There are many different art styles that can be implemented in a drawing. From realistic to sketch, these styles are all unique and useful in their own ways. A drawing course at Los Angeles Valley College, LAVC, teaches numerous art skills that are useful for students to use in their pieces. From my experience in this class, I can strongly say that learning these distinctive skills helped me improve in art, especially drawing, over the past few months.
A recent art skill taught in this drawing course is cross hatching. Cross hatching is used to create shadows. By adding more lines in a specific portion of the drawing, it will have more value, differentiating the darker and lighter tones. Cross hatching is an ideal technique for those who want to show texture in their art. This technique can be applied differently for everyone, so it presents individuality in a drawing. Based on how one uses cross hatching, various types of styles can be visible; hard, strong lines show a sense of depth and contrast, while light, loose lines can make the drawing seem delicate. Using cross hatching in a drawing is definitely challenging, however, it is a fascinating technique to learn.
Pointillism, known as stippling and consisting of using points or dots to create value, is another skill learned in this drawing course. It is a technique championed by a French artist named Georges Seurat. The idea is to paint little dots of color to appear as a drawing when looked at the whole picture. This technique can be similar to cross hatching, as the amount of dots shows the changes in value from light to dark.The more dots which are placed closer together onto a paper, the darker the value. Pointillism is especially difficult because it takes so much time and effort. Using this technique in a drawing was enjoyable, but tiring for me, as it took large amounts of time to draw all the dots. Stippling and Pointillism is another interesting art technique that is fun to implement into drawings.
The last, major art skill the drawing course worked on was using charcoal to draw different textures, such as drapery. Charcoal is an extremely difficult material to work with. It breaks easily and is very messy to use. Drawing drapery is also a skill that takes practice to perfect. The different folds in cloth all have different shadows and shapes, which makes creating an accurate picture is very difficult. Drawing drapery in charcoal was the most difficult assignment for me to fulfill. It was hard to maneuver the charcoal on the paper to use light and dark values. Despite all this, I am enjoying my drawing course at school.
Learning about these different art techniques is very interesting and entertaining. Even though I am not invested in art as a career or hobby, I enjoyed these new skills and implementing them in my own drawings.
