Student artwork commented upon using Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen

If you’re new to Drawpj.com you may be wondering how our instructors are able to sketch and comment upon the electronic images of your artworks. Our instructors use a Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen and Touch along with a photo-editing software program such as Photoshop Elements.

The Fun Pen works just like an ordinary pencil which enables the transition from eye to mind then hand to flow naturally and intuitively. This process enables our instructors to concentrate on what they do best; providing you with valuable one-to-one advice and helping you to dramatically improve your drawing and painting skills.

Wacom have kindly agreed to become our major sponsor of the Drawpj.com Annual Online Art Competition 2012 and have donated a wonderful brand new Bamboo Fun Pen and Touch to  the  first prize winner of the beginner level. Thankyou so much Wacom!

For more details about prizes and rules of the competition please download the PDF file.

We look forward to hearing from you and wish you all the best for a happy and safe  Easter holiday break.

Best wishes from the Drawpj.com team
In sunny Queensland Australia!

Bush Fires. Sweltering heat. Suffocating dirt and dust. Backbreaking manual labour. Livestock and Farmland.

In an atmosphere where these aspects of life are commonplace, one would expect to see rugged cowboys and farmhands battling nature’s elements in order to complete their work; however, feminine, graceful stylish ladies rarely emerge as images typically associated with these course environments.

Cindy Wider, in her collection of works entitled ‘Rolling Hills of White Flat’ examines the lives of farmers’ wives in her continual journey to formulate the complex definition of what it means to be a woman.

Download Radio Interview (MP3)

Exhibition Details:

Rolling Hills of White Flat

The reality and fantasy of life on the land

The Cooper Gallery
4 – 7 March 2011
Official Opening by Margaret Ellen Turner
2/235 Gympie Terrace, Noosaville, QLD
Friday 4 march 2011 at 6.00pm
To reserve your place at this event call 07 54 55 56 55

Waltzing Matilda Centre
28 March – 29 April 2011
50 Elderslie Street
Winton QLD 4735
Tel: 07 4657 1466 or 1300 665 115

You will notice on the left side that people enter the course at various levels of drawing ability, but everyone achieves a dramatic improvement as seen on the right side. Every person here had to go through their own personal journey of struggle to overcome the voices in their mind.

The ‘before’ images were completed prior to the students’ first week of tuition.

The ‘after’ drawings were completed after studying this course for a total of approximately 84 hours over 21 weeks.

You can do it too, Just Show Up At The Table and the rest will take care of itself.

Scott Kunkle

Jack G

Lois Naab

Charlotte Pouzanoff

Linda Peterpaul

Ann Richter

Deepti Mohile

Sharon Ryan

We often hear people say (about an artist) when they admire a great realism drawing, “Oh he’s definitely got the Artist’s Eye” but what is The Artist’s Eye and how can you can get it?

It’s true, you do need to have ‘The Artist’s Eye’ to be able to draw a realistic likeness, but did you know that most average healthy people are naturally born with the skills needed to develop The Artist’s Eye? This is great news for you because you can learn to draw really well too!

You can develop the artist’s eye and improve your drawing skills immediately if you have the dexterity to hold a pencil and write your name, can cut a chocolate cake in half, straighten a painting on a wall, place objects in a room to fill it comfortably, and if you can sense whether it is morning or afternoon on a blue sky day just by the tone in the sky.

The main thing standing between you and your ability to learn how to draw right now is the way you are currently looking at things.

Today I am sharing a huge drawing secret with you; the secret of how you too can develop the artist’s eye and draw like you never before thought was possible.

Looking with your whole mind

Developing The Artist’s Eye is not simply about seeing things more clearly, looking harder or staring for longer, its about learning to see things differently than the way most people see things. When we’re using our Artist’s Eye, we are looking with our whole mind involved in the process and as a result our entire lives are enriched.

This is very different to the way we normally see things. As adults, we usually look at things with a fleeting glance as we rush about our daily activities. We rarely take the time to count the number of petals on a flower let alone notice the incredible and perfect rules of division that nature uses to create with.

