Drawing course 101

Drawing Course 101 is your introduction to those skills and techniques. Written by two accomplished artists and teachers who use their own works to illustrate what they teach, this guide takes you from basic to advanced concepts, with hands-on projects to help you each step of the way. From the qualities of shading to the principles of perspective, you'll discover a variety of drawing concepts. Get practical tips on lighting and composition, which will help you create strong, well-balanced works of art. Make rough sketches and transform them into finished drawings, practicing cross-hatching in ink and smudge-shading in pencil. Other techniques include montage and drawing with charcoal.

Includes index.

Materials and tools. Pencils ; Charcoal ; Colored pencils and chalks ; Pen and ink ; Papers and other surfaces ; Erasers ; Fixative ; Scratchboard -- Basic concepts. Elements of art ; Qualities of shading ; Principles of composition -- Sketching and suggesting depth. Rough sketches ; Drawing from photos and from observation ; More about forms and shapes ; Complex forms ; Using perspective and other ways of suggesting depth ; Linear perspective ; Arrange and sketch a simple still life -- Working with images: cropping and grids. Using a viewfinder to help choose a composition ; Enlarging an image by the diagonal method ; Using a grid to enlarge an image ; Using a grid to distort an image -- Smudge shading on a contour drawing. Creating a series of contour drawings ; Creating a composition from contour drawings ; A few words about composition ; Practicing smudge shading ; Creating the finished smudge-shaded drawing -- Ink drawing with hatch and cross-hatch shading. Creating a sketch ; Practicing cross-hatch shading with ink ; Drawing and shading your composition -- Montage composition with cross-hatch and smudge shading. Creating a composition of several images ; Practicing gradation…