Here is a wonderful series of drawing and watercolor lessons I discovered from a very talented artist by the name of Mara Mattia. I have provided links to these drawing and watercolor lessons below for your convenience. I found these lessons to be very helpful and I am sure you will enjoy them as well.
Lesson #4 Shading, Sun Dot & Grid Drawing
Lesson #5 Blending, Crosshatching & The Grid
Lesson #6 Draw a Face Using the Grid Method
Thank you for including me with your collection of fantastic artists and instructors. This is such a wonderful way for aspiring artists to learn without even leaving home! I’ll look forward to combing your site and learning about each artist you feature and how they work. And I’ll put your link on my blog so my visitors will have access to this amazing opportunity for more instruction!
Mara Mattia’s last blog post..Christmas Entryway in Watercolor
Hi Mara,
You are most welcome and thank you for allowing me to share your wonderful lessons with my visitors.
Thank you for your generous comments about my site and for posting a link to my site on your blog!
Enjoy and all the very best!
– Ralph
Hi Mara,
Thank you so much for sharing – I loved your work and your lessons. You must be such a happy person – it shines through in all your art and commentary.
I really value your idea that working form graphs helps you see – I feel that drawing is my weakest skill at the moment.I do not have a lot of confidence in the area and have resorted to graphing just so I could move forward with a painting idea. I will no longer feel so guilty and useless when doing this and just see it as a
learning technique to improve my seeing skills.
with much Gratitude
Jeni
Hi jeni, You are absolutely right to not feel guilty about using a grid. It is just one of the many tools to learn the skill of observing. Drawing what you are looking at is no more than a mental measuring exercise, height, space, depth, width, proportion, etc. With lots of practice you will soon be able to do it without the grid. And your brain learns that without you even knowing it! My daughter could never draw people for many years, but with practice she is now better than I was at her age because she learned how to observe (See some of her work at http://www.jannasart.blogspot.com). Just relax and practice and keep your drawings so you can look back in 6 months to see how much improvement you have made. :0)
Mara Mattia’s last blog post..Lesson #9 Watercolor Wheel Continued