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Regular shading, stippling, cross-hatching, lines, pencil grip and position
6 January 2025
Whoa! Did I just travel through time? Or did I forget something? Ah right! I completely forgot I was writing an art blog! 😂 No matter, I’ll make sure pick off where I left off from last time. What was it again? Ah, shading and lighting. Well, perhaps the quickest way to introduce it will be through a video.
Shading and Lighting pt.2
17 Sep 2024
So in this video, I have gone over some of the shading techniques that you can look at using in your art. There are different ways of holding a pencil, and depending on how you hold it, it will affect your grip, control, and the precision of your writing or drawing.
Shading and Lighting pt.1
15 Sep 2024
Now before I go into colour theory and stuff, let’s start with shading. It’s important in art to do shading, even if it’s only a small amount. Say if you were doing flower petals, you shade underneath the top petal to show where the bottom one is. With other three-dimensional shapes and objects such as spheres, cubes and mannequins, you look at where the light source is coming from and take note of where the shadows are. This is where it can get confusing, especially when you’re drawing an intricate shape such as a mannequin, plants or even a bouquet of flowers. There will be a lot of shadows. That just means you start off small.
The best way to start shading is just do shapes and make them appear three-dimensional. Do spheres, cubes, rectangles, pyramids, and even make up your own shapes. Add shading along one side and a tiny bit at the bottom and/or top corners. Start with the darker shadows here and gradually lighten it as you get to the other side of the shape. If you find you’re struggling with the pressure of the pencil, just have a play with it off to the side and look at different ways of holding a pencil.
What can I start drawing?
14 Sep 2024
So when I was in TAFE, we started off with the art theory and jumped into doing still life drawings. I know it sounds boring but it won't apply to everyone. If you're an absolute beginner and have no idea how to draw, start with still life drawings. Now I do highly recommend using paper and pencils for this because you have more control with the pencil, and you can sketch to your heart's content. Digital art is more for refining, perfecting and rendering drawings which is not what we're doing here.
It can be anything, a mug, glass, bowl, plate and even combining a few of them together. Start off with sketches, which means it doesn't need to be perfect, and if it looks wonky, that's okay. It's a learning curve, especially if you've never drawn before. Keep practicing until you feel more comfortable. Every artist started somewhere, and it's in those simple art exercises that helped them get there.
Now for those who have done some drawing, we'll have to think of some other things for you to draw. If you do draw but haven't done much in still life, do some anyway but challenge yourself. Do a bowl of fruit, find more intricate shapes that aren't bowls or cups e.g. furniture, curvy-shaped vases, mannequins. Set yourself challenges to draw things that you don’t normally draw.
From here, you can start looking at perspective, and your best friend for this are references. They will help you so much. If there's nothing interesting inside or outside your home, look online! Start off easy and work your way up to more detailed images. Below are some ideas to get an idea:
Phew! So, what’s next?
6 Sep 2024
Alright, art movements done! I would've learnt all this and more over maybe 6 art lessons at TAFE and they went for about an hour, and even though I enjoyed it, there was a bit of boredom thrown in there. Now, where to go from here? At TAFE, they slowly got us doing our assessments which involved using the different art mediums. But this isn't TAFE, this is a learning blog. BIG difference. So if anyone wants to delve into art history, go ahead and look up some of the artist's I went through. Look at other ones, find what's appealing to you. Then maybe after that, come back and we can look at some art "activities".
Contemporary
6 Sep 2024
Yayoi Kusama (Japanese Contemporary Painter) - Dots Obsession (2003), Mushrooms (1995), Repetitive Vision (1998)
Andy Warhol (American Visual Artist, Film Director and Producer) - Big Campbell's Soup Can (1962), Shot Marilyns (1964), Orange Prince (1984)
Banksy (English Street Artist) - Girl with Balloon (2002), Pulp Fiction (2002), Gorilla in a Pink Mask (2011)
Abstract
6 Sep 2024
Jackson Pollock (American Painter) - Blue Poles (1952), Mural (1943), Full Fathom Five (1947)
Mark Rothko (American Painter) - Entrance to Subway (1938), Rothko Chapel (1967), Black on Dark Sienna on Purple (1960)
Joan Miro (Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramist) - Blue II (1961), Constellations (1941), Head of a Woman (1938)
Surrealism
5 Sep 2024
Salvador Dali (Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Filmmaker, Printmaker, and Performance Artist) - The Persistence of Memory (1931), Lobster Telephone (1936), Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954)
Max Ernst - Celebes (1921), Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale (1924), The Fireside Angel (1937)
Rene Magritte (Belgium Painter) - The Treachery of Images (1929), The Lovers (1928), The Son of Man (1964)
Notable Mention: Frida Kahlo (Mexican portrait Painter) - Frieda and Diego Rivera (1931), Henry Ford Hospital (1932), My Birth (1932)
Cubism
5 Sep 2024
Pablo Picasso (Spanish Draftsman, Painter, Printmaker, and Sculptor) - The Soup (1903), Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle (1914), Guernica (1937)
Georges Braque (French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor) - Houses of l'Estaque (1908), Violin and Pipe (1913), Balustre et Crane (1938)
Fernand Léger (French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker) - Contrast of Forms (1913), The City (1919), Nudes in the Forest (1910)
Expressionism
4 Sep 2024
Expressionism is by far my favourite art movement. I love the brush strokes and the use of colour, and there's a ton of artists to look at.