Sure, some people have discovered that we can stare at the thing we want to draw and wait for a special Zen-like, euphoric state to arrive and transport us away to some magical place. Sometimes it happens when you wait long enough and look hard enough but sadly other times it just doesn’t. This state of mind has been known as; ‘the zone’ or ‘tapping into the right, creative side of the brain’ and it requires us to be very patient and persistent.

However, this staring and waiting approach isn’t very reliable or as helpful as it could be; especially when we only have precious little blocks of time to work within (I call this our Pyjama Time™ because quite often we find spare time when we are in our pyjamas.) There will always be a need for that important illumination time, when our ideas are just evolving, however, I am talking about once the idea has already been decided upon and we have moved onto the tangible creation of our artwork. We need to have a reliable process to help us get started and carry through the creation of the actual artwork at a time that suits us and our lifestyle. This is where the development of The Artist’s Eye is crucial in helping us avoid procrastination and make the most use of our valuable Pyjama Time.

Instead of hoping for this Zen-like state to eventually arrive (by staring and waiting, and often getting depressed in the process) you can use the ‘Artist’s Language’ to immediately access your Artist’s Eye and the natural skills you need for drawing realistically. Your drawings will improve immediately once you begin to access your Artist’s Eye.

Step One: Become aware of the messages in your brain while you are drawing

Becoming aware of what your brain is saying to you while you draw is the first step towards accessing and then developing your Artist’s Eye. The exciting thing about developing the Artist’s Eye is that it has little do to with the eyeball itself; it’s all about becoming aware of, and gaining control over the messages that are going on within our brain as we attempt to draw or paint.

The Artist’s Eye is a simple label given to a fascinating mental process; it’s actually a unique kind of dialogue that goes on in our brain while we draw. We look with our mind, not our eye, our eye is just the window that opens and shuts to let in the information that is in front of us. From the time we look at something, to the time that vision goes into our brain and then out to our hand, unless we use this unique kind of dialogue (which I call the Artist’s Language) the image we draw is often something completely different than what we intended. Many people give up learning to draw believing they just aren’t talented and really talent has nothing to do with it. It is the ability to access the Artist’s Eye through using the Artist’s Language that really enables people to draw.

Once you are aware of what your brain is saying to you, then you can take steps to change the messages to become beneficial rather than constantly trying to sabotage your attempts to draw in the first place. This is the initial step in developing your Artists Eye; to bring the subconscious (often negative) self-talk into the conscious through using the Artist’s Language.

Step Two: Take control and use the Artist’s Language while you draw

In the very first unit of ‘The Complete Draw and Paint In Your Pyjamas Certificate Course’ you are introduced to the Artist’s Language which enables you to enter that special state often known as ‘The Artist’s Eye’ immediately and on-demand. No it’s not technical artist’s jargon it is simple everyday thoughts that require you to ask yourself some basic questions about the object you are drawing.

Let me explain a little more. Has anyone ever tried to help you learn to draw and simply said to you, “Look! Just look harder! Stare at it and you will eventually be able to draw it!” I can clearly remember the frustration of not being able to see what I was supposed to see and gave up drawing at the age of fourteen years believing I just was not talented enough. I didn’t begin to draw until the age of 23 years when I turned to art as a form of ‘therapy’ to help me recover from a chronic debilitating illness. The illness changed my life forever, it affected all of my cognitive abilities and left me unable to walk more than a couple of metres at a time. Art became my life saver and I painted my way through the pain. I also discovered that I really could draw after all.

What I should have been told at that tender age of just 14 years, instead of, “Look! Just look harder,” is “Look and compare!”
The things we must give our brain to think about are questions and statements which involve four major comparison skills (that most people are born with.) Here are the four major comparison skills, these are the things we should be told to do when looking at an object in order to draw it;

• Look and compare the angles, lines and curves to a vertical or horizontal line.
• Look and compare the tones to a value scale and to one another.
• Look and compare the size of a part to the whole.
• Look and compare the object to other objects surrounding it and to the shape of our picture surface.

