Another busy week of art

My classes at Atelier Artista run everyday Monday - Friday. 

Drawing begins at 9am - 12:30 and Painting classes begin at 12:30. 

I also teach at other times throughout the week and on week-ends.

 On Wednesday Evenings, I regularly host figure drawing, find out more here: https://www.atelierartista.com/figure-drawing
Above is my drawing from last weeks Wednesday evening session.

 I was asked to hang some work at Holy Grill across fro MEC, They sent me the picture above.

 I got on the front cover of MRU's "reflector" newspaper for a course I've been building in creating Graphic Novels and comics. Read the article here:

http://www.thereflector.ca/2017/10/07/calgary-artist-brings-graphic-novels-alive-at-mru/

 On Friday's, after my "Full Figure" drawing human anatomy course I teach an afternoon elective at Waldorf School. Above is the project the kids accomplished this week.

 The "Keys to recovery" exhibition was a huge success.  3 of my students sold their work at Auction!!! Above is the curator with a piece by Aaron Sidorenko.  http://aaronsidorenko.ca/

 I got to pick op 4 works made by friends and hang them in my studio for the time being.

 I teach at ACAD in during the week in the evenings and two classes at ACAD on the week-end.

 In Drawing 1 we are working on creating the illusion of depth and form on a two dimensional surface. I cover concepts including orthographic and isometric projection.

 As we work towards graphical and linear perspective, 1 point and beyond.

In my Arts Academy we finish the last day of our drawing portion with a self portrait and measure of the face, before we move into paint.

It may seem like a lot, but variety is the spice of life.

There are so many interesting and creative things going on everyday in my life and at Atelier Artista. If you want to find out more, take a class, come draw figure on Wednesday nights or anything like that check out AteleirArtista.com and sign up for the newsletter for more updates!

Erase me. White board notes from my Teen cartooning class.

I may hate drawing with white board/ dry erase markers but I sure do love teaching, so if thats what it takes then I'll battle the materials.  Here are some of this weeks white board notes from my Teen cartooning Camp at the Alberta College of Art and Design. In the past few days we have covered a lot. Tomorrow they will be finishing and presenting their final pieces for critique and I can't wait to see what the final products look like.

Here is a simple revolver in 1 point perspective and below showing how to construct a car using boxes in perspective. The board gets so dirty that the markers erase the layers as they write, time for a good wipe down.

We did a whole day where our goal is to describe form that appears 3D but is drawn on a two dimensional surface, our sketchbook paper.  Drawing creates an illusion after all.

We covered all the types and methods for drawing forms in space, including isometric projection and perspective drawing. Above is my kitchen interior in one point perspective.

We did some 3-point perspective afterward (worms eye and birds eye view) It is a little bit more difficult but it is incredibly useful for cartoon and comic artists. We also went over foreshortening and  how to draw ellipses,  and circles in perspective using only straight edges.

We also focused on the figure and superhero poses using a 5 step development process. The notes didn't get complete as I was going around and working at each and every students station based on their individual needs and then the day just seemed to evaporate in to the class ending.

1. Sketch a skeleton in the position you want with the desired proportions
2. Flush out the forms using simple shapes like cylinders
3. Refine the details, clothing etc.
4. Ink and erase the pencil lines
5. Shade and create form on the figure

We also drew a variety of hands using a few methods, including the Preston Blair method of simple circles which is really quick and effective to learn. I've drawn tens of thousands of hands this way. We then went into the anatomy of the skull and how to draw and create faces.

We spent a the better part of class figuring out layout and panel designs. This was by far my most fun set of teaching notes of the week. Not only that it is packed with useful information!

 This is a sketch one of the students did that was just so simple, elegant and beautiful I asked permission to take a picture to share with you here. Isn't it awesome?! I love it, it communicates everything it needs to with so few lines.

Drawing 1 class - still life - perspective

We continue to have an awesome Drawing 1 class. Previously we were working with proportions and using our drawing tools to describe textures and shading on still life objects brought in and arranged by the students.

Each student drew a minimum of 3 items arranged into a pleasant composition. Who know a shoe could be so beautiful :D

If you get the drawing done right, with proper proportions, adding shading and texture, and in future painting, should fall right into place. If not, even globs of paint won't help you repair it.

This past week, we began our technical exploration of all things dimensional. We start with basic shapes, square, circle triangle and learn how the use of line and shading can transform them into dimensional objects like a cube, pyramid, cone and cylinder. We expand to the 5 platonic solids, which are all congruent, regular polygons, I add the 4th dimensional Tesseract and try to draw it graphically, for fun.

I demonstrate how orthographic drawings are used by engineers etc. to turn information into isometric projections. We see isometric images everyday from ikea instructions, to video games and lego instructions.  Even though this type of drawing is not entirely realistic it begins us on the pursuit of drawing 3 dimensional looking forms on a 2 dimensional surface. Next we move into perspective.

I get the students to draw a landscape and an interior using one point perspective.  A great use of one point perspective in film is Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. Example below.

Sniffing markers is part of the job!

I've been teaching my Cartooning class to teens all this week at ACAD. They are a good little group quietly drawing their assignments as I write this post. I have also been teaching evening classes which has me swamped, but its the good kind,  art day and night.

Here are some examples of the notes I write up on ye ol' whiteboard. I do hate using these pens. But it helps to accompany my hand outs. All in a days work!

 Here are some character design and how to flesh out the character from the skeleton. Also some angry birds just for fun.
 
We start every class with some drawing exercises I listed off some objects from them to draw from their imaginations we also do a little blind contour.

 From the perspective drawing classes. Above is one point perspective examples, landscape and a room interrior.

 I drew graphical boxes from a single vanishing point and a gun in 1 point perspective.

 We moved into two point perspective practice. Here are 9 cubes floating in 2 point perspective space, above and below the horizon.

 My white board is really starting to get mucky. We drew a bunch of bird houses in 2 point perspective as well, seen here in blue dry erase marker.

 We also did a room interior applying the rules of 2 point perspective.

 We moved onto 3 point perspective and did many examples of worms eye view and birds eye view, then tried the bird house again. I did an example using a basic stair case sketch covering all the methods we covered: isometric drawing, i point, 2 point and three point perspective.

 I explained foreshortening and ellipses and how to draw ellipses properly using a nifty geometry trick. We turned our elliptical shapes into useful drawings and drew soda bottles with liquid in them at varying angles.

I covered layout design, word bubbles, onomatopoeia, timing and text on this white board panel. Then the students got to work on their assignments, leaving me with an opportunity to update this blog.

I hope you enjoy. Don't forget to check out the Vanageddon show this Friday and Saturday only!!

FB info and event page is here.