Walk Cycles

I'm just writing the section on walk cycles for the basic cartooning course, and it's impossible to forget the master, Preston Blair, not just a great cartoonist but a great teacher:

Keep an eye out for the Basic cartooning course coming soon to www.blueberrybeetle.com.

Eraser Joke

Learn to Draw!

Our Basic Drawing course is up and running and ready for enrolments!

 Learn HOW to draw in a hands-on course that teaches you the fundamentals of drawing and painting, including tone (light and dark), stroke, form, drawing materials, perspective and how to analyse your subject matter. This course has hands-on exercises, in order to train you to be your own artist, in addition to videos and written materials which will build up your skills slowly and progressively.

Check it out at Blueberry Beetle Courses.

We're Online!!

Yes, today we are up and running and offering Basic Drawing and the first of our Mini-courses! Let me teach you HOW to draw!!

https://www.blueberrybeetle.com/

More Mini-Lessons

So here's a sample of the other mini-lessons available! Coming soon (really, I promise!)

How to Draw a Fairy Mushroom House

This is a cute video on how to to draw a fairy mushroom house with windows and an ornamental door. Great for kids and those who believe in a little magic at the bottom of the garden..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcg2mgc9BcM&t=327s

The Top 10 Mistakes that Most Artists Make

          1. Tonal Value

This is easily the most common mistake that I see as an Art Teacher, and it’s often a real shame. Artworks with beautiful colours and strokes and gorgeous details become overall flat and lifeless because they don’t have the right range of dark and light or don’t have them in the correct places. Incorrect tonal value has a bigger impact on realism or believability than any other element of a drawing or painting.

2. Contrast

Contrast – the difference between your lightest lights and darkest darks – would be the second biggest mistakes that artists make. If used well, it can draw attention to certain details or make some or all of your subject matter really pop out of the page or canvas. However, most artists overuse the tones in the middle.

3    3. Direction (‘Form’)

Understanding how a 3-dimensional form moves through space is key to creating a convincing illusion of it. To make an artwork believable, an artist has to think in terms of 3-dimensional space – to think about all parts of the object not just those they can see. This prevents an artwork seeming flat. Don’t worry folks – this can be taught! ;)

      4. Using White and Black to Lighten and Darken

There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t do this which I go into in my courses but the best reason is this – what do you get if you mix black and white? Grey. Say no to grey paintings and start creating beautiful colours.

           5. Mis-Using Warm and Cool Colours

Warm and cool colours are a system that each interacts best with those within the same system. You can mix across, but do it too much or in the wrong way and you risk making your picture really muddy and losing any freshness.

      6. Figure Perspective

It’s interesting how many artist know to apply perspective in their landscapes but don’t on their figures. This is especially the case in portraits or figure studies from a three quarter view, where you often see the furthest eye being drawn too big or too high or low. Portraiture and life drawing are the most challenging subjects in most art courses and it takes a while to understand the fundamentals, including perspective on a figure, which is more complex than the one-dimensional perspective most students are familiar with.

      7. Figure Proportions

Figure proportions are tricky when a figure is just standing there, let alone when they move around! As well, we get used to seeing variations in proportions through video games, comics and animations. This can make it hard to see the real thing correctly when we are creating life drawings and figure studies. Many artists make legs and arms too long or heads too small or large relative to the body.

      8. Textures

Many artists make one of two main mistakes with textures – either they get the detail right at the expense of the bigger picture, or the bigger picture right at the expense of the details. The trick to this is efficiency and technique – planning ahead so that you can create both at the same time. Most people struggle specifically with the texture of eyes and hairs – keep an eye out as I’ll give a tutorial on these soon.

      9. Specific Body Parts

Most artists find that there is one (or more!) body part that particularly confounds them, such as hands, feet, knees, ears or eyes. Or when they get it right, they can’t sit it within the context of the rest of the figure well. For example, you finally get beautiful eyes happening but they don’t work within the rest of the head. Some of this will come down to a knowledge of anatomy – there’s a reason classical artists are trained to learn the skeleton and muscles! The other part can usually be resolved with detailed studies of the problem areas and figure perspective.

      10. Shadows

The problem many artists have with shadows are not just about the relative darkness (a tonal value problem), but also the colour, size, details and edges. All of this requires a good understanding of the properties of light, which many artists haven’t had the chance to learn. Some of these problems also come down to understanding warm and cool colour systems, especially with warm toned subject matter.

Pretty much all of these mistakes or problem areas come back to training, and that is something we can help you with. Our Basic Drawing Course is coming online on June 10, and Intermediate and Advanced courses after that. These will teach you the practical skills and tricks you need to be a great artist and they are completely online!

In addition we have free video lessons on our Blueberry Beetle Youtube channel, which we are adding to all the time: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcmevI_UToWKv4cymMeG8w

So check us out, subscribe and bookmark our Art School: www.blueberrybeetle.com. We hope to see you soon!

How to Draw a Donut

This is one of my easiest (and most fun!) how to draw videos, featuring a frosted donut with sprinkles! It starts with an ellipse (a squished circle). This one is especially fun for kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVjnrG9sZiM

Please let me know if you found it fun and want to see more!

Video Tutorial on Fixatives

Hi All, here is a link to our second video tutorial for Basic Materials, specifically on Fixatives.

This tutorial should be especially helpful for those of you who would like to work in graphite pencil, charcoal and chalk pastel.

Please check it out and let me know what you think!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWDSN6HjU6I

First Video!!

Hi guys! Well, today I have hit a milestone - my first video post! Check it out on YouTube at:
https://youtu.be/Q_tW0_loE_A

 This will be the first of many so watch this space and please tell me what you think of my first ever video!

Tips for Drawing Great Flowers

       1.   Think About Composition

I’m a big fan of drawing flowers as you find them when there’s something that just strikes you. However, before you invest too much time in the drawing or painting, look at your flowers from a few different angles to make sure you have the best one. 

With arranged flowers, thinks about which flowers you want to stand out. These will be your focal points. Try and balance these out so they are not all in the same place (more of this soon in Composition).

       2. Draw the Big Shapes, Not the Small Details

Always try and reduce the complexity of your subject matter – it makes it much easier to draw and is less overwhelming.

  3. Let Negative Space Define the Details

Once you have the big shapes, use negative space (the shape around the object) to cut out the details. This will help ensure you draw what you really see and again, reduces complexity.

You will build up the positive spaces naturally as you go. For more information on Negative Space and Positive Space, keep an eye out for a Negative Space lesson coming up on Blueberry Beetle.

4. Always Extend from the Base

You want your flowers to feel elongated and delicately extended, not clumpy or squashed. Make sure you leave plenty of room for stems.

 Much of this will come from your original composition.

Once you have your outline right, then you can more on to more details or to painting.

       5. Keep Your Colours Fresh

 Avoid  using black to darken your flowers - this just makes everything seem grey! Try using supplementary and complementary colours, or similar secondary and tertiary mixes instead to keep eye-popping colours (more of this in our colour workshops!).

Sometimes adding fresh colour towards the end of the work is enough to freshen everything up.

If you found this helpful, please favourite this page – there are more step-by-step tutorials on drawing flowers coming soon at Blueberry Beetle.