Once the logic reasoning part of our brain has to assess these four major comparison skills through asking questions and making statements about these comparisons, it becomes pre-occupied and no longer tells us things to prevent us from drawing. Through this process of asking questions about the object, you will find yourself able to draw better immediately because you are using your Artist’s Eye.

In summary; we can change the messages in our mind and access our Artist’s Eye to draw better immediately by simply using the Artist’s Language. If we give our logic brain a job to do we trick it into cooperating and working synergistically with us to actually help us draw, almost like magic!

Where to from here?

If you really do want to learn to draw once and for all, take the plunge, do the best thing you have probably ever done for yourself in your life; claim your right to draw and paint. Give yourself a well-deserved gift (just for being you) and press that enrol now button.

Here at Drawpj.com we will be there to help you every step of the way, you will always be supported in a caring and encouraging online community and together we will help you rise above and develop your artist’s eye

So if you want to get an insight into Moniques progress pop over and visit her blog.

Well done Monique!

“How do I know when my drawing/painting is finished?”

This is a good question!

Coming to the end of an artwork can almost be as scary as starting at the beginning. There’s always the fear that you could spoil or overwork the drawing or painting, and have to start all over again, or that you’ll never be able to figure out what’s not right.

Thankfully, as you become more and more experienced as an artist with well honed skills in your kit bag, that ‘knowing when to stop’ feeling gets easier.

Of course, when something isn’t quite right about an artwork sometimes its hard to put a finger on exactly how it needs to be corrected. Chances are that you’ve been working on your artwork for many hours, days or even months. At this point its time to take a rest, and look at other things for a while. Leave your artwork aside for a couple of days and then come back to it with fresh eyes.

When I get to this stage here is how I personally figure out the bits that are not quite right and in need of correction…

I just get that feeling…

To bring an artwork to completion I have to get to a stage where I have a calm feeling about it (or, if the artwork is intended to induce some kind of tension, that I feel that tension when I look at it).

Generally as I come towards completion of the artwork I figure out what needs some extra attention by standing back from the artwork and holding my hand up to block certain sections of the artwork from my view. I put my hand up to cover the bit that I think might have a problem. If I get the calm feeling (or correct tension feeling) once its coverered up, then I generally know that the bit I just covered might need some extra work. If its just a single line I’m having a problem with I might just use a single finger to cover it up and check it. When I get the right calm or tension that I intended then I’m done.

Of course the trick is to not overwork the artwork when making corrections, and thats where the craft of art comes in, and using the techniques you have learned to get to the result more directly so you minimise chances of overworking an artwork right at the end.

In relation to this course Cindy thinks about it this way…
(transcribed from the DrawPj.com forum)

If you feel uneasy about the image think about which stage of the drawing process it is that is bothering you. Break it down into smaller skills, is it the outline drawing? is it the levels of tone or is it the position of the object on the page; you learn more about that one in unit six.)

While you are in the beginner level of this course, you aren’t expected to complete your exercises with your first attempt so you are better off to leave it unfinished than to overwork the image. Once you have completed all six units of the course you will have a much better idea of where ‘finished is’. Our decisions about completing an artwork involve a lot of analysis and much of that includes compositional elements such as; balance of light and shade, texture and position and placement of parts of the object or objects within the format (shape) of our page.

The best way that this course works for you is like this; you draw the exercise from the notes until you feel that you have done your best, but always leave a tiny bit of space (in your thoughts and within the drawing) ready to accept advice for further improvement. Then when you submit your work you will be taken to the next level of drawing skill development by receiving some structured advice.

This is much different than if you were to struggle away at home all on your own; it can take us years and years to get drawing techniques right if we are left to our own resources. With assistance to fine tune your drawing skills you can instantly improve your technique. Daniel Coyle in his book ‘The Talent Code’ calls this ‘Deep Practice’ and that is what we are nurturing in the talent hotbed at drawpj.com.

