Workshop Plus
WORKSHOPS 2015
UK, USA and Canadian Workshops and Online Course continuations
Mark (Drawing Dogs STUDIO workshop - August)

Thanks again for an excellent course at the weekend. I have been to a couple recently where there the teaching was poor and it is great to have faith restored with such thorough preparation. A tufty cockapoo which I have done this evening as a card for a friend.
I'm guessing this about 6 x 4 inches? You mention a card and I see light writing in the background (that I've removed), which tends to suggest that as the correct size.
That being the case - and that you completed it in an evening :o) - it's a very sound drawing. And because of the speed that it was drawn I'm being kind and not looking too deeply. There are a lot of blunt ends in the top-knot but in this case they lend it an air of untidiness, which suits it very well.

One area I really like is the nose and end of the muzzle. The nose has an excellent three-dimensional sense of solidity - and really dark nostrils. Those are the values I was expecting to see in the pupil - both are essentially deep and dark holes. And I love the way the hairs go in all directions as they rest on the ground - some curling beneath the lip, other pushed forwards.

The curly top-knot is so full of chaotic life! It lacks some three-dimensional definition, but not where it matters. The foreground is instantly understandable. You could have softened the edges and muted the darker values as you proceeded to the rear, which would have exaggerated the recession and presented more depth. But it works well as it is.
Overall, I think it's a delightful drawing and full of character. Thanks for letting me see it.

Maurizio (Drawspace online - Beginners)
Mike I finished finally Kitty and the Yorkshire. It was not easy to find the same size and the parallelism for the lamp. Thanks again a lot. Maurizio

Placing the lamp can be a real problem, although it's actual placement is less important than having Kitty looking directly at it. That's not easy because the lamp is further away from the back of the dresser than Kitty is. I think you have that connection perfectly produced.
There is a lot of good work in this and it was worth waiting for. Overall it works well, although it could be improved. If I had to state one overriding purpose of a drawing, I'd say that it's to relay your story to the viewer, and that clarity is essential. In this case I can easily understand the three-dimensional form of Kitty, her position in space compared to the lamp, and her texture. The lamp has a couple of faults but I can tell it's her focus of attention.
I'll work from the background forwards. I like the way the dresser top runs unnoticed into the background, and your treatment of the woodgrain. The top and bottom curves of the side are described very well too. And the rest of the dresser is nicely suggested without it dominating the scene - as though you've used a soft-focus camera trick. At this point I must mention that I've attempted to return your photo to what I believe your drawing looks like in reality - but I might be wrong!

Your soft cast shadow describes her position away from the wall but the lamp is missing its shadow. Including it would have tied both the lamp and Kitty to the dresser and both to each other. The lamp itself looks good and conveys a full reality, except for the glass that appears to be rather soft. One of the main visual clues to glass, or any hard shiny surface, is the hard-edged and often bright reflections. If you use soft-edged reflections you are describing a soft surface.
The rim around the base is not quite accurate at either side. Both should mirror each other but these don't. The ellipse of the base is wrong on the left-hand side - slightly flattened - and unfortunately a non-elliptical ellipse always looks wrong. The top brass collar has well-presented and subtle highlights that suggest its rounded nature, assisted by the recession of the punched holes. That you've converted the bottom collar to a plain and unpierced one is perfectly OK. This is your drawing and your world you are recreating so you should feel free to interpret it in any way that you want to.

