Category: Kieran’s Video Classes

This new series is the perfect project for when you’re stuck indoors. I will be showing you how I make a study in pencil of my own studio. You can either use the reference provided (see below). Or better yet, make a study of the inside of your own home or studio. You can work from a photo or life – whichever you prefer 🙂

In this session we will be fleshing out our initial line sketch with some nice masses of tone…

• Start by laying in a light, even tone over anything that isn’t going to be very bright (I left the window and two other sources of light the same tone as the paper.
• You can use linear hatching (shading in a single direction) for this part.

• Once the general tone is in place you can pick darker shapes and start to deepen their tone.
• This will give the scene more depth and structure.
• Resist the temptation to add lots of detail – just focus on getting the big tones right.

• Keep working this way until most of the main masses of tone are shaded in.
• Next week we will use this as a basis to start rendering and adding more details.

The materials you will need for this course are:

• Paper (or a sketchbook)
• Range of pencils (H, HB, B, 2B) – ideally a few mechanical pencils as well as regular ones.
• Kneadable eraser
• Sharpener or sanding block
• Tape
• Drawing board (if you aren’t using a sketchbook)

You can download the source image for the series here:

http://drawandpaint4free.artcoursework.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/P1090476-scaled.jpg

This new series is the perfect project for when you’re stuck indoors. I will be showing you how I make a study in pencil of my own studio. You can either use the reference provided (see below). Or better yet, make a study of the inside of your own home or studio. You can work from a photo or life – whichever you prefer 🙂

The materials you will need for this course are:

• Paper (or a sketchbook)
• Range of pencils (H, HB, B, 2B) – ideally a few mechanical pencils as well as regular ones.
• Kneadable eraser
• Sharpener or sanding block
• Tape
• Drawing board (if you aren’t using a sketchbook)

You can download the source image for the series here:

http://drawandpaint4free.artcoursework.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/P1090476-scaled.jpg

• Start by taping up your paper to your drawing board.
• I suggest that you put a piece of backing paper so that the drawing surface is less scratchy.

• Lightly sketch in a rectangle that will determine the size and shape of your drawing.
• Try to work as light as possible during this session. It is easier to do this if you hold your pencil very far back (near the end) as this makes it nearly impossible to press down too hard and it encourages you to make more confident sweeping lines.

• Begin by lightly laying in all the major edges of walls and floors etc.
• You can also add in any big pieces of furniture or objects at this stage (keep your shapes simple though – think rectangles and straight lines for now).
• Pay attention to perspective as well – you don’t need to be too precise but it will help if you’re aware of the effect of perspective on the scene.

• Once the major walls and objects are in place you can start to lightly place smaller objects (boxes, chairs, screens etc.)
• Keep to just simple lines though. We don’t want to get too detailed just yet.
• Once you reach this level of detail you can take a break. We will be adding tones next session before starting to refine smaller areas and add more detail in later sessions.

In this final lesson we will be adjusting edges to make the subject more prominent and refining the textures we added in the previous session.

• We will begin this final session by taking a look at any overlapping forms and adjusting the relative hardness of the edges.
• A straightforward example of this is the line in the background that runs behind the lemon – because the lemon is well forward of this line we can make the line behind softer so that the lemon feels sharper and closer to us (as it is in focus).
• I did this by mixing up matching dark and light greys that I laid over the background, then used a dry brush to blend these tones together – resulting in a blurry edge.
• I then repeated the same process for the little jutting ends of lemon that sit slightly behind the main body of the lemon.

• I also added another darker glaze over some parts of the lemon in shadow to make it roll a bit more softly into the dark shadow below.

• Finally, I added some bits of textured shadow up into the halftone texture above the shadow edge, and then blended this shadow colour with a general yellow halftone colour so that the texture feels a bit more soft and bumpy (rather than patchy).
• That’s it – the painting is finished, it just needs some time to dry and then it will be ready to frame!

Course Materials:

• Small Canvas (stretched or board)
• Easel
• Palette
• Palette Cups
• Oil Paints
  • Titanium White
  • Cadmium Yellow (or equivalent bright yellow)
  • Burnt Umber
  • Raw Umber
  • Prussian Blue
  • Ivory Black
• Various brushes (ideally a range of smaller and larger brushes, but whatever you have lying around will be fine)
• Odourless mineral spirits
• Linseed oil
• Tape
• Paper towel or rag for cleaning up

In this lesson we will be adding some nice texture to the lemon using smaller brushes.

