what will you learn?

Being able to draw-up your subject is criticle to successful drawing and painting...

All classes are tutored, whether a beginner or someone more advanced...

Many peo0ple are put off from taking up art, especially life drawing, because they believe they have to be born with a natural talent for drawing! Not so. Unfortunately this does put many people off from doing art. Almost without exception, when people contact me regarding taking up art, or life drawing, they may have done art at school, but nothing since. Some have dabbled at home, or been to another art class but where there was no tuition. Drawing and painting can be taught, like most things in life.

Life-drawing and figurative work is the key to painting. Why? Because it forces you to observe and to measure accurately! I have taught many students life-drawing. Life drawing is the key to drawing and painting because you need to develop a measuring system so you can achieve correct proportions. It pays back enormous dividends for the rest of your life. If you can draw the figure, then I believe you can draw any subject. Believe it or not, even people who know nothing about art, if shown a drawing or a painting of the nude, will immediately see if the figure isn’t drawn to the correct proportions! They will sense that something is not quite right. On the other hand, if shown a painting of a landscape they were unfamiliar with, half the painting could be out of proportion and it wouldn’t be obvious.

Now try measuring the human figure.

beginners life drawing class, learn to draw and paint, liverpool, merseyside, ormskirk, lancashire, sefton, merseyside
Keep fingers in place, slide your thumb to the chin (you now have the head as your unit of measurement). Keeping your pencil straight, divide the head down the figure to find out how many times it goes... As you see in the next illustration. It goes down?

 

Now try measuring a still-life.

how to draw, measuring the figure, drawing from the life model, liverpool, southport, ormskirk, sefton, merseyside
Image 4.
Try it on a bottle. Take the width of the bottle. This is your unit of measurement.
Remember to keep the pencil vertical, carefully divide it down and it goes... Yes, 6 & 1/2.

 

 

 

 

life drawing classes, for beginners, adult classes, liverpool, merseyside.southport
Image 5.
Keep your hand in the same position, divide the width into its height. Yes, it divides up 3 & 3/4. With this knowledge, you can then drawing your bottle to any size, knowing that its width on your paper or canvas must divide up 3 & 3/4. To see it in practice, watch the video.

 

Watch this 6 minute excerpt from my DVD, 80 minutes long video, to see the thumb & pencil technique explained more...


If you would like to purchase the 80 minute DVD, cost is £19 and includes packaging, then please contact me by clicking here

Watch this 15 minute video of myself giving measuring instructions to students at John Moores university, Liverpool, Merseyside.