The glass chimney is good and, I suspect, better than it looks in your photo, which was very light in that corner. Again it looks soft but it probably looks much sharper in your drawing. The only other thing that troubles me is that the lamp doesn't contain any values as dark as those used in Kitty, so it tends to look flatter and rather less dominant. Balancing Kitty's dark values with matching values in the lamp, in small and scattered areas, would have visually connected Kitty to the lamp more effectively.
This composition was, of course, designed to stretch you, although it contains nothing that we didn't cover during the course, but I'm delighted to see you attacking it and solving its problems along the way. And, in Kitty at least, it has remarkable clarity.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with you, Maurizio. Thank you for letting me see and comment on this.
Daria (Drawspace online - Beginners)

This is my belated assignment for Week 8. Thank you in advance for your critiques and suggestion Mike!
Well worth waiting for. There is a lot I admire in this, Daria - from the look on Kitty's face to the well-drawn lamp. The first thing I noticed about this drawing is the superb three-dimensional rendering - and the second was the distracting texture of your paper, but that's just a personal dislike of textures interfering with a drawing. Your drawing tells the simple story very well and Kitty is very clearly connected to the lamp - it's obviously her centre of attention. I'll work from the background forwards.
The dresser top, at the extreme left, separates cleanly from the background, and the background itself is nicely muted and devoid of interest, so it correctly appears to be behind the dresser. However, it doesn't quite work because the edges of the dresser's curves are very soft. Very sharp edges were needed there. Sharp edges separate different planes - it's the visual clue we expect to see. Soft or blurred edges suggest the two planes are merging - that they are in some way connected. You really needed a definite separation at the point to suggest recession.
The dresser's curving end is well constructed, which is something many artists on this course have problems with, and the dresser itself is described and drawn very nicely too.

I must mention your shadows. Kitty has a clear shadow that is a little lower than her in height, so we can assume the light is shining from slightly above her. The lamp also has a shadow that is considerably lower. I don't think it is correct but, as is often the case, it sends exactly the right message. It clearly tells us that the lamp is further forwards from the back of the dresser than Kitty is. And that's all it needs to do. You've also omitted the lamp's shadow that should travel across the wood between its base and the back of the dresser. In this case, I don't think that was a good decision. That shadow would help to firmly anchor the lamp but, without it, it is almost floating.

Glass is highly reflective, so we expect to see brilliant highlights with hard and sharp edges. I think you might have formed your highlights by stopping at their edges, but the point where you stopped varies a little with each line, and that's resulted in edges that are not as sharp as they could have been. You should interpret a highlight as being sharp edged even if that is not evident in a reference, because that edge is one of the visual clues we subconsciously use to recognise glass or any very shiny surface.
Finally, there's one small problem area - the very top of the chimney is confusing. Your shading suggests that either the lower or upper curve could be the foreground one. In this case, the top curve is the one in front because it's an ellipse and we are looking up at it. I suggest you lighten the lower curve so its weaker appearance will correctly suggest it is behind the glass.
Don't be dismayed by any of this. The exercise was designed to stretch you - to move you right out of your comfort zone. Your work on Kitty is superb - especially your modelling of her body! The lamp is excellent too and just needs a little extra work. Looking over my notes from the course, I think you've done exceedingly well!
Christina (Drawspace online - Intermediate)
I really enjoyed the two online courses. I had no experience with pencils. Therefor I regularly stepped out of my comfort zone and "The Henhouse Raider" had challenged me even more. I'm not completely pleased, but a bit proud I managed to finish it after so much hours work. I tried to tell the story how I see it :)
Thank you for 8 wonderful weeks!"
Thank you for 8 wonderful weeks!"

Let's start at the back and work forwards. Your dark interior of the henhouse works well, adding depth to a composition that didn't possess much; and Robbie the dog looks hairy, glossy and black. I really believe you were living within the scene as you drew it because you've noticed things that many people miss - such as his back paw being in the shade of the henhouse and Robbie's own shadow, and the way the darkness creeps back from the front edge of the floor.

The eggs at Robbie's feet are beautifully drawn - smooth with just the right amount of sheen and satin highlights. They contrast so well with the softness of his hair.
The treatment of Henrietta the hen, and your understanding of her, is masterful. She has a wonderful feeling of solid form and, in my opinion, just the right suggestion of feathering. In fact, I think it's the best I've seen over the years. You appear to have an natural sense of what to include, what to omit, and how to describe textures and forms that I envy.