1. Begin by applying small highlights in pure white using a small pointed brush.
2. This will give you a reference point for the lightest tones – making it easier to judge the values of the darker halftone textures.

1. Once you’ve added the white highlights, gradually mix darker yellows while applying a lot of small brush-strokes.
2. The textures should get gradually darker as they go towards the shadow edge (just like the last part).

1. Finally, add some lighter texture into the shadow and add some shadow tone into the dark halftones above the shadow edge.
2. This will make the shadow edge the most contrasty and textured part.
3. Leave to dry before we make a final pass over the piece to pull everything together.

Course Materials:

• Small Canvas (stretched or board)
• Easel
• Palette
• Palette Cups
• Oil Paints
  • Titanium White
  • Cadmium Yellow (or equivalent bright yellow)
  • Burnt Umber
  • Raw Umber
  • Prussian Blue
  • Ivory Black
• Various brushes (ideally a range of smaller and larger brushes, but whatever you have lying around will be fine)
• Odourless mineral spirits
• Linseed oil
• Tape
• Paper towel or rag for cleaning up

Making the Painting Pop Off the Canvas:

In this lesson we will be working over the basic lay-in that we established in the second part. Using the same colour mixtures we will start to make the painting more 3D.

• You will need to spread a very thin layer of your medium all over the painting to resaturate and darken all the colours (this is important whenever you start working on a dry oil painting).
• Then begin by working on the background around the fruit, making any adjustments to the value if necessary (I darkened mine) and make the contour around the fruit more detailed.

• Once you’ve finished the background, move onto the shadow of the fruit.
• You can use the same colour mixtures as the previous session so it should be easier to get the colours right.
• It is best to use a reasonable amount of medium in the darker tones so that they stay quite thin.
• As well as adding detail inside the shadow, you should also add detail to the edge of the shadow – which will begin to suggest the form and texture of the fruit in light.

• Finally make any necessary changes to the lighter parts of the fruit (you will probably need to paint some slightly brighter, more saturated colours than last week.
• Once the light tones are added, use mid tones to blend the shadows into the lights more softly.
• This final stage will make the painting pop off the canvas in a 3D way.

Course Materials:

• Small Canvas (stretched or board)
• Easel
• Palette
• Palette Cups
• Oil Paints
  • Titanium White
  • Cadmium Yellow (or equivalent bright yellow)
  • Burnt Umber
  • Raw Umber
  • Prussian Blue
  • Ivory Black
• Various brushes (ideally a range of smaller and larger brushes, but whatever you have lying around will be fine)
• Odourless mineral spirits
• Linseed oil
• Tape
• Paper towel or rag for cleaning up

Blocking in the Basic Colours:

• Once the wash drawing is dry, you can add all the basic colours and start to develop a sense of form.
• From this stage onwards you can use all the colours – try to pay attention to the particular mixtures you use as it will help in later stages if you can roughly remember what you used to mix up all the different colours.
• You will need to add a little oil to your mineral spirits this time (and in future sessions you will need to use more oil each time).

• Start with the background as this will likely be quite a flat and neutral colour.
• If the ground plane and background plane are different you will need to mix up two different colours.

• Look for a slight gradient in the ground plane (ideally lighter at the front and darker at the back). As this will start to impart a sense of depth.
• You can lighten the paint on the canvas by mixing up a lighter colour and blending it straight into the wet paint.
• Make the edge between the shadow on the ground and the general ground colour slightly soft (we don’t want any hard edges at this stage).

• Once the background is in – you mix up a colour for the fruit in shadow.
• This may take some trial and error as you want the shadow to be the same value (darkness) and colour as your subject. Experiment with different mixtures until the colour looks good. 
• You will have an opportunity to make adjustments with glazes later on so it doesn’t have to be perfect.

• Once the fruit in shadow is done, follow the same process for the fruit in light.

