Art Lesson Tips and Tricks

Hi and Welcome to Art Lessons online. This is the first of many blog posts to come, I’ve set up these tips and Tricks posts to help you to grow your drawing and painting skills. Whether you are an absolute beginner still drawing stick figures or someone with advanced skills that you want to develop further, I’ll be posting regularly with heaps of drawing and painting tips and tricks that I have learned along my own artistic journey.

As an artist, we are always growing our knowledge and techniques through learning and experimenting…and it never stops. I’ve setup this site to share information with you so that we can all develop our art skills as we are going along. While there are so many things that I want to teach you and share with you, I’m also hoping that my own skills and ideas will grow from the development of this site. Thats right, through posts and replies from you all, I’m hoping that we can all share new techniques and artistic experiences that everyone can learn from, including myself.

In the meantime, I’ve got so much information that I want to share with you that Im having trouble deciding what to tell you first. It might be best to start by introducing myself a little. My name is Murray Charteris and I have been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil. I clearly remember getting my first praise for a drawing at around the age of five. That small amount of praise from one of my grandfathers was enough to start me on my artistic journey and I havent stopped. At the time of writing this article that was 35 years ago.

Why is this important you might ask?

Well, one of the lessons that I will be sharing with you is all about the things that stop us from being able to draw, and how to overcome them. The process that we go through in our early childhood largely determines how well we have developed the necessary skills for drawing. There are a few key thought processes that once we learn and master, makes drawing second nature. In my case I was lucky enough to come across these skills at an early age and it was just that little bit of confidence from my grandfather that pushed me to experiment a little further and gain the skills of drawing. Through videos and posts on this site I’m going to share with you exactly what those thought processes are and how we can learn them at any age. Its never too late to start learning, I’ve had one student aged somewhere in her 80’s start to learn how to draw, and she loved it.

To get started on the journey, check out the videos in the “Your First Lessons” tab. Especially the video demonstration about drawing a lion, this reveals some of the first important information about the thought processes that we need to learn. Hope you enjoy and I’ll be posting more Tips and Tricks very soon.