Hi, welcome to this drawing course.

My name is Stephen Davies, I'm a Senior

Lecturer in Product and Furniture Design at University for Creative Arts. So, in this
introduction I'm just going to explain, you know, what you will gain from the course
and to start off with, I just wanted to briefly cover the equipment that you will need to
complete the course. Now you will basically need a number of pencils, I would
suggest an HB, a 2B, a 4B and a 6P and obviously something to keep those
sharpened with, and then the only other thing that you need for the course is a putty
rubber, now they come like this and after a while they end up more like this, they are
particularly good as you can mould them, you know, to rub out in a much more
accurate way. Now, some of you may also like to explore the techniques covered on
this course by using a digital pad and a sketchbook programme, now that's
absolutely fine, those techniques won't be taught on the course but everything you
learn on the course could be applied to using, as I say, a screen and a digital pen, if
that's what you wanted to explore. I'll be teaching you with a traditional pencil and
paper so obviously you will also need some quality cartridge paper. These drawings
here, this drawing here and those I've produced for the course are on a A2 size, you
could work smaller, but I would suggest when starting out an A2 size paper is better,
and finally whilst you don't need a drawing board, I mean I have an angled drawing
board here, you will need a flat surface, so a flat clean table would suffice. So,
talking through the stages of the course and then I'm going to explain to you the
types of drawings you could produce as you move on with your practise. So, the first
stage of the course starts at real fundamentals, this course is really aimed at
someone who's a beginner, someone who might be refreshing some basic schools
they have, so I envisage that you're coming to this subject for the first time. So one of
the aspects on the course will be exploring is drawing free hand straight lines and
being able to do this confidently and with consistency, that may sound straight
forward but I have found over the years of teaching the subject that its’ a
fundamental that many students struggle with. So this will involve a number of
drawing practises, drawing straight lines across the page, that parallel, you can see
here, all free hand, all with confidence, straight lines down the page these ones
being 90 degrees to the ones across the page and parallel to each other and also we
then move on to drawing lines between points and you can see a number of points
here, a free hand, fluid, confident straight line. Now that's one of the first aspects
done in a number of stages that the course will cover. We then move on with those
techniques to starting to draw structures, these simple rectangular blocks on the
page, starting with one and then this example moves on to two, again this has a
number of straight lines and point to point lines and we start to explore where you
could use thick and thin line on the drawing to help these shapes stand off from the
page. Now you can see from this drawing how this then progresses to starting to
think just initially how this could be applied to actual objects, so we have the
confident use of free hand straight lines, the system we use on the course works
around two-point perspective, two points being here, perspective where the shapes
recede and get smaller as they head off into the distance, and again, we will start to
make an initial exploration into the practical application of this, I mean here, we
started with the number of blocks that you are would have gained confidence in from
the earlier session, and we’re starting to envision then as potentially a house and a
street, here moving on a stage to putting this triangular, pitched roof shape on top of
the rectangular block, still with the thick and thin line and also initially looking at
some shading. As we move further we get more complex, so this shape is an
abstract shape but teaches you lots of transferable skills that you can apply to your
drawings, so we look at this diagram here and how that can create a circular shape
in perspective, we’ve then got a hole in this block, a protruded cylindrical shape from
the block and there's other protrusions here, with some shading and the thick and
thin line, again, an abstract shape but some skills that you can transfer to all sorts of
other drawings. We also explore, you know, shadow, how this can help this shape to
sit on the page. Now, the final drawing we produced on the course is starting to
apply these skills to a room setting. Now again, the skills you will learn will be
applicable to subjects such as architecture, interiors, product, industrial design, so
here we have an interior setting and you can see how we're applying that circular
theory, here for the top of the arch and the top of the chair, obviously just a half circle
but the same theory, and we've got objects, we've got a room setting, we've got our
horizon and we've got our thick and thin line and I'll shading. Now once you've got to
this stage in the course, which is the last drawing that I teach you, I talk you through,
you, I then believed you will have transferable skills to start drawing confidently your
own objects, a whole range of other objects related to art architecture, interiors and
product, industrial design. So let's just look at some examples of these, now, these
