• myron-barnstoneI was really pleased to be contacted by Paul on YouTube today, who asked me what I thought of this video by Myron Barnstone, who teaches drawing at the Barnstone Studios, which I’m sorry to say I’d not come across before. Myron so perfectly encapsulates my thoughts about drawing and art teaching, I really wanted to share this video with you too.

    I was lucky, my very first teacher, when I was 18, sat me down and showed me how a pencil works and showed me the shapes in the things that I was drawing. I only had that teacher for five or six months, but he literally changed the course of my life… in one lesson!

    After school I went into a small print shop where I pretty much had to work it out myself. I learned a huge amount about type and the technicalities of Letraset and and wonderful machine called a headliner that produced crisp type on a strip of photo paper. All the time I was drawing and teaching myself with books from the library, trying stuff out. I then worked with a sign writer who really did instruct me. Like Myron says of his students in this video. I still feel him breathing over my shoulder as he points out where I’m going wrong all these years later!

    Later I I worked for the land registry and had very strict training in watercolour wash techniques, which have stood me in good stead ever since.

    Art college was three years of working it out myself. We received no instruction at all. In fact I often had to teach the skills I’d learned in the real world to my fellow students and on a couple of occasions to visiting lecturers! Our Lecturers “didn’t want to spoil out raw talent,” so they gave us a project and went to the pub for the rest of the week. Looking back, we floundered. Most never bothered coming in to college – there weren’t any classes to attend and if a lecture was arranged we’d got so out of the habit of attending no one ever went. It must have been soul destroying for the lecturers.

    Myron is right. If you are serious, learn and get trained somehow. Then rebel after you know what you are doing and add your bit to the world of art and it’s body of work, but if you just rely on talent, you have a very long and hard and lonely journey ahead of you.

  • Empty-Ball-Pen-DrawingsmlNick Strehle from Florida emailed me ask when I was going to do a video using the bic biro that I emptied doing a few drawings earlier this year, like the https://www.shoorayner.com/durers-rhinoceros-drawn-from-memory-with-bic-biro or https://www.shoorayner.com/how-to-draw-a-snake-for-chinese-new-year/ or https://www.shoorayner.com/how-to-draw-an-angry-wolf/

    Well, this video is what I had in mind. The biro works as an embossing tool. I’ve drawn a wedding disco with everyone dancing, but I’ve only drawn their skeletons. When you rub over the top with a graphite pencil a picture of the disco comes to life. I’ve rambled a bit with the story of the wedding party Im afraid!

  • pearsmlYouTuber, Jamie Webb, asked me to draw a pear. I decided to draw two – the first in watercolour and the second showing how to construct the shape of a pear and how to draw it with stipple shading. You can see that video below

    Meanwhile YouTuber, Mimorsi, asked me — Shoo I really want to be an illustrator like you but I don’t have much skill, I want you to help me “practice,? practice, practice” but without copying someone else’s work (your work). What I’m trying to say is that I want to know how to draw stuff by checking reference, but then give it my own twist. The bad thing is I just can’t understand the basic shapes constituting my subjects, I find it difficult to get the essence of a subject to then transform it my own way. HELP PLEASE

    This video starts with a bit of a discussion about using reference, where to find it, how to keep yourself safe with copyright and how to adapt the images you find to your use. Hope it starts to make sense. I will go into this subject more in other videos.

    this is followed by quite a lengthy video of drawing and painting a pear with watercolour. I’ve not edited it too much because I know some people like to see the whole process and I haven’t doen a video like that for a while. Enjoy