The drawing of the wood is very believable with its subtle texture and suggestions of decay. It's so easy to over-detail a secondary element such as wood, so you did well to avoid that. The removal of the nest box and its shadow beneath it was a sensible and brave move. It allowed you to remove confusion and clutter and award Henrietta more importance. And you've engineered the values of the wood very well in order to give Henrietta the prominence she requires.
Your weeds at the left hand side possess excellent depth. You've created deep shade and then pushed some of the weeds far back into it. I find some of the ribs in the leaves to be a little too light, broad and obvious. Toning them down with a light layer of 2H would do them no harm and narrow the range of contrast sufficiently.
Your weeds also do a good job of hiding the fallen egg, It gives the viewer something to find as a reward for looking deeper. Sometimes it pays dividends to allow the viewer to find some elements later.

I really have just noticed the little chick running to tell mother about Robbie's "game". As I said, it often pays to include little details that aren't found immediately, or even for weeks or months. It keeps the viewer's experience alive. I love it!

Well done, Christina!
I've throughly enjoyed working with you. This is an excellent result, especially for an artist relatively new to graphite pencil drawing.
Rob (Drawspace online - Beginners)
Thank you for a really wonderful course. You've been generous with your feedback, and it's been a big help. There's no doubt that I've improved a lot since this winter. Now I have many new techniques to practice!

There's some good work in this Rob, especially in a drawing that was intended to stretch you. However, it could be improved. If the purpose of a drawing is boiled down to a single basic purpose, I'd say that it's to relay your story to the viewer, and the clarity of information is the essential ingredient. I can easily understand the three-dimensional form of Lady and her position in space compared to the lamp. The lamp has a couple of faults but I'll return to that later. Overall though, there is one overriding problem, even after I adjusted your scan in Photoshop, and that is its weakness in contrast. As a result it looks flat and, apart from Lady's face, it has no attention-grabbing impact.
Working from left to right... I like the way the dresser top almost runs unnoticed into the background, and your treatment of the grain. The top curve of the side is well described, and the rest of the dresser is nicely suggested without it dominating the scene. The extreme background however, to the left of Lady, is very vague and doesn't represent any form of depth. I suspect you just "filled it in", not really knowing what to do with it. That's quite understandable. Vague is what you needed in that area, but with an absence of detail or sharpness. Your lines of shading are quite distinct and relatively sharp-edged, so they appear to be very close to the dresser rather than a receding wall.
Your drawing of Lady is carefully studied and executed but the lack of contrast is a problem. I don't receive any indication at all that she's a shiny and hard ceramic model. To achieve that you need darker values so the contrast makes the highlights shine. On the other hand, the contrast achieved with Lady's very dark eyes, nose, and mouth immediately draw my eye to them, and I'm glad you modified her strange triangular eye highlights into more realistic ones. The nose has good three-dimensional form without being over-detailed. I love the highlight beneath her bottom lip that accentuate her lips and give her a very friendly and quizzical grin!
Possibly the biggest mistake I made in drawing this was fully drawing the dog and the lamp before thinking about where the shadows were going to land. I then had to try to figure out where the shadows should go based on the way I'd already drawn the lighting on the statue and the lamp. My first guess gave me a very narrow gap between Lady's shadow and the edge of the lamp, which looked weird. I decided to pull back the shadow from the edge of the lamp. I'm not sure this makes the picture totally consistent in the implied light source.
The shadows work - possibly because they are a little light and vague - but what really matters is the thought you put into them. I appreciate your train of thought and agree with the decisions you came to. Even if I didn't agree, I'd still commend you for asking yourself the right questions, and having the boldness to interpret rather than "go with the rules" or, when one is available, faithfully copying a reference.
Your soft cast shadow of Lady describes her position away from the wall but the shadow of the lamp doesn't work quite as well, because the lamp is further away from the wall than Lady is yet its shadow is the same height. That's a minor quibble and will probably go unnoticed. The lamp itself, because of its very restricted value range (lack of contrast) almost disappears into the background. The rim around the base is not quite accurate at the left-hand end. It should mirror the right-hand side but instead the top flows into the bottom rim, where the right-hand side has a step. The ellipses are excellent throughout the lamp with one exception - the top ellipse of the central collar should be almost a straight line, because it lies almost on the horizon. Both brass collars have well-presented and subtle highlights that suggest their rounded nature, especially the bottom one, and the recession of the punched holes is good too.
As an experiment, I did the glass parts of the lamp entirely in 2H. This may have been a mistake; I think the bottom part of the lamp might look better with some darker greys.