are taught on the course, I've shown you the aspects that are taught on the course,
but this is where you might start to apply those skills. So here we have, you know,
the start of an interior setting, this we have as what could be a rack of shelving, as a
product or furniture, here we've got the start of what could be buildings receding off
into the distance, all using exactly the same techniques that are taught on the
course. Again here we have the start for room setting, with a cutaway wall, again,
another example of a room setting with a block in the room, and here, you know, we
can see how some of those exercises that you would have learned on the course
could be applied to starting to explore a street scene with these buildings, windows,
doors and pavements. A similar drawing but again, here, you know, we have the
window in the room, some simple furniture again, using the thick and thin line
techniques that are taught on the course, and another example of a building starting
to take shape, again, you could use the skills and techniques from the course to be
doing your own drawings like this. This example here, at the top here, we've got
again, a building and another building, with a pitched roof, which I covered earlier as
an example of something that's covered on the course, so you can combine the skills
in different ways to start to explore your own designs, and again another simple start
of room setting with a, with a, the window here built, you know, built from the theory
that we cover on the course around the circle in perspective, you can see the horizon
line in there with some shading. Now, the theory of drawing the circular shape and
extending that, that's covered in the course, this is another example here of just a
simple cylinder that you could start to explore much further what that cylinder could
be, in terms of again, architecture, interiors, product, furniture, industrial design. This,
again, is the start of exploring a product, could be a bottle, could be a whole range of
things, and again this is simply using the theory that's covered on the course that
starts with a rectangular block, you have the theory I teach of the of the circular
shapes and where extending that out, so again, extending the practise you learn
from the course, you could be starting to explore this in your drawings. This takes
that a step further, a much more resolved bottle shape, but again, whilst now looking
more complex, it does really use the basic theory that's covered on the course. Now
this starts to apply some of the theory from the course, where you might be drawing
products, again an electronic type device with a screen with buttons, thick and thin
line, shading, now the theory you will learn on the course can be transferred quite
simply to a whole range of shapes just like this. And again, this is similar, you know,
we're looking at circular shapes, using initial block shapes and breaking these down
with triangles which you would have covered with the technique used for the pitched
roof, this time down a different angle, you know these could be the start of simple
product forms that you might want to draw based on what you've learnt on the
course. Now here we see a sheet that explores, you know, the kind of theory
covered on the course and starts to imagine how we apply this theory of drawing the
circle in perspective, but this actually is an enlarged view of a piece of, a piece of
jewellery, so we have a jewel here mounted into the circular piece and linked with,
with a chain effect. Now, this technique is actually just taking a number of the
methods and techniques taught on the course and taking it to that stage further, you
can see really the relationship there with the circle and starting to explore that here,
you know, as you move on with practising what you learn on the course you'll gain
more confidence, but we still have to circle, you know, the cylindrical shape and the
hole and thick and thin line. So, this is an example of where you might take what you
learn on the course and take it on further. I mean this is another example of a simple
room setting, we've got this trellis type object, again, it's, whilst it's different, it's only
using the kinds of theories that are cover on the course and this this ring feature
here. Now, it might be that you want to use the course for things like scenery design,
for example, theatre, so this is a simple example of someone exploring, it’s an
example of mine, this is this is a simple example of exploring a stage set really, the
steps was not covered on the course, are using exactly the same theory that the
course teaches you, you know, we have the arch here a slope which again, is just a
triangular piece, so yeah, with practise from what’s taught on the course you could
be moving on to apply that theory to things like theatre stage scenery. So, that's
really what is covered on the course, in brief, in the first half of this discussion and
then showing you really, how you could extend that into your own drawing practise,
and also just, just, talked about the simple tools that you will need, you know,
pencils, something to sharpen your pencils with and the putty rubber and, you know,
you may want to explore these techniques digitally with a digital pen, whilst that's not
taught, the techniques could be applied in that fashion as well. So, I hope you enjoy
the course and I look forward to seeing you in the first proper session.