Blyth Online Art Classes

Exploring doodling using any material you have to hand (e.g. pens, pencils, felt-tips, highlighters, watercolour.) You can utilise throwaway packaging from around the home or from a takeaway. Drawing from whatever takes your fancy; objects around you, photographs, imagination or a combination of each. This is a great workshop to learn about circular narratives.

Learn how to draw your hand. Marianne is right-handed and uses her left as a subject, if you are left-handed please use your right as the subject. Drawing is a fantastic way to learn and interact with the world. All that you need for this simple tutorial is a pencil, paper, eraser and pencil sharpener. Marianne currently teaches an online drawing class for the Blyth Music and Arts Centre called Drawing Together and a summer school programme is about to be advertised with Imperial College short courses.

Sarah Gillham will show you how to make a plaster relief of an impression of found objects (Sarah used handprints, wildflowers and Captain America!). This process involves using a clay mould to take the impression. You can stop at this point or continue to make a plaster iteration. This is a fun process which you can do with a child, it’s a bit like making a cake!

In this Short film Thomas Hylander shares a technique using blind drawing to make quick caricature portraits. Drawing from photos or using a mirror draw without looking at your paper. The drawing will definitely be wonky and full of warped mistakes and nothing like the face you used as source material and that is the point. Use this as a basis for your caricature by adding some shadows and details to tie it together. The mistakes and distortions gives a surprising new perspective. Enjoy.

Drawing from within, is a freeing, loosening up, subjective drawing exercise. It is especially good if you have artists block. This exercise will allow you to simply draw without worrying about finding a likeness to something. Surreal imagery will appear later on through suggested forms. There is a great freedom to change your mind throughout the whole of this lesson.  Your drawing will end differently each time you do the class.

Clare Wilson will show you about sketching from a still life with water soluble pencil crayon. Use the materials quick and sparingly to keep work fresh.

An exploration into contorted expression using mixed media. Here Tom uses graphite, acrylic pens and cooking oil, allowing the materials to spill and bleed into each other, adapting and reworking as he goes along.

All you need is a pencil and piece of paper to do this. I would avoid using a clicker pencil, like I used!

If you give it a go, please do share on Instagram and tag me in @blyth_arts

Thinking and making through repeat investigations into the same object. This is a great way to find your subject and try out different elements of an object without getting too precious about your artworks. Investigate different ways to depict such as shade, tone, pattern, form, colour and movement. Enjoy happy accidents and then look at how you have made your image in relation to the thoughts you first had about it.

Blind drawing with Mindy Lee. A freeing, quick and fun approach to drawing. This technique allows you to tune into your speed and gestures without the need to worry about the look of your work, with surprising results.

A fast and slow mini introduction to working with gouache, covering selection of paper and brushes, and a pattern exercise to get you going.