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Links to the renowned Glenn Vilppu's bi-monthly online column which appeared in Animation World Magazine have been put below for your easy reference. First an introduction "Never Underestimate the Power of Life Drawing" and 11 lessons in the figure drawing course followed by 12 in the "sketching on location" set. Though the series finished a few years ago, Animation World Magazine continues to generously host these online. Glenn Vilppu advises going through the first set before trying the ones on sketching. Dont miss out on them. Drawing Never Underestimate the Power of Life Drawing Vilppu Drawing Online: Gesture Vilppu Drawing Online: Spherical Forms Vilppu Drawing Online: The Box Vilppu Drawing Online: Introducing Material and Proportion Vilppu Drawing Online: Drawing Ellipses Vilppu Drawing Online: From the General to the Specific Vilppu Drawing Online: The Landmarks of Anatomy Vilppu Drawing Online: Seeing Anatomical Masses Seeing The Figure As A 2D O...

A knowlege of anatomy is a must if you are interested in learning to paint, draw, or sculpt the human form. I first saw a copy of Gray's Anatomy in my sisters hand. She was in medical college and every student world over has had a copy to study. Much later, when I saw a reference to it on Bartleby.com off I went to investigate. There I found an incredible figure drawing resource - 1247 engravings from Henry Gray's "Anatomy of the Human Body" for you to access online. Use it to study, draw or sculpt the skeleton, the muscles that cover them and how our joints move. At least those are my plans :D Here's a link to an index of these engravings . Happy Figure Drawing!

More learning to draw links. This time from one of my favourite sites WetCanvas. They now have a separate sub-forum, The Classroom , devoted to teaching people to draw step-by-step with lots of attention and instruction thrown in. There are now two levels, the Basic 101's for beginners and the 102's for those who have graduated. Have a look and join in, you wont regret it. Happy Drawing! The Classroom Basic 101 Pre-Class assignments and Faq's Class1 Basic Structure of Objects—Straight Lines Class 2 Eye Level: Foundation of Perspective Class 3 Drawing Cubic Objects Class 4 Drawing Cylindrical Objects Class 5 Drawing Spherical Objects Class 6 Drawing Conical Objects Class 7 EXAM: Putting it all together Class 8 Light and Shade Class 9 Book Report and Project Assignment 2 week class Class 10 Still Life Class 11 That Ol’ Black Charcoal Class 12 Swabs: Not Just for Ears Anymore! Class 13 Outdoor Still Life Class 14 The Human Figure—GO FIGURE! ...

Here's a new site that I came across yesterday while googling how to draw water and reflections. It's called Suite 101 and has lessons on a whole bunch of subjects ranging from architecture to modern history to world theater. They also have a section on Painting and Drawing under Visual arts. I have selected the lessons by Joan Martine Murphy whose lessons I've started reading. I found them interesting and I hope you do too. Drawing Lessons by Joan Martine Murphy Lesson 1: Getting Started - An Introduction to Journaling. Lesson 2: Line An Essential Ingredient. Lesson 3: Creating Depth Lesson 4: Colour Lesson 5: Transparency, Reflections, Shadows and the Art Of Illusion. Lesson 6: Abstract methods: Lesson 7: Gestalt - Something More Than The Sum of the Parts Lesson 8: Collage Creation.

In my last post , I had talked about an incredible source for lessons in Painting. Charles Sovek has very generously made his book, The Basics , available on the web, for free, from the very beginning. You can have a look at each lesson and if you find them useful maybe pick up a copy from his site . There are many more resources there for you to discover and I had covered a few of them in an earlier post . Line Contour and Gesture Overlapping Sight Size Drawing Drawing a Complex Object Drawing with Shadows Tonal Drawing Tone Painting a Value Scale Painting Blocks in Tone Line to Tone Square to Round Painting a Solid Form Patterning a Composition with Tone Painting a Solid Form Patterning a Composition with Tone Popping Your Lights Basic Lighting Conditions Dissipating Light Different Kinds of Light Crest Light Hollows, Accents and Highlights Color Color Values Painting Blocks in Color Reflective Color Color Temperature Color Intensity Underpainting Averaging Lights and Shadows Ke...

A couple of days back there was comment asking for help on starting to draw and paint. I'd asked him to join the WetCanvas! Classroom forum and to look up some additional sources from this site. This morning I got a newsletter from drawspace . I find that it is growing to be a wonderful online resource for drawing lessons. These are divided into 3 levels - beginners, intermediate and advanced. drawspace also has a forum which is slowly growing and the activities are focussed on drawing with pencil, charcoal, color pencils and pen & ink. All the lessons have been written by one person and you have a choice of viewing it for free online or downloading the pdf version for a small fee. Brenda Hoddinott whose lessons populate this website is amongst other things a self taught artist. She is currently working on a new website along similar lines for Fine Art. Today, Mayank has got an update with details of this site as an alternative and few other suggestions one of which I shall ...

Haven't had a go at making art digitally? There are at least two really great pieces of software out there for you to try. One that I've mentioned in an earlier post and Corel's Painter IX.5 . You can download a two month trial version. It is the fully functional version, nothing has be disabled. Here's a WIP that i've made with Painter.