Edvard Munch (Norwegian painter) - The Scream (1893), Anxiety (1894), Love and Pain (1895)
Wassily Kandinsky (Russian Expressionist and Abstract painter) - The Blue Rider (1903), Composition VIII (1923), Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles (1913)
Franz Marc (German painter and printmaker) - Blue Horses (1911), The Yellow Cow (1911), The Foxes (1913)
Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism
3 Sep 2024
Yeah so there's this section and then five more to go. Don't worry, I wasn't going to include every single art movement that's known to man. These are just some of the main ones. There are a lot more areas the closer you get to the 21st century.
Claude Monet (French Impressionist) - Water Lilies (1906 and 1919), Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond (1920), Impression, Sunrise (1872)
Paul Cezanne (French Post-Impressionist) - The Basket of Apples (1895), Château Noir (1903), Mont Sainte-Victoire (1904-1906)
Georges Seurat (French Neo-Impressionist) A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884), Bathers at Asnières (1884) Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy (1888)
Notable Mention: Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch Post-Impressionist painter) - The Starry Night (1889), Sunflowers (1888), A Wheatfield (1889)
Now to simplify
3 Sep 2024
Okay, I know that not everyone will want to read 4 - 6 sentences about one artist and three of their artworks. So now to simplify, I'll say the name of the artist and just provide the names of their artworks. If you would like to learn more about these artists, again, Britannica is one of the best sites to look at. Now, the next art movement is Romanticism, which originated in the late 17th century in Europe.
John Constable (English landscape painter) - The Hay Wain (1821), Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831), The White Horse (1819)
Caspar David Friedrich (German landscape painter) - The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818), The Cross in the Mountains (1807), Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon (1824)
Thomas Cole (American landscape painter) - The Architect's Dream (1840), Shroon Mountain, Adirondacks (1838), The Pic-Nic (1846)
A couple more details
3 Sep 2024
Moving up here to continue, let's look at artists from the Baroque period. Now fortunately I know a few names, so I was able to recognise some of their artworks.
First, we have Caravaggio, and again is an Italian painter. His first masterpiece was called The Seven Acts of Mercy (1607). I instantly recognised two other paintings, so I had to add them in here. There's also his Narcissus painting (1599) and the famous Medusa (1598).
Artemisia Gentileschi, another Italian painter, was the first female painter of this time period to join Florence's Academy of Design. The first female. That to me is astounding, though at that time in history, art was mainly male dominated. Some of her famous paintings include, Susanna and the Elders (1610), which was painted when she was 17, Danae (1612) and Judith Slaying Holofernes (1620).
And then there's Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch painter who specialised in depicting domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He has a very famous piece called The Girl with the Pearl Earring (1665), along with The Milkmaid (1660), and View of Houses in Delft (1658).Â
Let's start off small
2 Sep 2024
Gosh, where do I even begin with artists? There's so many of them to choose from. We'll start off small and find at least 3 from different art movements. From the Renaissance period, we have Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Titian. The first two are known worldwide, and of course are the namesakes of two of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Titian was also an important figure during this period. Now if you want to learn more about these artists, look them up on Brittanica. It's way more reliable than Wikipedia, though really, I believe anything is better than Wikipedia.Â
So with Leonardo, he was an Italian polymath and he has a worldwide famous painting that everyone knows; Mona Lisa. Made in 1503, it's an absolutely beautiful oil painting that was done on poplar wood. Two other notable works are The Last Supper (1495-1498) and The Vitruvian Man (1490).
Michelangelo was also Italian and he was a sculpture, painter, architect and poet. He was the one who painted the Sistine Chapel Ceiling from 1508 to 1512. I would love to see it one day, it would be amazing to see it in person. He's also the one who painted the Creation of Adam painting in 1512. His most notable work of sculpture is David (1501), which apparently took about three years to make.
And then we have Titian, an Italian painter who was one of the most versatile painters. He could do portraits, landscapes, mythological and religious subjects. His masterpiece is Assumption of the Virgin (1516), along with Bacchus and Ariadne (1523) and one of his others one being Venus with a Mirror (1555).
Art Forms & Movements
2 Sep 2024
Where do you think art originated from? The first drawings were originally from millions of years ago during the Paleolithic period when cavemen were around. They did the first drawings on the walls of caves, depicting little stories of what they did, or random little scribbles. Nonetheless, art has been around for a very long time and there has so many interpretations of it. Art has been used in ancient civilisations such as Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India, Mesopotamia and many more. They made sculptures, did weaving, rock carvings, calligraphy, music and so many more. These were just some of the art movements.
More of them started to roll in during the Medieval period which spans over 1000 years from about 200AD to roughly 1400AD. It started off with Early Christian art, and from it moved other art movements such as Migration Period art, Byzantine art, Insular art, Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque art, and Gothic art. The Renaissance period came afterwards and that's you'll hear some of the big names. Then there's Baroque art, Rococo, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Surrealism, Modern Art, and of course Contemporary Art. There's also different art forms within Modern Art, which a personal favourite of mine is Expressionism.
Now if you're wondering, "which art form/movement should I look at, which one should I start with?" To be honest, look at what interests you. With me, I've always loved looking at some of the early to mid Modernism movements and even ones reaching back to the Medieval period. Other people prefer Cubism, Surrealism, Pop Art or Contemporary Art. You learn about what you want to learn, and from there, you can study about the artists and their paintings.
Where to start with visual arts?
1 Sep 2024
If you've never done any art before, you'll be an absolute beginner. But that's okay because everyone starts somewhere. I first started with cringe-worthy drawings but now they look so much better. And If there's one thing I'll say to everyone who's a beginner at drawing, its "practice makes perfect." There isn't a shortcut to improving your art overnight. Sometimes a bit of studying different art forms will benefit you. I'm not talking a week or a months worth of study, just a few small sections to have a look at. Art has been a huge influence throughout history, and as someone who never used to like art theory, TAFE made it fun to learn about the history of art. So lets start there; art forms and movements.