National Drawing Day of Ireland, Saturday 18th May 2013

Saturday 18th May is the National Drawing Day of Ireland and I am delighted to be hosting an event in Northern Ireland. The aim of National Drawing Day is to give everyone the opportunity to draw for the sake of drawing, under the guidance of an experienced tutor.

Student drawing on location - Ulster Museum

Whether you'd like to draw for pleasure or to improve existing skills, this is a positive, fact filled fun experience for eveyone to participate in.
If you love drawing but haven't done it for years, or if you draw all the time and simply can't get enough, then why not take this opportunity to connect with the power of drawing in a hands-on workshop with me in Belfast School of Art. The event is completely free.


No matter what level you are at this workshop will help you see things in new ways and help you create drawings that serve you in design, or self expression. Numbers are limited and booking is essential.

Students drawing on location - Belfast City Hall

Sessions will be for all levels of experience, with a variety of subjects and media, learning to observe in new ways and understanding space, shape and form. Numbers are limited and booking is essential. There will be several sessions throughout the day, and students need to bring their own materials.

Students drawing at the museum

Student drawing - out the window at the Art College

If you've always fancied going to art college, this is your chance!

For full information and booking please call 07730 560 517 or email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

(please note this is not a childrens class).

All About Green. Apples in Water Colour.

I've always loved green, and while I wouldn't say it's my favourite colour, I know I feel better when I'm in the woods or looking out at the garden. I work in a sun room at the back of my house and all around me is green. Fantastic. 

Recently I set a restricted colour exercise for my students - this is a great thing to do, to reinforce student understanding of how colours mix, by reducing the options. To make it harder, I added a glass bowl.

Students were only allowed to use one yellow. If they used Lemon Yellow, the greens were cooler, if they chose Cadmium Yellow, the greens were more on the side of Olive Green. There was no wrong choice, it was all to see what mixed with what. They used Payne's Grey to intensify the dark tones. 

Above: Shirley having a really good look at her work. I'm impressed with the number of sample colour dots she did on her page - excellent! 

By Nuala T, student

Linda A, student

J. Mc, student

By Helena S, student, who has been accepted to study Illustration at Bournemouth college of Art! 

I am holding an Open Day soon to display my work and the work in progress of my students. Keep an eye here for details. 

I am delighted to also be hosting a free drawing event in Belfast as part of Ireland's National Drawing Day on 18th May 2013. I will post details on venue and the plan for the day as soon as all is confirmed.

Tip toe through the Tulips, Water Colour, Moleskine Sketch book

I love tulips, and I love spots. And I really love pears.

Tulips are a lovely subject - a complicated mass of leaves, which are nicely explained in swathes of greens (try mixing Cerulean Blue with Lemon Yellow for a lovely range of 'spring' greens), and deceptively simple petals. And what colour ARE they anyway..? Permanent Rose gives a lovely clean purple, with the added bonus that it's on the bright side as well.

I started with a clear accurate line drawing, which included surface information of shadows and the pattern on the cloth etc. 

Tulips in spotty jug,  by Julie Douglas

I've had this spotty jug for ages, and only painted it once before, in oils. It was lovely to paint in water colour. 

I set this as the subject for my weekly classes, who asked for it to be carried on for a second week. Lets hope the flowers last - just in case they don't, I asked all the students to complete the flowers first, and work on the jug and cloth next time. They have made an excellent start - below are some examples of student work in progress. 

Jayne got a bit carried away and has made early progress on the fabric. Delicious. 

Patterned fabrics are less difficult to paint (who knew?!) as they make the folds and creases clearer in the way the pattern breaks up. Ikea do great, strong patterns for painting. 

Next Up - weekend water colour workshop, portrait workshop, oils and weekly drawing and painting classes. For info email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Q: What's the difference between a Line Drawing and an Outline?

A: All the difference in the world. 

An outline is that imaginary place around the edges of things, where the object ceases 'being', and becomes the background. 

Nothing actually HAS an outline. All things are fairly solid, and just Are, or Aren't. To draw a line around the edge is fine, but if it's all by itself, it doesn't constitute a Line Drawing. 

