Simple illustration

 Welcome to my drawing class! Learning to draw can change your life! It can help you get clarity, connect with other people, communicate your ideas and increase your creativity.  You already know that. In order to get you going as fast as possible, I have kept the lessons pretty short, especially the videos. It doesn't take much time to take the information in, and you are ready to tell your story with pictures! But you do have to commit to actually doing the lessons. And then draw whenever you can.  It is best if you draw every day.  Be it 5 minutes or longer. Just get into the habit of exploring and be curious about where the journey takes you. When you are drawing, slow down! And give some love to your drawings. This will improve your drawing skills and your general well-being! Because the commitment to learn is so very important, I have added a little contract with yourself to the next lesson.  Oh, and before you start: take a few minutes and draw something now! That could be a self-portrait, or a situation that you'd like to be able to illustrate in your business.  It will be fun to compare before and after drawings! 

Material You will need: A stack of plain printer paper – but it is allowed to experiment with other types of paper! I recommend using cheap paper to start with, because you want to do many drawings instead of trying to do the one perfect drawings! Pencil, pencil sharpener and eraser Thin black felt pen, best if waterproof.like.this one I also love this one which is a bit flexible. Try out what you like best! I use pens with a thickness from 0,7-1,2mm Something for light shading. Either marker – the lightest grey you can find, or watercolour, or light grey crayon. I use this one, but you can use a different one. I use Light Grey no. 102 and Soft Rose no. 203, plus yellow.  Or, just use yellow! You can even use normal text highlighters!  Crayons or felt pens or watercolour. Yellow, red, bright blue, light green. Light colours are best. Experiment!  You can also draw on the iPad or another digital tablet. You can use any drawing app that supports layers.  My favourite apps on the iPad are:  Concepts (My absolute favourite, I use it every day! It is the most flexible. Great for simple drawings  Procreate (the most popular. Great for painting, and very useful for retouching photos.) Sketches (maybe the easiest to learn and it has a beautiful watercolour brush) GoodNotes for notetaking and very simple drawings - black line + highlighter. Might be perfect for you!  Another possibility is to draw black lines on paper, scan it with a scanning app like "Carbo" or "Dropbox", and then colorize your drawing on the computer in an app like Gimp or Photoshop.  

I introduce you to the basic technique, and show you a few tips and tricks.  You can get far with mastering these faces. Choose a version you like best, and make it your signature figure!  There are two mistakes that I often see in my classes:  Slow down. Don't try to "get it over with" and rush to the next thing (where to?) Give some love to your drawings! And then some more. Visit them every day if you can. It is like meditation and will probably improve your life quality. Plus you'll get some nice drawings out of it. Don't draw the neck too thin! Ir might be interesting for you to see some former participants' drawings, and my feedback: 

Tarja wasn’t quite happy with the figure on the right. I show how I would add a bit more emotion to the drawing, Put yourself in your figure’s shoes, and feel it! Then, replicate your posture in the drawing.