When you’re starting to draw with pen and ink, what papers are best to use? How to make your own pen if you don’t have one handy? To learn about this and to view a quick pen and ink drawing demo, watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1oIQBsdkdE

What kinds of pastels and charcoals are there? How to apply them? Watch this two-part video to get answers to these questions.  First part will introduce you to materials, and second part will show you the process of applying charcoal and pastel as well as special tricks used for shading and highlights. Go to the links below:

Drawing with Pastel and Charcoal - Introduction

Drawing with Pastel and Charcoal - Process

Drawing with a line seems like the most obvious drawing method, but what exactly a line is? Is there a way to create a linear drawing that will also show the lighting and the volume of an object? What are short pencils good for, and what is the secret behind using them? To learn this watch the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz5SRz7wwXI

When the summer storm is coming, there is a moment of stillness. It feels like nature - trees, animals - everyone stops for a moment to listen. That moment of silence is vibrating, it’s not a relaxed state, but a very tense, focused listening. That moment before storm is full of silent music, of divine harmony.  This intence silence before storm inspired me to create this piece.

Shortly after we moved to Pennsylvania, we met a wonderful couple - Rose and Bob Brostoski. She is an artist, and he used to be in military. We became really good friends, and there came a moment when I felt inspired to paint her portrait, and then his portrait. They were created in the same long  format.

In 2007, the portrait of Rose won Best in the Show Award in Wyoming Valley Art League. And almost three years later, this January, I showed a few of my works  in Art Association of Harrisburg. One of them got the Best in the Show Award - it was the Portrait of Sergeant Brostoski. I have a feeling that it’s not so much the execution of these portraits that gets the recognition, but the human qualities of their subjects.

Olga Grigoryeva-Klimova is currently a student of Art Academy of Kiev, Ukraine. She paints in different genres, creating wonderful landscapes and portraits, but her still-lifes truly amaze me - there is so much beauty and joy in the way Olga paints glass, metal and porcelain. White teapot, silverware - it all becomes a feast for the eye.

Throughout my artistic career, I often experienced seemingly dead-end situations that made me  come up with unique and unexpected solutions. Here is one of such experiences.

On one of my trips to Pamir Mountains, I was drawing a landscape en plein air with pastel sticks. The view that I was drawing was simple yet very beautiful  - a mountain river coiling among the rocks with a thin bridge over it, bathing in sunlight. After I started my work, I suddenly realized that I had no ochre pastel - the major color for this particular landscape. I searched my pastel set a few times, but couldn’t find that color. My mind was racing in search for solution. I needed to solve this problem, and solve it fast, before the sunlight changed.

And suddenly I came up with an idea. I grabbed a piece of clay from the ground - it was just the right color - and tried drawing with it on my grayish paper. It worked! I was amazed. I realized then that pastels, especially earth colors are made from real clay - red, brown, ochre clay mixed with adhesives. I completed my drawing using clay mixed with other colors, and in my drawing, the earth was exactly the same as it was in nature.

That evening, we gathered with my artist friends showing each other our works created during the day. Everyone was amazed at how real the earth looked on my pastel drawing.

A few weeks later, one of my friends who was on that trip with me, visited my studio. He saw that pastel again, and again he expressed his awe at how real the earth looked. Then I shared with him the story that I just told you.

When we start drawing with pencil, what are the most  important aspects to concentrate on? What kinds of pencil strokes are there and how to develop good drawing habits regarding pencil stroke? You’ll learn more about that in this 7-minute video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX8fL3_iTLk

As it often happens with me, I was observing the kettle on our stove top for days, before I decided to paint it. The glow of the metal felt truly magical. As I began to paint, I started to find more and more color in this seemingly monochromatic set up. Hot oranges and cool blues, pinks and violets - they became truly joyful discoveries for me. I hope this painting gives you a glimpse of what I saw.

The excitement at autumn’s colors and desire to paint a few autumn landscapes made me pause my work on a series of compositions on Biblical themes that I started earlier. However, as the shades of autumn faded, I came back to that series, and here is one of my most recent works - “Noah’s Ark”.