Using Value as an element in improving your art This lesson is about one of the 7 elements of art: value. Value is simply the light and the dark of a picture. Values can be better understood when they are visualized as a scale. I like working with a value scale from one to ten […]
Using Line effectively as an Element in your Art Today’s lesson is about one of the seven elements of art – Line. A line is simply a mark that is longer than what it is wide, so it’s simple right, every line is just a point A to B, or is it? Paul Klee said […]
The Trump Card Today I’m going to share my trump card with you, the ace up my sleeve. How do you make your art stand out? How do you always know what’s wrong with this particular picture? When does it sometimes just look boring and something’s not working? How do you win an art competition? […]
The Fantastic South African Artist Mary Sibande Let’s start by first looking at one of Mary Sibande’s artworks. What do you see?What work does this woman do? Is her dress African? What is her ethnicity? What colour is the dress? Why is she knitting a Superman outfit? Is it for her or for someone else? […]
Easy Steps to Follow for Figure Drawing In this lesson, this third part of this figure drawing course, I’m going to be breaking figure drawing down into easy-to-understand steps and I’m going to show you how to start and slowly construct the human body. These are the basic steps for starting to draw a figure. […]
Using the Various Canons of Human Proportion in Figure Drawing This figure drawing lesson is all about measuring the human body: how do we decide what is the correct proportions. A lot of people argue about this, some say 6 and 3/4 of a head is the length of a human body, others say it’s […]
Goal Setting and Reasons to Study Anatomy This first lesson in the figure drawing course is all about setting your goals with drawing figures: knowing exactly where you’re going and why, and also understanding why we as artists need to understand bone structure and muscles to be able to draw the human figure. Be […]
South African Art History Hi, I am artist Lillian Gray, and I have someone you need to meet. South African artist Esther Mahlangu. Esther Mahlangu is one of South Africa’s most globally acclaimed visual artists. Esther became the first artist to transfer the traditional Ndebele designs, that would typically decorate walls, to canvases. This allowed […]
South African Art History: Cecil Skotnes Hi, I am artist Lillian Gray, and I have someone you need to meet. South African artist Cecil Skotnes. Watch this Art History Story on our YouTube channel. Cecil Skotnes – 1926 – 2009 When I think of Cecil Skotnes work, I think, high contrast, bold lines combined […]
South African Art History: Irma Stern Hi, I am artist Lillian Gray, and I need to ask you something, have you heard of South African artist Irma Stern? Key things to notice about Irma’s Life Irma Stern is still considered to be South Africa’s foremost artist in terms of public recognition and the record prices […]