Prompt
- Choose a room in your home that you think has a distinctive “personality.”
- What is it about that space that distinguishes it from others?
- How does that space make you feel when you are in it?
- Show us what that space means to you, tell us a story.
Examples
Ginger Medrano, Wadalafer, Ashley Tanelle, Neil Espinosa, Crissie
Tips for Drawing from Life
- Drawing from direct observation is an important part of this prompt.
- Being physically in the space you are drawing will greatly influence your drawing process.
- Take note of little visuals moments in this space that you normally wouldn’t bother looking at.
- Work on your drawing at the same time of day, so that the lighting is consistent, or, draw at night with artificial light.
- Including figure(s) in the space is optional.
Tips for Drawing Space
- If you’re drawing an interior space, it’s really helpful to include 3 planes: the ceiling, a wall, and the floor.
- You can certainly do 2 planes, but the sense of space is tougher to capture with only 2 planes.
- People often leave out the floor, but the floor is really useful in terms of grounding the objects in the space.
- Search for where objects overlap, it’s a simple way to show how objects are organized in the space.
- Pretend you have “X-Ray vision” and sketch the objects so you draw them through each other, it’s a lot easier than trying to draw an object around another.
Thumbnail Sketches
We recommend doing about 6 small thumbnail sketches to explore a diverse range of options for your composition.
Start your first thumbnail sketches with line and think about how you want to place your subject onto the page.
art media
Use any 2D media!
Paint Media
Visit these pages for supply lists: watercolor, gouache, acryl gouache, oils, water mixable oils, acrylics.
Drawing Media
ballpoint pen/gel pens, dip pen, brush pen markers, Caran d’Ache crayons, graphite powder, colored pencil, soft pastel, oil pastel, pencil, charcoal, ink wash, scratchboard, wet charcoal, oil sticks
DIGITAL SOFTWARE OPTIONS
Digital tool recommendations, Procreate, Krita, Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Paint Tool SAI, Adobe Fresco, MediBang Paint, Gimp
Why Your Art Needs a Background
Do you rationalize to yourself why your artwork doesn’t need a background? Time to stop making excuses and see the immense potential that backgrounds can have on your artwork, regardless of the media you work in.
Backgrounds are not just visually rich and dynamic, but they contribute tremendously toward communicating a narrative, atmosphere or tone to your artwork, they are a powerful tool you don’t want to skip on!
Discussion with Art Prof Clara Lieu and Teaching Artists Cat Huang and Deepti Menon.
Elements of Art: Space
This video explores space in 2D artworks, one of the Elements of Art. Topics include how to create the illusion of space in a 2D artwork, ways to create depth through atmospheric perspective, point of view, and articulation.
Discussion led by Art Prof Clara Lieu and Teaching Artist Lauryn Welch.
