I just discovered the power of youtube and desktop recording software

I love to write more than anything else in the world. But there are some things that you can’t really show with text and pictures. Also, some people just learn better with video. So to be helpful in that way, we’re going to be posting videos in some of our tutorials on how to draw and create other forms of art. Please comment and let us know what you think.

These tutorials were done using Photoshop CS2. Don’t worry, we’re getting a digital camera soon so that we can post video tutorials on how to draw traditionally.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Tags: Art Tutorial, Digital Art, Photoshop, realistic, shading, Tutorial, Tutorials

Bonjour mes amies! C’est va?

First off, Alex and I apologize for being down for the time being. We forgot to update our publisher, so we were hacked. Alex contacted the wonderful support people at PowWeb for being amazingly awesome and rescuing the site. They truly are THE BEST! Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart! I say it again: YOU ARE THE BEST!

In other news, Sketching House is now on Facebook! Type in Sketching House in the search box, and become a fan!

It’s the wonderful and beautiful month of September! The color begins to fade from the trees, the air turns more crisp, children are back in school, and fall festivals are about to start! I can’t wait! With the fall festivals comes pumpkin roll, and with pumpkin roll comes a very happy Mari! I LOVE pumpkin roll! If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend that you do because you will NOT be disappointed!

Class started again today, and so far, I love the composition class. Tomorrow’s class I already know I will not like. *Yawn* But like you guys care, right?

In that case, how about a tutorial?

I just recently discovered how to create a wood texture in Photoshop, which is really neat and very simple too. So, if you want to create boxes and even trees, this is the tutorial for you. Click to read more …

Tags: Creating Texture in Photoshop, Layers in Photoshop, paint tutorial, Photoshop Filters, Photoshop Painting, Photoshop Shading, Photoshop textures, Photoshop Tutorials, Shading in Photoshop, Wood Texture in Photoshop

I’ve been practicing more intricate skin tones for the past week. If you spend your whole life looking at photographs, you might not realize how much color is on skin. Much of the color found in skin is not picked up by the camera, but you can put these colors in a painting. When setting out to create skin tones, most artists do not realize how many colors are in the skin. Besides the pigmentation, there’s redness in the cheeks, blue or green in the chin, sometimes yellow in the forehead and other colors that end up on the skin because of reflection and colored light.

Click to read more …

Tags: Blending, Color, coloring, darkness, eye, face, forehead, hair, high, highlights, iris, Lips, shading, strands, Tones

Shading… and highlights

There is nothing quite like shading in the world of drawing. Shading is one of the most important parts of realistic drawing. Shading also plays a major role in the stylistic aspects of animation. Shading tricks the eye into seeing 3D on a 2D plane. With shading, an object can really jump out at you.

Shading can be as difficult or easy as you want it to be. Light from a powerful and consistent light source like the sun, creating a gradual increase in the darkness of tones the farther you get away from the light source. Objects can block the light source and create shapes that have defined or blurry edges. Shadows can occur gradually or can be cut off abruptly. Highlights shine and sometimes even reflect images opposite of the object you are drawing. Shading can be a pain and creating guides on how to shade can be a pain. But the results are oh so worth it.

There are tons of ways to shade. Since there are so many factors that affect shading, one of the easier ways to shade is to break shading down into different components. Also, since different kinds of lighting and different objects interact to create different shading effects, with this guide I am going to focus on skin and hair with an overhead sun.

Learn to love shadows. The only way to truly learn shading is to observe objects and their interaction with light.

Click to read more …

Tags: Blending, high, light, shading, Tones

Good afternoon everyone! Oh my goodness, Alex and I apologize for our VERY LONG absence. As mentioned in a previous post, Alex and I had a summer class, and it involved A LOT of writing and research for our final paper. So again, we apologize. For those of our faithful viewers who stuck with us through our absence, thank you. Faithful viewers like you keep us alive. I’m sorry for sounding like a public access television station, but it’s true.