• Mix up some slightly darker tones to begin developing the halftones where the fruit colour turns from the shadow to the light. This will make the lemon appear more 3D.
• You can also use a blender brush (a clean brush) to soften all the edges of the lemon. This will help make the form of the lemon more round and it will also get rid of any hard edges that would show through the later layers that are thinner and more transparent.
• Once everything is roughly blocked in, you will need to leave the painting until it is touch dry before continuing onto the next stage.

Course Materials:

• Small Canvas (stretched or board)
• Easel
• Palette
• Palette Cups
• Oil Paints
  • Titanium White
  • Cadmium Yellow (or equivalent bright yellow)
  • Burnt Umber
  • Raw Umber
  • Prussian Blue
  • Ivory Black
• Various brushes (ideally a range of smaller and larger brushes, but whatever you have lying around will be fine)
• Odourless mineral spirits
• Linseed oil
• Tape
• Paper towel or rag for cleaning up

Adding the final details in the foreground using pencil:

• You can use the pencil in this stage in a very similar fashion to Part 6, starting with the shadows in the foreground elements and smoothing the tones out where necessary.
• Once the shadows are complete, use the pencil to work carefully over the painted white areas, adding tonal shifts from the shadows into the lights in order to develop a better sense of 3D forms in these sections

• You can also use the fine point of the pencil to add very fine details (such as the writing on the letter in this piece).
• Make sure that you don’t go too dark with these elements as the image will appear too graphic if you make everything equally contrasted.

• When adding details like text (such as the paper typeface and handwritten letter) try to capture the abstract feeling of those elements rather than studiously copying out the exact words.

• That’s it! This mixed media drawing is now finished, hopefully you found this series useful and you are able to apply the processes you learnt when you’re working on your next piece.

Course Materials:

• Paper
• Compressed charcoal
• Vine charcoal
• Charcoal powder
• Graphite pencils (from 2B – HB)
• White Gouache or Acrylic paint
• Various brushes (whatever you have lying around)
• Drawing Board
• Tape

Painting in the white tones using acrylic or gouache paint:

• For this stage you just need some white paint (either acrylic or gouache), a little water for diluting the paint and a couple of different size brushes (ideally one medium and one small).
• Start by identifying the very lightest tones in your image, in this case, it’s the paper, tablecloth, some parts of the plate and the highlights on the glass and silverwear.
• Paint in the lightest parts first using thick paint and the larger brush.

• You can add slightly darker tones by mixing in a bit of water with your paint to dilute it. This will allow you to do slightly transparent washes for the less bright tones.
• BUT be careful not to use too much water as this will buckle the paper.

• Once the larger areas of white paint have been blocked in, you can use the smaller brush to refine the edges of the light shapes (where necessary).

• And finally, you can use the small brush to add thick highlights to the glassware and silverware (making sure to keep the highlights as very small dots on the darker tones).
• Once you’ve finished, make sure to wash your brush in water so that it doesn’t dry out and harden.

Course Materials:

• Paper
• Compressed charcoal
• Vine charcoal
• Charcoal powder
• Graphite pencils (from 2B – HB)
• White Gouache or Acrylic paint
• Various brushes (whatever you have lying around)
• Drawing Board
• Tape

Enhancing and adding detail to the darkest tones:

• Start this stage by using some compressed charcoal to loosely add more tone to the darkest regions of the drawing (background etc.).
• It doesn’t matter too much how you apply the charcoal, hatching and scribbling is fine.

• Once you’ve roughly applied a reasonable amount of charcoal, start spreading and evening the tone using a large brush.
• It may end up slightly patchy but that’s fine as you will be working over it more – this brushed layer just makes a darker base tone to work over (vs the white of the paper).

• One the tone has been brushed, start going even darker with the compressed charcoal.
• Make your application more even and keep the hatching closer together this time (as we won’t be brushing it again.

• Once the background is sufficiently dark, you can start adding features that are in the darker areas (such as the sprig of leaves sticking out of the ham in my drawing).
• Make sure that these dark elements are unified with the surrounding darker tones. It can be tempting to make them lighter so that they stand out by that will disrupt the major tonal relationships in the whole composition.

• Finally, use your kneadable eraser rolled to a point to neaten up any areas of light tone that charcoal dust has been spread.
• You can also use the eraser to add more detail to the edges of the darker shapes.

