Drawing at Penn State

As part of my goal to get more creative outlets in my life, I am taking Introduction to Drawing from Penn State this semester. The course is kind of strange becasue it is offered through the web. For each lesson, we watch a video or two introducing the topic, then have two practice drawings and a main drawing due each week. We submit them by photographing them and then posting them to the course website. So far I am finding the instruction rather superficial - sort of along the lines of "go draw this", as opposed to anything telling us about what we should be looking at, or how to make it better. We are supposed to get feedback on each of our drawings, but as the due date has not passed yet, I have not seen how that works. I wish we could see what other students are submitting, sort of like if you were in a classroom you would see what your classmates were drawing.


So here is my first practice drawing. We were to start lightly drawing the outline of a flower or leafy branch (tricky to find in mid-January in PA!), and then when we had an outline we liked, darken the outline as one line.
For my second practice drawing we drew the outline of an object with an interesting contour. Then when we liked the outline, we were to fill it in with a watercolor brush and India ink to create a silouhette. I might have cheated a bit by leaving hints of white, but I liked the effect. I'm not sure how a watercolor brush counts as drawing, but that's part of what is left out of the instruction I guess.

I will keep you posted on my drawing adventures.