A Line Drawing provides information, using lines only, about all areas on the subject, INCLUDING, but not exclusively, the edge. A Line Drawing is like a map of the entire tonal range, shadows, markings, outside edges, reflections, everything you see before you, but without the addition of actual tones or shading. 

A drawing which is the outline only is (or can be) an empty, sad and soulless thing. A Line Drawing, on the other hand, can be a fabulous expression of the contours and shadows and all aspects of the subject, but without the use of tonal areas. A Line, expressive?? YES. 

Are you following?? !

Below are three stages of a drawing as sent to me recently by Distance Learning student M L-S. The first shows a heavily simplified outline drawing - this is much more difficult to draw because you are having to edit most of what you see in front of you.

  

In the second image (above), I lay tracing paper over the first drawing and added more of the 'explanation lines' - the missing information about all the shadows and reflections etc that are visible on the surface of the objects. ALL of these were addressed in the 3rd drawing (below) in the tonal study, but it is much less painful to include the 'internal' information (or Surface Information) in line as you do the initial drawing. The drawing at the top is an Outline Drawing, above is a Line Drawing.

Lovely pencil drawing by Distance Learning student Marianne L-S

Below are more lovely examples of different students line drawings, to illustrate that there is more than one way of dawing in line. These were all done by 1st year Art students.  The 1st, 2nd and 4th are all sketch book studies, size around 12in x 8in, the 3rd drawing was A1 - enormous. As you can see, all the drawings use a variety of weight of line - so that some areas are deemed more important than others. Using the same quality (or type) of line throughout the drawing would create a dull and lifeless drawing, but the use of thicker, heavier or lighter lines not only creates interest, but also serves to provide a certain amount of depth. 

Next Up - Children's Drawing Day, Portfolio Workshop, Big Drawing Day, Water Colour workshop.

For info email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

When a Distance isn't a Distance

Technology and the internet has transformed our lives, and there's no going back, only faster and faster forward.
This is very exciting, and just about anything we can think of can be reality very quickly. However, this doesn't mean that everything happens quickly. Change is rapid, communication is instant, BUT the skills we need to be really good at something take almost as long as they ever did. This is not a bad thing, it is just the way it is. And perhaps the learning of deep skills is the saving grace that people are seeking - the time and focus required to be really good at something is in that place where the fast-moving world can't reach, once we start focusing - it is a mindset, a choice, a commitment, a discipline.

One of the beauties of the internet is that it reduces miles between us. It means that we don't have to be beside the teacher any more. This week I accepted a new student for Distance Learning - she is in Kansas City Missouri, 4164 miles from me. Or a click of the mouse. It's so exciting to exchange knowledge and create new bonds across the globe - or just across the pond.

And because the requirements of students is different I am beginning to personlise the courses so students get to venture more into areas that interest them individually. This makes it never endingly interesting for me too.

So while students may rightly regard their creative learning experience as a journey, they aren't alone. It's my journey too. In fact, I'm the navigator.

Distance Learning - for info on the course, which has modules in Drawing, Water Colour, oils and portraiture, email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Pencil Drawing, portrait first stage

These drawings are the first stage in a portrait commission. I don't always do a full tonal drawing but I really enjoyed spending the time on this. It took 11 hours in one sitting to do both studies.

I drew them quite freely as I wanted them to look like a drawing - the aim was to give the client an idea of scale, rather than get a strong likeness at this stage, although it does look like the boys.
Working in Black & White helps focus attention in the right place, without the distraction of colours. A portrait is about the people, not the colours.

Next up - Big drawing Workshop, Portrait Workshop, Distance Learning kick-off, Water Colour Landscapes & Skies, Oils workshop. For info email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

'Little Star' Guitar, step by step colour pencil

This is a small artwork, a commission where the client was giving the artwork to the guitar player, David Bell. He calls his guitar Little Star. I decided to use colour pencil as the strings would have been incredibly fiddly (excuse the pun!) if I'd used oil paint.

As you can see, I start with an accurate line drawing of everything. 

This is so that when I add the colour, all I have to decide is what colour I need, not where to put it. 

                          A careful series of layers.

And a close-up to show the pencil strokes. Bear in mind that this IS an enlargement - the lines are small and close together, not long, and with an even pressure - not heavy. More and more layering means that no lines at all are showing in the end result. In colour pencil, less is not more, more is just enough.