Course Materials:

• Paper

• Compressed charcoal

• Vine charcoal

• Charcoal powder

• Graphite pencils (from 2B – HB)

• White Gouache or Acrylic paint

• Various brushes (whatever you have lying around)

• Drawing Board

• Tape

Developing the foreground elements:

• Use a mixture of sharpened charcoal pencil and will charcoal to start adding more detail to the foreground elements, paying close attention to the shapes of the shadows and darker tones in the objects.

• You can also use the kneadable eraser rounded to a point to remove tone from the drawing, in order to find lighter shapes (this was how I found the shapes of the light knife handle that sits in front of the darker background).
• The eraser is also useful for erasing highlights in the shinier objects (metal, glass etc.).

• Carry on adding detail to the lighter foreground elements with the willow charcoal.
• Try to keep the tones in the elements a bit lighter so that they unify more with the foreground general (thereby separating them from the darker background).

• Finally, you can use the eraser to neaten the edges of these shapes and keep the foreground nice and luminous moving forward.

Course Materials:

• Paper

• Compressed charcoal

• Vine charcoal

• Charcoal powder

• Graphite pencils (from 2B – HB)

• White Gouache or Acrylic paint

• Various brushes (whatever you have lying around)

• Drawing Board

• Tape

 

Smudging with a Brush and Deepening the Dark Tones:

• Begin by lying some extra tone over the darkest regions of the drawing – using compressed charcoal.
• Make sure that you add enough charcoal that there is some excess dust.

• Then you can use your largest brush to sweep back and forth and up and down all over the drawing. This will remove some detail but leave a nice smooth base layer for our subsequent detail. 
• Make sure that the dark tones are really pressed into the darkest region so that you get some nice rich shadows.

• Once everything has been smudged you can use the kneadable eraser rolled to a point to neaten up any areas that need to be lighter and sharper.
• You can also use some sharpened willow charcoal and to redefine any shapes that have been lost.

• Carry on in this fashion – using the willow and compressed charcoals (depending on the value of the tone) to develop the forms.

Course Materials:

• Paper
• Compressed charcoal
• Vine charcoal
• Charcoal powder
• Graphite pencils (from 2B – HB)
• White Gouache or Acrylic paint
• Various brushes (whatever you have lying around)
• Drawing Board
• Tape

Studying Planes in Rock Forms – Useful Drawing Tips:

This exercise will teach you some really useful tips for approaching your drawings and paintings. Being able to break objects down into simple shapes is a fundamental part of creating realistic drawings and sketching block rock forms is the perfect way to learn how planes work.

• You just need a picture of rocks, some paper, a pencil and an eraser for this exercise.
• I recommend trying the process out using a variety of different photos of rocks (or go sketching outdoors if you’re feeling adventurous).
• Start by lightly sketching the outside shapes of the rocks that you are drawing.
• Keep your lines straight and use as few as you possibly can to capture your subject.

• Divide the rock into side planes, top planes and bottom planes (flat surfaces of the rocks) using straight lines.
• Planes that face more away from the light will be dark and the ones that face more towards the light will be lightest.
• How dark or light the plane is will depend on how much it does or doesn’t face towards the light.
• Shade in each plane according to how dark or light it is.

• If you keep following this simple process, and gradually add all the planes, eventually your drawing will start to look 3D and resemble the subject.
• Once you’re done with one drawing – find a new reference to work from and start another. The more you practise the easier you will find it to use planes when drawing other subjects like portrait, figures and still lifes.

Materials:

• Paper (sheet or a sketchbook)
• Pencils
• Eraser

Blocking in Basic Head Shapes – Portrait Drawing Tips:

This short lesson will show you how to simplify seemingly complex portrait drawings into just three planes; light mid and dark. Making these copies of portrait paintings is a great way to understand how you can apply the principle of planes to your own portrait work and make more convincing artworks.

• Start with a really simple outline of the portrait using as few straight lines as possible (ideally just 4-6 in total).

• Figure out which direction the light is coming from (you can see that in my example the light is coming from the right-hand side).
• Using this info, add lines that divide the portrait into the three value planes; light, mid and dark.
• Start by shading in the darkest plane.

• Then shade in the mid plane (the value will be between the dark tone and the light tone of the paper).
• Once the planes are shaded in you can add some embellishments to the outside of the portrait. In my example I made his profile more detailed and added some of his body.

