I love how we get such a variety of styles when teaching drawing using right brain techniques. I teach our artists how to see..... how to see texture, lines, and shading, etc. Above you can see how this artist figured out how to make the ridges on his fancy shoes look three-dimensional by, for one thing, making the shadow underneath go round the extended ridges.

As you can see below, this artist has a totally different style, but she has completely understood light and shade and she sees the reflections clearly in order to draw them well. That Gray Scale & Value Finder is an excellent tool if you have a difficult time seeing how dark or light to shade things.

Another style below. I absolutely LOVE how this artist figured out the texture in his shoes. They have character. He elevated them on an eraser and is just beginning to figure out the shadows under the shoe. When he puts the shadows in, the shoe will look even more three-dimensional.

This artist below struggled at first, but when he figured out the outline, he took to the shading like a duck to water. Look at the texture in the inside of the shoe. Very well done.

In our drawing workshops, I bring along a whack of quality reference photos. I was so happy to see someone finally choose this zebra and so sad that I didn't take a later picture. It was really turning out well.

One thing that the artist below learned is that if you run into problems drawing, turning both the reference photo and your work upside down will free your brain to see differences. He had a few areas that were giving him troubles and immediately saw what needed to be done and fixed them. Again, another drawing style, very delicate and beautiful. Well done.

I am sad I didn't get a more advanced image of the shoe below. Sometimes complicated images are easier to draw than simple ones. In this case, you have a lot of repetition of shapes that are easier to draw than random ones. What I really love about this sketch is that the artist figured out how to shade the strips between the lace holes to make them look rounded. Just a little shading on the right side of each one does the trick. Still, overall a very time-consuming project that turned out great!

If you look at the window on the top of the image below, you will get an idea of what the entire picture will look like when finished. Well done! You can see that this artist is using a woodless pencil. If you've never used one, try it! It draws like butter!!! So smooth and covers very well.

Sadly, I didn't get clear pictures of the rest of our workshop artists' work.

Interesting how learning to see better changes your world. One artist drove home to let her dogs out for lunch. When she returned to the class, she commented that everything looks different. She sees things she never saw before.

Yay! It worked. Again.

Next drawing workshop will be January 18 at The Painted Tree art store in Cobourg. These workshops usually fill up, so put your deposit down early!!