Workshop Review
The Beginning to Draw workshop is wonderful. It's the very best instruction that I've been able to find, and I am deeply grateful for all your efforts that went into its making. Many, many thanks!
JoAnn L.
Pennsylvania, USA
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Workshop Review
I received the Beginning to Draw workshop on Wednesday. I've viewed the first two DVD's and quickly read the CD rom. The workshop is fabulous. Thank you for such quality education I can view over and over in my little part of the world.
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Workshop Review
Before I found you I had a natural ability to create some nice work in different mediums. However I never knew why or the rules or disciplines to make ones work a better piece. It always seem to turn out nice but after much frustration and correction. Proportions were often off and your lessons are a great help. I love that you started at the beginning as if we knew nothing. That is how it should be taught. Thats why you are "Master" Artist Michael Britton. A well deserved title.
Barbara V.
Trilogy, CA, USA
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Workshop Review
I've received my Beginning to Draw course in the post today, and I wanted to let you know how excited I am by it. I've only had time to skim through the CD and watch the preface, introduction and the first exercise, but already I'm so, so happy by what's included!
Would you be surprised if I told you I'd been searching half my life for this kind of instruction? I wanted to go to art school from a child, but I was so disappointed by a visit to the art college when I was 17 (... in Vancouver -- yes, it's my home town although I've been in England for 17 years now) that I changed direction completely and went to UBC to do languages instead. Since then, I've dabbled and futzed and eventually made my way via craft towards textile art, but always I've wanted to go back and learn the real skills of drawing and painting. As an adult, even if you can find someone to teach you (and that's not easy) outside a major city, you likely can't afford it.
I've been receiving your newsletters for a couple of years now and always learn something, but I still felt I needed to start right at the beginning again, being so out of practice, so I waited for this product to be ready. And now it is, it looks exactly what I'd hoped it would be: good solid explanation and demonstration of the skills and techniques, with progressive exercises to build them. I'm so pleased!
Thanks for this great product!
Best wishes
Fiona B.
Northhampton, UK
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Learn to Draw: Getting it right from the start...
Learning how to draw is easily taught to almost anyone. Contrary to popular myth most artists are not born with the innate ability or skill to draw. Even those that do seem to possess a talent for drawing what they see before them without formal art school training have generally been drawing for years, sketching and doodling away in their spare hours.
The trouble with the self-taught artist, however, is that many years are lost re-inventing the wheel when they could instead be taught the fundamentals of drawing in a very short time.
Once you have acquired the fundamentals of drawing you quickly work through the levels of skill development from novice to intermediate and then to advanced and onward to a mastery of drawing.
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The primary rule in drawing and painting is to always work from general to specific.
The general overall impression is called the arabesque (an other term for this is contour). The first skill that you need to acquire is being able to strike arabesque correctly in terms of proportion and shape. This is a drawing skill that needs to be taught to every artist when they begin to learn to draw.
Once the arabesque has been established the major landmarks of your subject are then placed. From there it is a matter of breaking down form in a logical succession.
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Of course, those who devote the most time to practicing and mastering the basics thoroughly using time-tested methods, will generally see the fastest results and develop to the highest levels.
The caveat, though, is to learn how to draw correctly. You want the best possible instruction to avoid costly learning mistakes and habits that later have to be undone.
No matter how far you decide to go, learning how to draw correctly from the start and developing a rock solid foundation based on time-tested principles is the key to your success.
Where does one begin to
learn how to draw?
You start by developing new drawing skills. At first your hand and eye coordination will not quite be there. Your first attempts at drawing will be awkward, but every time you draw your brain adds more information to what it knows and stores it so that next time it is a bit easier and your newly developed neural pathways are triggered. Eventually your drawing becomes more masterful, more automatic and fluid.
With training you will know exactly how to go about beginning a drawing, how to analyze a subject, how to measure and sight to establish the proper proportions of your subject, you will understand the rules of translating what you see into drawings that look three dimensional.
Over time and with consistent practice you will learn to master your drawing materials - how they work, what kind of mark they make, the proper way to maintain them and which materials work best for your desired outcome and you will have tons of fun and enjoyment along the way.
Learn how to draw - the first step
Your first skill to be acquired is to readily assess simple shape and proportion. Using the lessons and skill-building exercises in my Beginning to Draw DVD Workshop you will be well on your way to mastering drawing. From sketching in the simple shape of the head it is only a matter of knowledge and experience (the knowledge I teach, the experience you gain by drawing) to get to a highly resolved drawing like this one which was done using sanguine conte.
This is how all of the masters begin a drawing or painting. The untrained artist will always begin with a detail, such as an eye, and proceed from there; and the result will usually be the same - an exercise in frustration.
This skill of sketching in the simple shape of an object or a portrait is called striking the arabesque and it is the singularly most important drawing skill you can acquire.
An example of why this drawing skill of striking the arabesque is important is also demonstrated in the portrait drawing I did of an elderly Balinese woman. Her headress and sprawling locks of hair not only presented an interesting and challenging portrait drawing but could only be approached by first accurately putting down the overall shape of her face, headress and hair all in one go. It simply could not be done by just beginning with an eye and drawing out from there.
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