Drawing Squirkles Around a Tree

Even if you're an expert in botany, you'll have a hard time figuring out what kind of tree this is. The tree in this lesson doesn’t exist; rather it's a figment of my imagination. If you prefer, you can base your drawing on a more realistic tree (from life or a photo). Most beginners to drawing tend to draw only the branches that grow from the sides of the tree, without indicating those that are behind and in front of the trunk. The primary goal of this lesson is to provide learners with a strong sense of the three dimensional qualities of a tree.

Drawing Denim

In this lesson, I show you how to draw the edge of a tiny section of hemmed denim fabric that is gently folding. Drawing believable fabrics is integral to accurately rendering a drawing of a clothed person. The folds and bends of clothing can reveal the forms of the unseen figure underneath. Denim has survived several decades of fashion designers and seems to be here to stay. Its most endearing quality is that it takes on a distinctive personality as it fades, especially on the hems of jeans. In this exercise, I show you how blending creates softly textured denim fabric.

Bud the Rose

This heavily illustrated lesson takes you step-by-step, through the entire process of drawing a realistic rosebud. Text is kept to a minimum to challenge you to rely on your visual skills to render accurate proportions and add shading, using hatching and crosshatching graduations.

Dragon Egg

In this lesson, smooth graduations of curved hatching lines, depict texture, pattern, and the illusion of depth, and also illustrate light and shadows on a three-dimensional egg. Artists with little or no experience in shading with contour hatching lines are encouraged to complete F-09 Graduations with Contour Hatching.

Tux

In this fun lesson, you use graduated hatching techniques to define the three dimensional forms of an adorable penguin named Tux. You first establish the proportions of his head, body, feet and wings; then outline the various shapes and forms; and finally using graduated hatching lines to characterize the feathers.

Teddy Tink

In this project, you use graduated hatching to define the three dimensional forms and the fuzzy texture of an adorable teddy bear. The little model for this project was incredibly cooperative. He stayed very still, didn't talk my ear off, and didn't require any coffee breaks!

Emma Emu

In this project, you draw the fascinating face and spiffy hairstyle (or should I say feather-style) of Emma the Emu. Very few people would consider emus to be the most beautiful birds in the world; yet their funny faces present them as incredibly appealing and memorable. The neck and head of an adult Emu is mostly bald except for a few shaggy, unruly feathers. Emus are the tallest birds in their native Australia, ranging in height from 5 to 6 feet, with long powerful legs that allow them to run very quickly. As with other flightless birds such as penguins, emus’ wings are not designed to give flight to their disproportionately large bodies.