That you chose light values for the glass is a pity, because the glass chimney would work very well indeed with stronger values. There's nothing wrong with the drawing itself, and your choice of 2H was good. It produces a very smooth finish that we expect of glass. You could have layered to create darker values; using HB or 2B lightly and then layering with 2H, which would smooth it out. Finally, the only other thing that troubles me is that the lamp doesn't contain any values as dark as those used in Lady, so it tends to look flatter and rather less dominant. Balancing Lady's dark values with matching values in the lamp, in small and scattered areas, would have visually connected Lady to the lamp more effectively.
As I mentioned earlier, this exercise was designed to stretch you, although it contains nothing that we didn't cover during the course, but I'm delighted to see you attacking it thoughtfully, and solving problems along the way.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with you, Rob, and I hope we get to work together again in the future.
June (Drawspace online - Intermediate)
I completely lost the plot with this one. I struggled to get Henrietta to stand out and as for the foreground - least said the better.

The cheeky Robbie with his nice bright eye is looking good - plenty of three-dimensional form, lovely texture, and there's no mistaking him for being anything but a black dog. His coat looks sleek, black and shiny, which exactly describes him. The broken eggs are nicely displayed, and I like the way you've simplified the ground below him to display the two fallen eggs, with one partially hidden to be discovered later.

I love the detailing you've applied to the wood of the henhouse and the nails. It looks old and weatherbeaten without attracting too much attention. Henrietta is excellently drawn. She has very believable feathering and excellent three-dimensional form, due to your strong, well-chosen values. Personally, I think you pitched the amount of detailing perfectly - she's clearly feathered yet none are sharply defined. She also looks appropriately angry!

Despite your misgivings about her standing out well from the wall, I think it works very well. You've cleverly used the dark shadow behind to highlight her light head and then progressively darkened her body to stand out from the lighter wood below. You've also used sharp drawing for Henrietta that helps with the separation. I think you could have increased it even more if you had slightly softened the grain of the wood around her.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the result and I think you should be very proud of having created it.
Rob (Drawspace online - Beginners)

Excellent. If I was to draw using this as a set of guidelines, I think I'd have the position of everything mapped out for me. If it looks like a bearded Elf wearing a hat... it's correct! :o)
I'll take this opportunity to explain the benefits of gridding, even though I no longer use it. If you can draw by eye, that's good. Some people can and some can't. But that's not really what this is about. It's about seeing. So someone who can draw by eye is not necessarily going to draw what they see - they may draw what they expect to see.
Gridding is an excellent tool for learning to see. It removes all three-dimensional form, lighting and texture, and taken box by box it also dissects the subject to the point where nothing is recognisable. That defeats the problematic all-knowing left brain and allows the right brain to see what it actually there. That lack of understanding is what you actually want. You're just following edges and creating accurate placements and relationships. "Understanding" is a left brain thing - and that's what you need to avoid. The understanding comes later when you turn your simple gridded image into your image.
My only criticism of your exercise is that some of the lines are rather hesitant and shaky. Good clean lines will transfer to your drawing paper and promote accuracy, but shaky lines will need to be redrawn and might cause damage to your drawing paper.
One solution is to plot the course of a line as follows:
- Mark the start and end points (and mid points too, if the line runs through more than one box)
- Study the line and get a good idea of its shape
- Have a dry run or two - from the start point, through the mid points to the end point, until your hand learns the curve
- Commit the line to paper - but don't look at the line you are drawing. Look instead at the next mark you are aiming for

