My first observational drawing workshop 'An Introduction to Observational Drawing'.

​My first observational drawing workshop 'An introduction to Observational Drawing' was held last Wednesday at Tindalls Art & Graphics in Cambridge. During the first part of this workshop, I introduced my students to one of my favourite mediums: fine-line pen, and taught them how to use this medium effectively focussing on shading and mark making. I have found personally that using fine-line pen in observational drawing rather than pencil helps an artist to become more direct, decisive and in flow when creating drawings from observation. During the second part of the workshop, my students spent several hours drawing a scene that I had set up in the workshop space. Here, I focussed on getting them to develop their observational skills and learning how to translate these observations onto paper, refining hand and eye coordination, becoming more decisive and direct in their approach to drawing and also to be creative in their compositions. During the last part of the workshop, I briefly introduced the group to the medium of watercolour pencil as a means of adding bits of colour to liven up their monochromatic drawings.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous before teaching this workshop as I myself have always intuitively known how to draw from observation and how do you teach what you have naturally always just known how to do? Somehow however, I managed to find a method that seemed to work and I enjoyed watching my students pick up on the lessons that I was trying to translate to them. In the end, all of them managed to gain some grasp of how to use fine-line pen as a drawing tool and I enjoyed watching their drawing and observational skills develop and improve as the workshop progressed.