Observational Drawing: Draw What You See!
An 11-week class designed to help kids ages 12-15 develop the skills they need to draw more accurately from observation!
“Wonderful class for your child who wants to learn to draw more realistically. My daughter went from simple line drawings to well shaded, well-proportioned portraits. Best of all, she loves practicing the new skills—she’s finding opportunities to draw as much as possible. She reports that the class taught her how to see differently and she likes how it feels when she draws.
It goes without saying that Stephanie is wonderful—she gave a lot of encouragement and feedback and my daughter felt totally comfortable in the class. We’ve taken many art classes on outschool, and this one was by far the best—truly transformative!”
A 14-year-old’s drawing from a relief at the Metropolitan Museum of Art!
A 12-year-old’s pre-class self-portrait, compared with the self-portrait he did during the last weeks of class
A 12-year-old copying the lights and darks in a marble!
WHAT IS THIS CLASS ABOUT?
In this 11-week skill-building journey, we’ll learn and practice how to perceive and draw contours, spaces, proportion, and shading - essential building blocks of drawing from observation!
Please note: as this class is about building skills, students will be doing a lot of drawing exercises early on to develop those skills that won't result in highly satisfying finished artworks - in fact, the artwork may look ridiculous. However, practicing these skills will result in the ability to create highly satisfying finished artworks later, and these skills will carry over to the many different kinds of art learners may create outside the classroom.
We'll follow some of the basic principles from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain as well as other exercises to greatly enhance student perception - their ability to really see what they’re looking at, and thus transfer it onto paper!
“This was an excellent class. Very responsive and engaging teacher. The jump in skills was significant that my son made in this class, especially with learning to better observe what he is seeing, and techniques to illustrate those observations through drawing. ”
I will be asking enrolled students to do a few pre-instructional drawings before the start of class to use as a measure of progress during the semester. It’s a wonderful way to gauge improvement!
Below are two before-and-after self-portraits by 12-year-olds in a prior class. Both of these students missed the last class session and therefore didn’t finish their self-portraits, but I’m posting to show the dramatic skill improvement! Both “afters” look just like those students, even unfinished!
WHO SHOULD SIGN UP FOR THIS?
12-to-15-year-old artists who are eager to develop their life drawing skills. PLEASE NOTE: we will not do ANY drawing from imagination in this class - only drawing from observation!
THE NITTY-GRITTY
WHERE:
Online via Zoom, in a LMS-style classroom like Canvas, where I can post assignments and info.
Please note: class recordings will not be available if you miss a class. It’s essentially as if you missed a day of in-person school. I’ll post to the classroom explaining basic ideas and will do my best to catch you up in the next class session.
WHEN:
SEPTEMBER 2024 START
TBD - stay tuned!
COST: $220
WHAT WILL LEARNERS DO IN A TYPICAL CLASS SESSION?
I’ll start each class with a discussion/presentation - especially the first class session. I demo class activities via a document camera, which show my own hands working as well as the reference photos.
Each class roughly breaks down as follows:
Intro 10-15 minutes
Work time 30-40 minutesr
Wrap-up discussion/optional work share 5-10 minutes (even if artists don’t want to share their work with the class, I do ask what the experience was like for them.)
Since I cannot wander the classroom to watch students working and offer feedback over their shoulders, I ask that each week, whether or not they have shared their work by holding it up to the camera during the live session, students either post their classwork/homework* to the classroom or send me photos of their work via PM. I can then respond with a video message offering feedback.
It’s very important that I see what they’re doing clearly in able for me to both gauge their progress and help them improve with targeted feedback. (If students feel comfortable pointing their cameras towards their hands/artwork during class for me to see what they are doing and offer comments, that works too, but that can feel very self-conscious for kids since everyone can see.)
*A NOTE ON HOMEWORK: the more you draw, the more you improve! In many weeks, we will be starting but not finishing drawings during class, and I’ll ask students to finish those drawings at home. In addition, I ask all learners to sketch in between class sessions. As mentioned, I also ask them to post and/or message me photos of what they’re working on so I can see how they are doing. I can't force anyone to practice, but drawing - like any other skill - is best learned by DOING. Those students who show up to class, work during class and don’t do anything in between sessions will show far less improvement than students who practice in between sessions!
HOW IS THE CLASS FORMATTED?
Week 1: Introduction to concepts and materials
Week 2: Contour
Week 3: Contour, continued
Week 4: Negative space
Week 5: Proportion
Week 6: Practice all
Week 7: Value
Weeks 8-11: Faces & self-portraits. We'll be working from photographs - for the final drawing, students will have to provide a close-up photo of themselves or someone else which will need to be cropped to a specific size (I can help edit in my photo editing software, or provide the specs for you can edit yourself).
WHAT ART SUPPLIES DO LEARNERS NEED?
I’ll provide a list to registered learners. For the first two class periods of the series, a plain old #2 pencil and eraser, along with a few printouts I’ll upload to the classroom, are all learners will need.
Overall, you’ll need a sketchbook (ideally 11x14/A3), a few different kinds of pencils, toned paper & a quality eraser.
REGISTRATION & CANCELLATION POLICY:
I need a minimum of 3 students to run the class.
If you are registering siblings, each learner must be enrolled separately.
Should I not reach a 3-student minimum, I will let you know within a week prior to class start, and refund your class fee.
Please understand that with limited class space available, when you register, you are holding a space in the class that another student could fill. As such:
Tuition is only refundable if cancellation is received 21 or more days prior to the course start.
I do not offer refunds, make-up classes or class credits for missed class sessions.
GENERAL CLASS REMINDERS:
I require student cameras to be on for verification at the beginning of class, and prefer students keep them on as I cannot accurately gauge how well a student is following if all I see is a name in a black box! That said, so long as I can verify the student in the beginning, they may turn it off during work time, but I hope to see them later in class to discuss what we did.
Siblings may share a screen, but must be individually registered.
Please ensure no adults or other learners appear in the camera view during class.
For further detail on those and other policies, please review my class policies page before registering.