Little Star, by Julie Douglas, Colour pencil on Bristol Board, approx 14cm x 14cm

For info on courses, workshops, events and commissions,  email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

A few yummy shoes, pencil

Recently I got my classes drawing shoes - very good fun and loved by all. Here's a group shot from the Thursday Girls.

One of the important things to consider BEFORE we start drawing is the view point. Rather than just plonking an object on the table and getting stuck in, it pays off to spend 5 or 10 minutes playing with the height of the object - try putting it on the floor and looking down on it, or putting it high so you have to look up at it. With these shoes, I put them on a box on the table to make them roughly eye-level. Much more interesting.

 Raising the viewpoint by just a few inches can make all the difference.

Lovely colour pencil study by Pat F, student.

Textured pencil work, by J McI, student 

Drawing - always the best route to everything else. 

For info on courses email jule@juliedouglas.co.uk

I'm bananas about you...

Close-up from Lucy's water colour

Recently I held a children's class, for just three extremely enthusiatic young ladies, aged 8, 10 and 13. Quite a range in ages, especially as they didn't know each other. But impossible to tell their ages from looking at their artwork.

Focus and attention.

I was delighted with their attention to me, their willingness to persevere, their warm laughter together which I could hear while I was in the kitchen making them a cup of tea, and of course, the wonderful paintings they produced.

Lucy's banana, complete with heart motif!

Look at how much care they are giving - softly applying the paint, mindfully getting the right pressure on the brush. I had expected to cover two subjects during the session, but the girls were so engrossed in this exercise, and learning so much from it that I allowed them to keep going. So these paintings took two hours to complete, and not a sigh or a moan from any of them. Pure joy.

Add caption

Given the right  materials, constant encouragement and explaining what they should look for, until they FIND it, allows people of all ages to produce the most stunning artwork. From 8 to 80. (Though I had a lovely student on my distance learning course who was 92 at the time. How fabulous is that?) But more even than the artwork produced is the process involved in doing it, for these young people - focus and concentration are life skills, the ability to stick with something even when it is difficult (because we all know how to quit already) is confidence building, sharing that striving in a group situation increases the learning value and exposes students to alternative ways to solve similar problems - helping them see solutions instead of problems, in an atmosphere where they cannot fail (for I won't let them) and the satisfaction of getting to the end is priceless.

So, although I'm mad about their bananas, it's only a little bit about the bananas. Its all about the everything else.

Well done girls, you're brilliant and I look forward to doing more. xx


Next up: Portrait workshop, Oils workshop, Water Colour workshop and childrens classes. For information emsil julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

What do I do?

I have just done a straight eight day teaching run, which included five late nights and ended with a talk to NI CTC (which is the Cycling Touring Club, to you and me) entitled, 'What I Do'. Astonishing how one can wonder, before doing a talk like that, What is it that I do..? Fortunately, a good rummage in the storage boxes turns up a lot of paintings, and I remember that Oh yes, sometimes I do THAT!

I was glad that my work is small, making it easy to pack up and transport. 

It's not that I don't know what I do, it's that I do many different things, and working out which one people want to hear about is always interesting.

Tiredness manifests in interesting ways towards the end of a long run of classes. By day seven I was feeling a bit vague, and admitted to the students that I was feeling.. er...indecisive. Today, I think I've passed myself going round the corner.

Many paintings and drawings have been successfully brought into being during those days. At the weekend I had a truly international group of students - from Donegal, Dublin, Wexford, Co Down and OMAN!

Pears in Oils. Top, by Sarah B, student, bottom, by Geraldine O'K, student.

Niamh and Robert, poetry in motion, practicing their water colour washes, in unison! 

Some students were  doing Oils for the first time, others were working towards portfolios. We covered a lot of ground - water colour, drawing on location, observation studies and sketch book work. Everyone was out of their comfort zone for some of the time.

Fabulous drawing by Niamh, who thought she couldn't draw... 

Next up - Childrens Drawing class, Belfast.
email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk for info

(ps - I notice lots of uninvited ads on my blog, and I'm working out how to get rid of them. Bear with me!)