The Essentials of Drawing: M1 with Alex Beckinsale

This is a 6 week course.

Artist Statement

Join Alex for a new course in 2024, The Essentials of Drawing. This comprehensive 6-week course caters to both beginners and seasoned artists seeking to enhance their skills. Delve into the foundations of drawing as we explore essential materials like paper, pencil, and charcoal, guiding participants to make informed choices. From mastering the art of precise linework to understanding proportions, and exploring a range of shading techniques, this course provides a structured and engaging platform to nurture your artistic abilities.

Course Description and Materials

In the first week Alex will bring along a range of materials for you to test + experiment with and go through which kind of drawing materials are the best to use. If you would like to purchase your materials AFTER this week please do. If you choose to do this all you will need to bring to the first session is some graphite pencils.

WEEK	Course Content	Materials Needed for the Session
1	Intro week to the course – This will be the foundational week for the course that will go through some essential info + involve some hands on experimenting with materials PAPER- What’s the best paper to use? And for What? This week we’ll explore different kinds and qualities of paper. We’ll test a range of different materials on these surfaces to find out what the differences actually are. (What does GSM mean? Should I buy expensive paper?)	set of graphite pencils, with grades HB, 2B, 4B, 6B Hard + kneadable erasers OPTIONAL 8/9B pencil A3 sketchbook (ideally a Canson, Millini, Quill or Derwent sketchbook. AVOID Mont Marte or Aldi sketchbooks, we’ll talk about why in the session)
2	Line + Line Quality This week we’ll talk more about how to approach creating a drawing by looking at line. We will look at how we hold our materials and how that can change the look of a drawing or give us cool effects We’ll also start drawing from still life set ups in this week	set of graphite pencils, with grades HB, 2B, 4B, 6B Hard + kneadable erasers Willow Charcoal (Coates or Windsor and Newton brand recommended) 1x 4B charcoal pencil OPTIONAL – ink pen
3	Object relationships + Negative Shapes This is where we’ll start to look at more complex still lifes/objects, working on creating final line drawings.	Same as the week before Small sable brush
4	Tone In this session we’ll do a number of exercises that will help participants understand tone in a new light.	Same as the week before Rag OPTIONAL – Blending stumps
5	Bringing it all together We bring all the techniques together in this week, and work on TONED paper 😀	Toned Paper (A2 Canson mid-tone grey paper) Charcoal Erasers Small Sable Brush White conte
6	Final Drawing Full session spent on a final drawing	Participants use the materials they enjoyed the most