• Last night the ShooRaynerDrawing Channel on YouTube, achieved a new and amazing goal, when the counter clicked over the 100,000 Subscribers mark.
    100k!-9-37

    I’d like to thanks all my subscribers and everyone who has helped me along the way so far. It has been an extraordinary journey. I have to admit that it has required, a sometimes crazy, level of commitment. I think my family have sometimes wondered why I put quite so much work into the channel.

    My very first video took over a year to gain a thousand views, until I realised that one video on its own was not going to change the world, especially as it was technically inept and the lighting rig up collapsed half way through!

    NextUpIn 2011, the channel won the prestigious YouTube NextUp Europe competition giving me an incredible week at YouTube headquarters in London, being mentored, with 25 others from around Europe. Some have gone on to major success. The wonderfully affable Marcus Butler now has 3.5 million subscribers!

    I learned so many skills that week – almost too many – I wanted to try out everything. I was bit like a kid in a sweet shop.

    I started other channels – DrawStuffRealEasy now has over 56,000 subscribers in its own right! – some had nothing to do with drawing at all, but I learned a lot about editing through them.

    I’m now committed to the ShooRaynerDrawing channel, showing that drawing is for everyone and is no more difficult than writing your own name.

    In 2012 I was awarded the Hewlett-Packard Smart Business prize for Use of Social Media for all the work I had done building up the site. Approaching my 100,000th subscriber has made me refocus. ShooRayner_HP_SmartSmall

    I am building a proper drawing course on this site and a homeschool high school half credit version of the course on highschooldrawing.com

    I’m also preparing to start a club/school/academy – I can’t decide what to call it – on this channel, which I see as being almost an online Art School for drawing and the illustrative arts, for those who didn’t or can’t get to University, but would like to build the skills they might feel they missed out on.

    A lot of work to do! So, I shall enjoy the glow for a moment today, before getting on with the next phase of the ShooRaynerDrawing Channel,

    Again many thanks to everyone who has ever watched a video and subscribed to the channel.

  • http://youtu.be/keIYnwtgEp8

    Subscriber-Competetion-1I can’t tell you how excited I am getting. I keep checking my YouTube statistics about every three minutes. They are going to have to take me away in a little yellow van quite soon!

    As I write, I am very close to gaining my 100,000th subscriber on the ShooRaynerDrawing channel. And that all comes down to you, following and watching my videos.

    So… first of all, I’d like to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who has followed me over the years. It has been quite an experience for me!

    I thought I should mark the occasion in some way – maybe the 100,000th subscriber could win a prize! But, that’s a bit unfair because I can’t really tell who the 100,000th subscriber is, and also, my faithful followers wouldn’t get a chance of winning.

    Some people have suggested that I should do a special drawing, but somehow that just doesn’t seem enough.

    And then suddenly I realised, it’s not about me it’s about YOU.

    I want to see how and where you follow my drawing lessons.

    I’ve collected some fantastic Art stuff to give away as a prize…

    So, this is what I want you to do.

    Take a picture of yourself showing me how and where you do your ShooRaynerDrawing lessons. I want to see you at your desk or on the porch with a laptop, or up in a treehouse, or dangling from a chandelier!

    Wherever and however, you follow along with my videos, I want to see and I want to be amused, amazed and astonished!

    The best five pictures will go on my website and then I will let everyone else choose the final winner, because I know I won’t be able to chose.

    When you have taken your picture, post it on my G+ community page or on Twitter with the hashtag #SRD100K so I can find it.

    My Twitter name is @shoorayner (why not go and follow me on Twitter too? I’ll follow anyone who uses the same hashtag while the competition is on. The G+ page is here.

    Closing date is midday GMT on Wednesday the 11th February 2015. The final voting will end on Midday GMT on Tuesday 17th February 2015 and I will announce the winner the next day.

    The overall winner will receive:
    A set of 24 Derwent Graphic pencils
    A set of 24 Derwent Coloursoft pencils
    A Derwent Art Eraser
    A rOtring Tikky Graphic pen
    A signed limited edition “Welcome to Shoowaii” print
    An exclusive Shoo Rayner Sketchbook
    A Signed poster of me!
    A Signed copy of my “Everyone Can Draw” book
    A signed copy of my Euclid, the man who invented Geometry” Book
    And, finally, free access to my new Online Course, that I am working on at the moment, called “Everyone Can Draw”.

    All the runners up will also receive free access to the course

    I know you all want to win this prize so, take your time, maybe get a friend to help you to take a good picture of you, or maybe a selfie will do the trick. Just t hink about it. I want to be amused, amazed and astonished!

    If you want to see me reach that 100,00th subscriber, you can help by telling all your friends and social media contacts about this channel and tell them to subscribe and be as obviously clever and intelligent as you are!
    There’s lots of interesting and new stuff coming up on this channel over the next couple of months, so make sure you are subscribed and keep watching.

    In the meantime, keep drawing, drawing, drawing – practice, practice, practice, and I’ll see you next time.

    Take care… and good luck!

  • Draw-Cartoon-People-part-2150In my previous video we discussed what cartoon style drawing is and why it isn’t as easy as it looks.

    We defined a cartoon as being “… a form of two dimensional illustrated visual art.”

    Now, the word Illustration comes from the Italian – Illustratio which means – “To enlighten” So we are visualising or enlightening an idea or concept. A simple, cartoon style does that job really well.

    When you see an artist draw their most well-known character – in my case it is a little cat called the Ginger Ninja – the drawing seems to flow out of the pen effortlessly.

    You have to remember that the artist has been drawing every day for years and years and knows their character like an old friend. You too could draw just as easily if you had put in as much practice!

    But don’t let all that hard work put you off. Let’s get you started at the beginning.

    You must have drawn stick men at some point in your life?

    Stick men can be very expressive – have a look at this video that I made about stickman drawing – I’ll put a link at the end and in the comments box below.

    Start with stick people and try to bend and move their bodies about. You might find this video about using mannequins useful too. Again, links at the end and below.

    lets draw a fairly simple stick person:

    We can give the character a really simple face

    just two dots for the eyes

    a capital L for the nose and half a slice of orange for the mouth.

    Extra expression can be added with two simple dashes for eyebrows.

    Put a couple of handles on the side of the head for ears

    and add a boxy hair line.

    You can do so much with just this simple face. Practice til you can do it in your sleep. It is the foundation you can build on.

    Now to make the body, we need to add some clothes – and fill out the arms.

    The hands are circles with sausages attached. Here’s another video you might like to watch… again, I’ll put links at the end.

    Shape out the trousers – or pants – (depending where you are watching this from!) and you are ready to ink over the top.

    When you are sure the ink is dry, you can erase the pencil lines.

    Now you can add in some extra detail and maybe colour in your master piece.

    If you really want to learn you will want do this again and again. Experimenting and slightly changing things each time.

    You may even want to trace over your drawing, improving any mistakes as you go along.

    By the way, tracing is not cheating – it’s a learning tool. As you go over the lines you made before, your hand gains muscle memory, making it easier to draw it next time. Here’s another video I made that might be of help!

    Try doing this every day for a week, and you will soon see how you are getting comfortable with the character, who will soon begin to look like Your character, which you will be able to draw so much more easily with practice.

    As you progress, you will need fewer pencil guide lines, until you can draw the character free hand and clothe him how you wish!

    Here are the links in the video

    The Ginger Ninja:

    Stickmen drawing:

    Drawing with Mannequins:

    Draw Hands:

    Tracing: