Your distance from a subject dramatically changes the perception of depth. Get up close to expand space, or move back and zoom in to flatten it.

The first project of the Drawing Basics course is to challenge yourself to simplify the shapes, edges, and values of a pear or portrait from observation.

In this video, I’ll give you an in depth look at what you’ll learn in my Drawing Basics course.

Drawing is a visual language that can be learned just like any other language, and anyone can pick it up with the right guidance and practice.

Here’s a project to help you avoid chicken scratch. We’re going to simplify our drawings to C curves, S curves, and straight lines.

A beginner's guide to sketchbooks and paper! Learn about paper types, texture, weight, archivability, and common pitfalls.

Here is my step-by-step demo on how to properly execute the first assignment for level 1 students.

This warmup is a fun way to help you practice drawing ellipses.

There is an endless number of ways to use lines as an artist, so let's jump in and take a look at the basics.

Master the Tapered Stroke for confident line quality in your sketches! Learn how to construct complex shapes & add energy to your loose sketches.

All the ways I sharpen pencils. Wooded and woodless graphite pencils, 2.0 and 5.6mm mechanical pencils, charcoal pencils, and eraser pencils!

Before we start, let's go over tools. I've included an extensive materials shopping list of paper, pencils, markers, erasers, and sharpeners.

In this project, we'll start learning how to sketch using simple loose lines.

A beginner's guide to pencils and erasers! A breakdown of the many different pencil and eraser options out there.

Another demo inventing shadow mapping from a flat-lit photo. I'll imagine a light source, then map out the shadows to describe the underlying forms.

For this project, we're going to design our line quality to be more interesting by practicing organizing the line weight.

Master line quality with 6 key habits: avoid common mistakes, find a comfortable speed, follow-through, ghosting, rotate the paper, and use simple strokes.

In this lesson, we’ll learn about the importance of line weight when creating engaging and interesting art.

In our very first critique of the course, I take a look through your simplified pear submissions and give feedback on some of the most common mistakes.