Drawing Basics by David Jamieson

This course introduces the fundamental concepts of representational drawing that any artist must master to capture what he or she sees with fidelity. It’s what we refer to as a “skills course” because it focuses specifically on the abilities and concepts of drawing in a series of exercises – the emphasis is not on producing a finished “work of art” but rather on practice and development of a fundamental skill set.

A Drawing Course that Starts at the Very Beginning.
The ability to make beautiful drawings is the product of a well-developed skill set – a family of related abilities of the hand, the eye, and the mind, that together give an artist the tools required to draw anything. But these fundamental skills are often overlooked in introductory drawing courses and instructional DVDs, and even in art colleges, where the true “basics” are ignored – bypassed in favor of more advanced material.

But this isn’t in the best interest of students – particularly beginners. Asking someone to draw a portrait, or a figure, or a complex still life before they’ve learned to hold a pencil, draw a line, build a simple shape, or create a careful progression of values is bound to cause frustration for everyone. Too frequently, beginning students encounter the difficulty of learning to draw while attempting something inappropriately advanced and give up, deciding – prematurely – that they simply “can’t draw”, when in fact they just haven’t been shown how to develop their skills from the ground up.

Drawing Basics is our attempt to address this problem. It’s what we call a “skills course” because it focuses on fostering drawing ability through a series of exercises. The emphasis is not on producing a finished “work of art” by the end of the course, but rather on practice and repetition to develop a fundamental skill set. We assume no prior knowledge or experience in drawing, and the course proceeds sequentially, each lesson building upon what was presented previously.