In time as you move through this course you will develop a better understanding of where finished is; you will be better equipped to assess your own drawings, it takes time and a full rounded knowledge of the basic fundamentals of art. By completing your beginner level you will be provided with the very beginning of all those skills; its an all-encompasing course and it only really all comes together once the full six units are completed and then after that you need to practice and apply what you have learned .Suddenly one day it will all fall into place and you will get those gut feelings of when to or when not to finish. In the meantime, we are all here to help you.

Thanks to Bob B. for inspiring me to write this post and transcribe Cindy’s DrawPj.com forum comments.

The exciting thing about learning to draw is that you already possess natural gifts that you can combine to form the whole skill needed for drawing. You probably haven’t even thought of them as gifts before, but they are at the foundation of your ability to draw.

The most wonderful thing is that you don’t have to learn anything new, you just have to be shown how to combine these natural gifts in the unique way necessary for drawing, and, by using some drawing methods handed down to us from the great master artists the whole process becomes easier to learn in a shorter period of time.

Drawing with your four natural gifts

When I first realised I could draw at the age of 23 years, I became fascinated to discover where this ability came from. I thought a miracle had happened; that I’d suddenly stumbled upon a wonderful big secret. It took years of curiosity, investigation and study to fully understand that drawing skills stem from four natural comparison gifts that everyone has. Through patience, determination and perseverance, I managed to refine and combine these four comparison skills some traditional art methods and techniques to form the whole skill of drawing.

The more I helped others learn to draw, the more it became evident to me that everyone has these four natural gifts. I found that my students, who previously believed they couldn’t draw, were easily able to access each natural gift separately. However they needed help to learn how to combine them with traditional art skills, to form the whole skill of drawing. They too were soon able to draw with an incredible resemblance to the subject in a relatively short period of time.

In the following series of posts you can take a quick and fun quiz to discover your four natural gifts and the areas you need to work on to be able to learn to draw.

Relax… This is for fun and there are no incorrect answers! Click on the links below to get started.

• Introduction: Your Natural Gifts for Drawing Revealed
• Horizontal and Vertical Comparison
• Size Comparison
• Arranging Objects
• Light and Dark Comparison
• Conquering Artability Phobia
• Where to From Here? Refine Your Gifts for Drawing

You walk into your living room and there is a painting hanging on the wall. The painting is hanging crookedly. What would you do next?

(a) Get a strong urge to straighten it, and then adjust the painting until it is straight.

(b) You’d notice it, but would be perfectly happy to leave it crooked.

(c) You wouldn’t notice.

The above question illustrates what I call your natural gift of horizontal and vertical comparison.

When you notice a painting hanging crooked on a wall, you are actually noticing that the edges of the painting are not aligned with the horizontal of the floor, or the vertical edge of a wall. Most people have this ability to see something that’s not lined up with something else, but how does it apply to drawing?

When you draw, in order to place a line or mark on a piece of paper you unconsciously keep a track of the orientation of the horizontal and vertical edges of the paper so you can draw in the right place. You even do this when you are writing on a sheet of paper so that all the words stay lined up with the margin.

Knowing what’s up, what’s down, what’s level and what’s at an angle are all skills used in drawing and you already use them in your everyday life for day to day tasks, without even realising it.

If in the above question you answered (a) then you probably are quite used to using this natural gift in your everyday life, and just need to refine it in relation to the skill of drawing.

If you answered (b) or (c) I’d suggest that you simply take a real interest in looking around you for things that feel as if they need straightening, or levelling in relation to something else. As you become conscious of this ‘feeling’ you will soon see that you actually do possess this natural gift and simply need some exercises to refine it further in relation to drawing.

Now lets find out about your next natural gift…

• Introduction: Your Natural Gifts for Drawing Revealed
• Horizontal and Vertical Comparison
• Size Comparison
• Arranging Objects
• Light and Dark Comparison
• Conquering Artability Phobia
• Where to From Here? Refine Your Gifts for Drawing