Drawing Courses

The Drawing course offered at the workshop are dedicated to children from 5 years old, teenagers, students, adults, beginners or belonging to an intermediate or expert level.

Our training program is tailored to your level.

We teach the basic methods and techniques as well as more advanced techniques to learn to draw easily and progress quickly.

You’ll learn to draw characters, portraits, still life images, landscapes, animals according to the wishes expressed by each student.

Every week, drawing course workshops are offered in groups of 2 to 5 people to ensure a customized support to each participant.

During the school holidays, we offer drawing course lessons on themes aimed at developing your knowledge in a given field.

Learn to draw

Holding pencils properly

Holding the pencil properly is essential in order to have the right amplitude in the gesture depending on the expected result.

The normal writing position (at about 1 cm from the end of the lead) is comfortable for drawing patterns, details and textures with a low amplitude in the gesture.

The pencil can be held mid-length to draw features by means of wrist, elbow or even shoulder movements for more straight movements. This position gives the possibility of having a slight support on the sheet, besides allowing the creation of sketches and shapes. The closer the pencil is held to the normal writing position, the wider amplitude is reached and more precise the pencil is, the more strength there is in the line.

In the case of a graphic stick or a graphite lead, the pencil may also be held with the index finger on the lead to add relief to the drawings with the edge of the lead.

Learning to draw is learning to see

To learn how to draw easily and quickly, it is important to follow 3 steps: the visualization, analysis and drawing of your subject. More importantly still: you must realize that it is the eye that draws and not your hand. The hand is an extension of your eyes.

First of all, it is necessary to visualize the subject. This observation exercise is essential to memorize the shapes, the shadows, the movements that you will reproduce with your own perception and artistic expression.

The analysis allows determining and decomposing the subject into simple geometric shapes (semicircle, circle, triangle, rectangle, cone, cylinder…)

Perception

Perception is an essential component to the mastery of drawing. As Betty Edwards wrote in “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” perception is part of the 5 basic techniques for learning to draw. According to Betty Edwards, it’s essential to take a fresh look at things and forget everything you’ve learned.

To learn to draw it is not enough to see but to look and learn to appreciate the contours of a living form, a landscape or of a still life image. It’s about understanding, decrypting and assimilating the perception of contours.

It is also about appreciating the perception of spaces to better understand the shape of the object you want to represent, to appreciate the spaces and to capture the light to better melt the colors.

La perception of the relationship also plays a vital role – studying the shape, size, proportion, distances and interweaving that objects may have to one another.

It is also necessary to determine the scales and values of light in order to distinguish and reproduce the perception of shadows and lights.

Finally, the perception of the overall picture is essential to the extent that every detail is integrated into a whole.

A good perception evaluation makes it possible to draw without looking at the sheet, to draw upside down and to reproduce empty shapes more easily.

Shadow and light

Shadow and light allow conveying depth and realism to the drawing.

A subject that is touched by light has a light side and a light opposite side.

The play of light on the subject produces different effects to be reproduced on the drawing: the brilliance of light, the clean shadow, the drop shadow and the reflected light.

Between the burst of light and pure shadow, the part of the subject that is not affected by the light directly, the drawing shows a net or diffused amplified darkening.

The reflected light illuminates from under the subject and creates a slightly clearer area on the drawing in the actual shadow area.

Finally, the drop shadow is the area that is not affected by direct light and reflected light. This is a shadow area to be defined on the drawing depending on the shape or the part of the subject. The length of the drop shadow depends on the location of the source of the light and must also be determined considering the perspective that one wishes to convey to the drawing of the subject.

Several shading techniques can be used to convey relief or depth to the drawing: hatching, cross hatching, zigzag hatching, circular technique, chaotic lines, stumps… The hatching technique should allow controlling the shades that create more or less marked grays; moreover, the gradient from darker to lighter will convey a relief effect to the reproduction of the shape.

Proportions and angles

Reproducing an object accurately, a landscape or a portrait with realism, requires mastering the skill of reproducing angles and proportions.

The proportions and angles of the different elements of a subject, an object or a landscape must be respected when they are reproduced on a flat surface.

The pencil is usually used as a measuring tool.
Position yourself facing the subject, hold your pencil at the end of your extended arm with one eye closed. Measure the observed elements thanks to the length of your pencil and reproduce this length by adapting the basic measurement to the size of your sheet or canvas.

Using the same technique, your pencil will also allow you to better appreciate and measure the angles before transferring them to your drawing.

This technique can also be applied using a simple graduated rule.

Perspective

Perspective is always present in our daily life, we live in a 3D world. Succeeding in representing our world on a flat surface requires understanding space and mastering a number of concepts, techniques (horizon line, vanishing lines and points, geometry…).

The construction in space requires observing volume and depth, separating empty spaces from solid ones, distancing and analyzing angles and curves.

It is a question of discovering, and learning to work with perspective and spaces, the frontal perspective with two or more vanishing points, the oblique perspective of the cubes, the perspective by model and shadow, perspective by size change…

These perspective techniques will allow you to draw a perspective on characters, a perspective on a still life or a perspective on a landscape or a city.

Composition

The rules of the composition must convey to your drawing a visual dynamic and a balance by optimizing in the drawing the positioning of the different elements of the scene that you are drawing.

The thirds rule conveys balance to your composition. The division into 9 frames by three horizontal and vertical lines of the drawing makes it possible to determine the presence or the absence within the framework of certain elements, as well as the place given to each element. The intersection of the three horizontal and vertical lines determines 4 points of strength that guide your eyes.

In a composition, the center of interest of the drawing does not have to be in the center. Likewise, the rule of the three successive planes places the subject on the second plane. Through the warm and cold colors, in the first and last plane, through the work of the sense of light, which in academic drawing comes into your composition from the top left corner, the drawing finds all its depth in the perspective given to it by this technique.

To convey importance to the subject, as a general rule, the more the subject fills the space, the more it will have a visual impact, but it can also be placed on one of the points of intersection of the vertical and horizontal lines with the horizon line positioned on one of the two horizontal lines.