Week 5:

Your painting doesn't have to take up only one page - it can span two pages, or more! Your artwork can get as large as you'd like, extending it up, down, left, and right. No longer are you confined to the edges or even shape of your drawing pad.

Continue working on your piece - that could mean more paint, or adding another medium, or continuing to glue more pages.

Keep in mind that there's beauty in understatements.

Week 4:

Imprimatura literally means "first paint layer" in Italian. This centuries-old technique has been beloved by masters for many reasons. In this class, we want to experience the benefits of an imprimatura while contemporizing the approach by using bright and unexpected colors for the underpainting, rather than a classic brown.

Continue this technique by painting the imprimatura with a different color. What haven't you used yet?

Week 3:

You can create any scene, as realistic or surrealistic, as you'd like with the pushpin and string method. Here are a few things you need to set up before you draw so that your scene looks convincing.

1. Both vanishing points are at your eye level (on the horizon line)
2. The vanishing points / eye level never moves
3. The vertical edges of your surfaces are always vertical (parallel to the edge of your paper)

Click here to watch the video about Chongqing, China's "vertical city" I talked about in class.

Click here to watch gameplay of the game that manipulates perspective to solve puzzles.

Week 2:

There's nothing more intimidating than a blank piece of paper; that's why in this week's exercise, we started by "messing up" the paper and creating random blobs, to then inspire us to contort our hands in different ways.

What if you don't know what to draw? Draw yourself! 

There's many ways to personalize this exercise, such as what you draw over the blob - it doesn't have to be hands. What else would work?

Week 1:

Sketching from videos imitates the process of sketching an animal from life. Instead of sketching from a video - take your art making out of the studio and into the real world: to your living room, or a local animal park, or even the zoo!

Click here to read more about the controversy around van Gogh's sketchbook.