Still life with coffee cup and drapery - pastel

Drawing or painting drapery, whether it is table cloths, cascading cloth or just a napkin, can be one of the most beautiful subjects in art.
Though to draw convincing drapery and realistically represent the folds needs a lot of exercise.

Here is one of my doodles, a still life with drapery in pastel.Still life - drapery study in pastel-50cm x 70cm

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Sketches, doodles - Teaching is the best way to learn

As I said in my previous post, I am not very good at drawing; that's why I write about how to learn to draw.

Once upon a time I thought that teaching is an easier job for a woman than engineering, so I obtained a teaching certificate and I found myself teaching in a vocational school.
To be prepared for the students onslaught of questions, you feel compelled to give them the best you can or else, you can lose their respect forever.

I must confess, I hated it but it was a continuous learning for me too.
After seven years of teaching I’ve come to realize one abiding truth: the best way to learn is to teach.

At the left, these are some of my doodles. Most of them are made at work, on common computer paper, during a boring meeting, waiting for someone and similar waste of time.
Here are some of my drawing tutorials:
• How to draw a rose in five steps.
• Human face drawing - face proportions.

According to a study published by Applied Cognitive Psychology, doodling helps a person's memory significantly (as I have found out at Wikipedia).

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Thoughts about learning to draw - pencil drawings

Natural talent for drawing is a wonderful gift if someone is that lucky.
If not, drawing skills can be learned by anyone to a certain extent.
Being a civil engineer I have been drawing technical stuff for many year now.

Even if I know the basic principles, creating artistic drawings is not so easy.
As long as in engineering logics and details are of great importance, as an artist you have to do the opposite.
Just let go of any pre-conceived notions and simplify, even if logically it does not make sense! Not to put every little detail in a drawing or any artwork is the most difficult thing to do for a tech-minded person.

On the left side of the page you can see some of my drawings.
For someone who knows nothing about drawing it is much more easier to learn, starting from scratch.
If you're just starting out it is a good idea to take some drawing courses and also to read as much as you can from the numerous online drawing lesson.
Be aware that nobody and nothing (not even your carrier) can determine you to learn to draw if you don't wish it with all your heart.

So, why not learn to draw on your own!
All you need is a pencil, a piece of paper and the most important: interest, dedication and much much exercise.
Here are some great online resources for learning:
• Learn how to draw a rose in five easy steps.
• Learn to draw online.
• Drawing and Sketching - Resources for Artists
• Andrew-Loomis-Fun-With-a-Pencil

And now that you have the resources, you may not have the time to exercise.

There is a very interesting technique to exercise in just a few seconds, I shall tell you about it in a future post.

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Early Morning in the Valley - Landscape painting

This painting is a 45.5x40.5 cm (18x16 inch) oil on canvas.

The inspiration, as always, the surrounding landscape.
In this painting I tried to capture the morning mist slowly evaporating as the sun rises in this beautiful valley surrounded by the mountains.

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Art sites and tutorials

Here are a few valuable art instruction resources and sites with painting and drawing lessons, video demonstrations and beautiful artworks.
 I hope you'll enjoy visiting them.

• Art Instruction For Beginners - Art Instruction Blog
  Free art instruction and other great resources on a variety of different mediums including oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolor, drawing, pastels and more! 


• Watercolor Painting Free lessons and tutorials
  Watercolor painting step by step lessons and watercolor painting technique tutorials by Gregory Conley


• Free art lessons with Julie Duell
  Painting and drawing tutorials, free children's ebook.


• The Paint Basket Opening Info - Paintbasket.co.za
  Step by step painting demonstrations, videos, workshop and seminars .


• Richard Robinson Gallery
  Oil Painting Lessons for download and DVD from world class impressionist painter Richard Robinson.


• Bansemer Studio and Gallery of fine art
  Roger Bansemer paintings and painting demonstrations, DVDs.


• Lorraine (Gosbee) Vatcher
  Acrylic painting gallery of artist Lorraine Vatcher


• Artist and musician Larry Seiler
  Paintings, demos, videos, workshop


• Video tutorials on painting.
  Great number of video tutorials, selected from Youtube, painting and drawing demonstration, on my website.

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