike so many teachers out there who teach how to draw particular objects without showing how to work them into a whole, I teach students how to really see by identifying basic shapes, rendering accurate values, blocking in their image to get it properly placed on the page before starting in with details, and most important how to gauge relative proportions in a composition. Without that, no student will ever be able to learn to draw. They don’t know they need these fundamental concepts. I believe everyone can learn to draw, but they need to build a solid foundation before building another floor.
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Click HERE to find out how you can draw anything you see in just weeks with my college-level drawing course.
Also, check out my original works for sale or my prints for sale.