• Once you’ve got the hang of it you can keep making more simple studies from different paintings.
• Google Arts & Culture is a great place to find portrait paintings to work from. Click here to start browsing.

Materials:

• Paper (sheet or a sketchbook)
• Pencils
• Eraser

Drawing portraits in profile can often be tricky so his quick guide will show you some useful tips for improving your work!

1. Start by using very simple straight lines to determine the approximate proportions of the whole head – ignoring any details for the time being.
2. Pay close attention to the overall height of the head vs. the width in particular.

1. Once the general proportions are in place, you can start to use smaller lines to break the portrait down into smaller forms.
2. The nose is a good place to start as it divides the forehead from the mouth and jaw.
3. If you get the nose place correctly, it will be easier to fit in the eyes above and the mouth below.

1. Once all the major features are in place, you can start softening the straight lines into curves where necessary.
2. You can also start to place features within the face. Notice how deep the eye is set back in the head – make sure you don’t put the eye too close to the front of the face as this is a common mistake when drawing portraits in profile.

1. Finally, lightly shade in the shadows and add a few halftones to give a sense of form to the drawing.

Hopefully these tips are useful when you draw your next portrait in profile!

In this final session, we will be building on the larger tones that we added during the last part. We will be following a similar process but focus in on smaller forms and textures, so that the skull can look as detailed as possible.

• Start by putting some final touches on the background and cast shadow.
• Blend the penumbra of the cast shadow into the background so that it sits behind the skull (this helps pop the subject off the surface of the paper even more).

• Then look for the smaller forms within the larger forms that we added during the previous session.
• They will tend to be more prominent nearer the shadow edge (particular rougher textures).

• Work your way gradually across the whole drawing until you have added all the smaller forms.
• Once they are in you’re done! You may find that you need to use the eraser to clean up any smudges and to make sure that the highlight in the centre of the skull is as bright as possible.

The materials you will need for this course are:

• Paper
• Range of pencils (H, HB, B, 2B) – ideally a few mechanical pencils as well as regular ones.
• Kneadable eraser

You can download the source image for the series here:

http://drawandpaint4free.artcoursework.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_20200610_175508.jpg

In this session we will be making the skull more 3D by adding halftones. Halftones get gradually darker as they move towards the shadow edge, which makes it look like the form is turning away from the light source.

• Start with the biggest form, in this case it’s the large ‘egg’ shapes of the skull. The lightest part of the drawing is in the middle of the skull so any parts of the skull that move away from that point will get gradually darker.
• I suggest that you work with large general tones first before working on the smaller forms (we will save that for later sessions).

• You can use the kneadable eraser rounded to a point if you go too dark with any of your tones.
• It’s usually best to err on the side of being lighter than you think rather than darker as it’s always easier to add tone and trickier to remove it.

• Finally, once the large tones have been added you can start to soften some of the shadow edges into them (where necessary).

The materials you will need for this course are:

• Paper
• Range of pencils (H, HB, B, 2B) – ideally a few mechanical pencils as well as regular ones.
• Kneadable eraser

You can download the source image for the series here:

http://drawandpaint4free.artcoursework.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_20200610_175508.jpg

In this session we will be darkening and adding variations within the shadows of the skull.

• Its best to darken the tones with gradual lighter passes rather than going really dark straight away. This will help you to stay in control of the tones and remove the need to erase too much (which can make it trickier to get an even tone).
• As a right-hander I like to work left to right so that I don’t smudge as much (if you’re left-handed, you can work from right to left).

• Look for where the shadows are darker and where they are lighter.
• As a general rule – the shadows will be darker nearer the shadow edge (where it meets the light) and any deep creases where light can’t bounce around.
• The lighter parts of the shadows are usually filled by light that is reflected into them (reflected lights).

• Once the general tones are added, you can smooth them out using a fine mechanical pencil or sharpened wooden pencil.
• Finish by reinforcing the darkest accents within the shadows.

The materials you will need for this course are:

• Paper
• Range of pencils (H, HB, B, 2B) – ideally a few mechanical pencils as well as regular ones.
• Kneadable eraser

You can download the source image for the series here:

http://drawandpaint4free.artcoursework.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_20200610_175508.jpg