I'm not sure whether I should have added more reference lines in the parts of the photo that are all fur.
It's a good attempt... but, as you guessed, it's incomplete. You needed to explore the reference and note all that you saw, or thought worthy of including as a "signpost" to keep you on track during the actual drawing. The eye is easy. It's full of hard edges so it's simple to break down and control. The hair is a different story. In this case, almost all the useful features have gone unnoticed.
If you were to draw this eye and the surrounding hair, without producing detailed guidelines to help you, you'd began with little understanding of the features it contains. The same applies to the hair's direction of growth, which you also haven't included. When drawing, if you rely purely on "copying" the reference and taking a broad overview, an overview is all you will draw. Looking deep into the reference during the gridding stage helps you to understand the nuances and three-dimensional forms of every element. Basically, if you don't fully understand something, you cannot draw it successfully.
I cannot stress how important the groundwork is when you produce your guideline drawing. Its success, and the success of you drawing, depends on how deeply you look into a photo - and the deeper you look, the more information you collect - and that can be invaluable when you begin the drawing.

When you're mapping what you see, include only those features you think you can find again, so make every line count and resist the temptation to add lines as "suggestions". You'll find drawing frustrating if you later come across a line that you cannot later identify in your reference.
Incidentally, if you choose to indicate the direction of growth in key areas, it often helps to mark them on your guideline drawing using a different system than the one you use for actual hairs or edges. Personally, I draw arrowheads on them, so I can tell them apart from lines marking features.
Lee (Drawspace online - Intermediate)
Hi Mike here is my progress thus far. I have just slowly been plodding along and have sort of enjoyed doing it but think now l am getting to the ground, dog and chook that it is going to challenge me somewhat so thought if you would not mind seeking your feedback at this time.

You've established a strong dark background inside the henhouse that will give depth in a composition that doesn't contain much. You can also reserve your strongest blacks for key areas within Robbie, and use reflected light along his back to separate him from the background. The floor in the henhouse is perhaps rather light. You'd expect a light floor near the doorway but the light will diminish with distance. Progressively darkening the floor as it recedes will also add depth and prevent the floor from taking the viewer's eye away from Robbie.
ROBBIE: Think about the texture of the hair. Imagine running your fingers through it. What do you feel? When you have a good mental picture, that will build itself into your drawing. Tackle him one small area at a time, so you give yourself time to understand each part in three-dimensions, and then consider how it will be affected by your chosen lighting direction. Don't forget, it's dark in that henhouse so Robbie will be darker as he recedes into it. That's particularly true of his white hair and the highlights.
HENRIETTA: Again, draw her one section at a time. Aim for good three-dimensional modelling rather than detailed feathers. Highlighting just a few feathers should be sufficient to help us understand that she is entirely covered with them. Try to highlight her raised foot - it's important to the story and the only movement in the composition, whether actual or implied.
FOREGROUND: I'd split this into two - the weeds adjacent to the henhouse, and the immediate foreground - and tackle them in that order. The foreground foliage should be sharply defined with good form and detail. Then let it degrade so the midground falls back quite naturally into the darkness beneath the henhouse. Finally, work on the remaining ground. Leaving it until last will enable you to use it to balance everything else. You could, for example, defined a set path for the viewer to enter the drawing.
All that said, don't forget that this is your world abiding by your rules, so do whatever you need to until it works.
Update : 23.03.2015
Overall l found it difficult if not overwhelming however l did most with obvious changes but l could not pluck up enough courage to do Henrietta until just recently so here it is all done and dusted.
I feel somewhat disillusioned as it is apparent l have heaps to do if l am ever going to be able to have some element of control over what l produce but in saying that l will not be deterred and will achieve some slow progress to achieve a reasonable outcome!!!!
I feel somewhat disillusioned as it is apparent l have heaps to do if l am ever going to be able to have some element of control over what l produce but in saying that l will not be deterred and will achieve some slow progress to achieve a reasonable outcome!!!!

