Second week.

Lysolperson,

Brava! I can tell you are making the beans, bean. Much better than your last posted session. Great work. Keep Making those Magic Beans. I see so much improvement in such a short time. Take your bow, collect 200 dollars, but keep working on it.

The next thing to try is: as you make your strokes, concentrate on the pressure you place on your pencil. Let your lines express the light you see with these four types of line:

• Thicker


• Thinner


• Lighter


• Darker

Pick two and draw each section of your lines and circles that make up your beans.

As you draw, call out what is happening verbally in the flashcard and express that line quality using the artist's hold instead of the writer's hold of your pencil. The verbal reinforces the physical. It can be a huge help for some artists.

Not sure what that hold is? Okay, let me show you.

•  Hold your pencil the way you were taught in school. This is the writer's hold. It is great for detailed work and handwriting. But it is not so great for expressive lines. 


• Now, hold your pencil the way you hold your knife if you were to cut a bit of stake. Draw a continuous line on your page using the four words above, alternating between them as you make squiggles.  


• ->Do you see how you can get a thicker line by flattening your pencil more and bringing it closer to the page by using all of the exposed graphite? 


• ->Or how you have to rock your pencil up to the tip and further away from the page to get a thin line?


• Now all you need to do is vary the pressure and Boom! instantly better beans made. 



• ---

  >You can get even better results if you work with woodless pencils or cut more of the wood away from the graphite so that it is exposed for more expressive line quality. 

Holding your implement in an artist's hold forces you to draw from your elbow and shoulder. These have a greater range of motion and, consequently, will make your lines have a better directional flow to express the figure.


If you have never used the artist hold, you may feel tempted to switch back to the writer's hold because you may feel like you have more control and less weak throughut your whole body. 

• Don't. Stop drawing, your tierd. Take a break, streach and come back using the artist's hold.

You most likely learned the writers hold around the age of 4-5 years old when you started school. How old are you now? Yeeeah, your artist hold is a baby. You have to get strong and practice a lot for it to feel natural.

On that note, if you are able, work out your arms, shoulders, and core, cause these can help you draw for longer periods of time. It may sound silly, but strength training is really good for aritsts cause it can help prevent injuries by working all the muscles in the area you use to draw your images. 


I hope this was helpful.

All of the best,


JCML Fine Art