DS110 Foundations of Drawing for the Beginner

With Diane Cardaci

8 weeks   No credits

The basics of drawing for those with no experience

Students will be encouraged to keep a sketchbook as well as doing drawing exercises.

Photos will be provided for the exercises, but students will also be asked to find similar objects in their own home environment.

Lesson 1

• Use of tools: pencils, erasers, paper, etc.
• How to hold the pencil
• Practice drawing lines
• Drawing exercise #1: Working with lines, angles and proportion (drawing lines in a box)
• Drawing exercise #2: Creating a simple line drawing using a grid

Lesson 2

• How to measure using your pencil
• How to see angles with your pencil
• How to make and use a plumb line
• Drawing exercise #1: Draw an outline of a pear
• Drawing exercise #2: Draw an outline of one small and one large fruit

Lesson 3

• Basic shapes-simplifying an object into a few basic shapes (ex. tree, flower, bunch of grapes
• Drawing exercise #1: Basic shapes of a still life
• Drawing exercise #2: Basic shapes of still life (drawing 1) with additional detail shapes

Lesson 4

• "Enveloping" - using angular lines to block in a form
• Drawing exercise #1: Blocking in practice of single objects
• Drawing exercise #2: Blocking in a still life

Lesson 5

• Negative and Positive shapes
• Drawing exercise #1: Finding negative shapes in simple objects (ex. cup handle)
• Drawing exercise #2: Finding negative shapes in between objects Page 2

Lesson 6

• Drawing circles in perspective
• Drawing exercise #1: Draw cup from 3 different perspectives
• Drawing exercise #2: Draw a vase with 2 flowers

Lesson 7

• Pulling it all together, using skills developed in previous lessons
• Drawing exercise: Complex still life, from blocking in to creating a refined line drawing

Lesson 8: Looking Forward

• Learning to vary the line weight
• Introduction to simple shadow patterns
• Drawing exercise: Transfer the drawing done in Lesson 7 to a new piece of paper, using varied line weight, and simple shadow patterns