I’ve received emails from people asking how, when an image is colored, to shade white objects and clothing. One of the main complaints is how an object looks “dingy” or “dirty” when people shade using shades of grey. Well, shading white objects and clothes is something I learned a few years ago when I was still in high school. Grey does drag white down and often makes it look dingy. White is suppose to be crisp, clean, and fresh. I discovered that using shades of aqua help with the shading process. Why? Aqua plays off the white, making the white pop off the paper/screen and shout “CRISP!” Additionally, the white also makes the aqua pop creating the illusion of true shadows. Of course, in the non-drawing word, objects that are white often have grey shadows, but remember, when drawing, sometimes art doesn’t intimidate life. Let’s that a look, shall we? Click to read more …

Tags: Aquas, coloring techniques, coloring white, drawing tutorial, shading, shading techniques, shading white, white

Hi everybody; Marisol here. I’m sick today, so I didn’t prepare a real tutorial. I haven’t posted in a while because I bought a Nintendo DS (yay!) with my tax return, and I’ve been sick. I think I have a cold or the flu, but I rebound quickly. Let me update you on a few things, though.

This has been quite the interesting week for Alex and me. Monday, our linguistics class was cancelled, so we went and sold some movies and got a Super Nintendo! Yay! Too bad there was no AV plug.

Finally, today, Alex and I were about to get attacked by some angry guy in a purple Ford Ranger. It was my and Alex’s turn at the stop sign, so it was our turn to go. Well, Mr. Purple Truck decided to pull out in front of us as we were going through the stop sign. He honked at us even though it wasn’t his turn to go; Alex honked at him. The guy in the purple truck pulled over, swung his door open, and was rushing up to our car ready to fight! Alex drove off and we thought the guy was gunna follow us to fight! People… sheesh! Crazy, crazy people.

Okay, so our week wasn’t that eventful. Oh well. Good stuff, anyway. Tala should tell you guys about HER week!

Okay, so someone recently asked me about shading techniques and how to not make drawings seem so sketchy. Well, I have some tips to offer. Ready to begin? Awesome! Click to read more …

Tags: Art Tutorial, Blending, blending tutorial, crosshatch shading, how to blend colors, How To Shade, shading, Shading Tutorial, traditional Art

Oh my God, do I have a lot to say! Bear with me, folks, I’ll try to make this as brief as possible with a bonus tutorial! Yay!

First news on the docket: I am currently applying for a job in Japan. Yes, Japan! I’m currently applying for a job as an English language teacher, which goes along with what I plan on doing with my life. I want to teach ESL students, so teaching in Japan is MORE TRAINING than what I can get at my university. WOW! I am so thrilled about that! I would have a lot of perks, I would get to mingle with the people I LOVE SO MUCH, and leave the country for a year! Yes! Pray that I get this opportunity of a lifetime!

Second, Tala is officially a student at my university! YES! I’m so happy for her! Now if we can just raise money for her tuition…

Thirdly… I forgot what my third thing was.

And what is with men? Last night, I hinted to my boyfriend that he could come over to visit me today. I HINTED not so subtly! Apparently, not so subtle was way too subtle because I am currently boyfriendless and lonely. *Sigh.* Class starts in a few days and that means I will see him, but less so because of work and stress. Hopefully, our semester together doesn’t suck as much as last semester did. I’m tired of fights, coldness, and bitterness. *Sigh.* Hope for the best, I suppose.

See, I told you that was brief.

For today’s tutorial, I’m feeling a little lazy (I was sick–girl issues), so I’m going to use a tutorial I did for E-How over the summer. Today, I’m going to show you how to shade by stippling. Stippling is done by using a series of tiny dots to create the shading effect.Stippling may be time consuming, but it is fun and creates awesome effects. Lighter and largely spaced dots are for light shades; slightly darker and medium spaced dots are mid-tones; tightly packed and dark dots are for dark tones. So, do you have an image handy? Alright! Let’s go!
Click to read more …

Tags: Art Tutorial, Bottles, Complaints About Men, drawing tutorial, ESL Teaching, Japan, Kyoto, Men, Period, PMS, Purdue University, shading, Shading Effects, Stippling, teaching, Tones, University