Draw What You See! Observational Drawing

An 11-week skill-building journey designed to help kids ages (11*)12-15 develop their ability to draw more accurately from observation!

*Not all 11-year-olds are ready for this class, but I’ve had 11-year-old artists successfully participate -
as long as they’re passionate about learning realistic drawing skills and want to put in the effort, they are welcome!

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?

A lot of tweens and teens get frustrated trying to accurately draw what they see - but anyone can learn! Learning to draw realistically is, at its heart, about developing your observational skills - everything flows from that. In this introductory class, students will hone their perceptual skills as they explore the building blocks of realistic drawing: contour, negative space, spatial relationships, and value. We'll follow some of the basic principles from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (exercises my art teacher taught me when I started my skill-building journey at age 11!), and more.

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!

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!

THE NITTY-GRITTY

WHO SHOULD SIGN UP FOR THIS? (11*)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!
Maximum class size: 9.

*Not all 11-year-olds are ready for this class, but I’ve had 11-year-old artists successfully participate - as long as they’re passionate about learning realistic drawing skills and want to put in the effort, they are welcome!

WHERE: Online via Zoom, and a Google classroom where I can post assignments and info.

• WHEN:

  PICK ONE:

  • FALL 2025:

    • Tuesdays 12-12:55pm, September 2-November 11, 2025 (11 weeks)

    • Thursdays 3-3:55pm, September 4-November 13, 2025 (11 weeks)

  • SPRING 2026:

    • TBA

COST: $225 - one-time fee

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.)

• In many weeks, we will be starting but not necessarily finishing a drawing exercise, so to maximize their learning, I will ask students to finish those drawings after class (see the “Homework” section below).

AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON STUDENT PROGRESS:

In order for me to gauge student progress and offer targeted feedback to help them improve, it’s very important that I see what students are working on! The drawback of virtual teaching is that I can’t walk around and look over their shoulders - they have to willingly share with me.

During class, students may choose to share by either holding up their work, or pointing their cameras towards their paper, but that can feel uncomfortably self-conscious for kids since everyone else in the class can also see. Even should they choose to, due to the limitations of webcams and the fact that I can’t always see clear details in their drawings, I can’t always offer super-specific feedback that way.

Therefore, to get the most out of this class, I ask that each week, all students email me at least one photo of their work from that week - either what they did in class that week, or something else completed at home. I’ll then respond in writing and/or with video feedback.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON HOMEWORK:

• The more you draw, the more you improve! In many weeks, we will be starting but not necessarily finishing a drawing exercise, so I will ask students to finish those drawings after class. In addition, I suggest students sketch during the week in between class meetings to maximize their learning. Although I can't force anyone to practice, drawing - like any other skill - is best learned by DOING. Students who only work on these techniques in one weekly class with me will show far less skill growth than students who complete assignments and practice in between sessions!

• The aforementioned email back-and-forth allows me to personalize feedback for each learner.

• If they send me their work the morning of the next class session, I won’t have time to respond prior to class time.
  

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. After that, you’ll get a class credit to use within 6 months towards another class.

• 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.

• If you miss a class session, I will provide a video of the missed session so you can catch up.

For further detail on those and other policies, please review my class policies page before registering.