I understand this probably stretched you and it was intended to. Staying within your comfort zone teaches you very little. And there is nothing in this composition that we didn't cover one way or another during the course.
I'm going to pull out a couple of areas for comment but the overriding problem is not one of ability but of approach. The first thing that struck me when I saw this is that it lacks understanding. I can see how you tackled every part, and each is perfectly OK in itself, but it lacks cohesion and thought.

For example, Robbie has a face, an ear, a neck, and a body - but they read as a collection of parts because none of them recognise the presence of the others. I suspect you drew each area separately - so would I - but you were drawing what you saw instead of working out what it is and how you were going to explain it to viewers of your drawing.
Let's imagine we have diffuse lighting and it's shining from the left. You've drawn a highlight along the edge of Robbie's hair down the side of his ear, but the ear is in front of that hair and will cast a shadow on it. So that highlight belongs to the edge of the ear, and a shadow that creates a sharp edge to ear will throw the ear forwards. We will instinctively know that the ear is on top of the hair and closer to us.
In the same vein, Robbie has rounded legs but I think you were concentrating so much on texture that you forgot they are three-dimensional. The legs should turn into the shade as they progress to the right. The same applies to the area of chest between his legs - it's in the shade of his legs and his body, so it should darken as it recedes beneath him. Incidentally. the interior of the henhouse should be darker too because there is little light inside there. And Robbie's rear paw should be darker too, because of that lack of light.

Think about every area before you draw it. Describe it to yourself; build up a mental three-dimensional picture of it; analyse its texture and perhaps work out a way you can describe it. Now, instead of drawing what you see in the reference, draw what you see in your mind. You can use the reference to supply detail and features but you are no longer dependant on it. To return to Robbie's ear, just say to yourself "It's further forwards than his head and I can use a highlight down one side to describe that edge, and use a shadow on the other side to describe that one. It's silky. I can feel the hair beneath my fingers. And it's curving forwards at the top, so the hair won't lay flat. It might be a bit spiky and I can see into it. After the curve it's flat and glossy". Now draw what you know instead of what you think you see.
Lovely feathers; Robbie is full of character and looking very mischievous. You're telling the story well, just not connecting the parts into a realistic whole. Finally, never feel compelled to draw exactly what you see in a reference. Robbie never saw this henhouse, and I'd burned it before Henrietta came to live here. It's a make-believe world - so bend it suit the world you want to create. Tell the story your way.
Claire (Studio Workshop - Beginners/Intermediate)
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the course! I have never known time go so fast! Attached is not the drawing that I started as that is going to be a birthday present. Instead I have drawn another picture of Darcy. For my first attempt at drawing using the techniques you showed us I am really pleased with it. Please let me know what you think.

Your drawing has oodles of character, believable textures, and a good sense of reality. What it lacks is depth. That's mainly due to a lack of sharpness, and a rather ambiguous source of lighting. Let's cover that first.
The eye highlights suggest the light is high and to the right (Darcy's left). In that case I'd expect the right-hand side of the face to be in partial shade - at least more so than the left side. The right side is darker below the eye and the bottom of the cheek, but then you upset that by creating a very light area of hair to the cheek's left. Don't worry about what the reference might look like. You need to take from what you need and engineer it to suit your own goal. A degree of exaggeration often helps too. Make things obvious but in a subtle way.

The right-hand ear is easier to work with, so I'll see what I can do with it. All I've done is to darken the inside so the foreground hair stands out from it. If the hair was very sharp-edged, it would stand out even more. Sharp edges separate planes; soft edges merge them.

Finally, you've every right to be pleased with this drawing of Darcy. I'm just nit-picking - attempting to make your next drawing even better. There's nothing "wrong" with this one.
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by Mike Sibley