Hi Fun Fab Drawing Club member! I hope you've been having a fantastic week! Did you get a chance to work on last week's new lesson? In case you didn't, we did the drawing portion of this adorable Norman Rockwell-inspired holiday project! 

For today's lesson, we'll be coloring our Norman Rockwell drawing with alcohol markers. If you're new to shading with alcohol markers, you might want to watch this lesson first for beginners to get familiar with them here.

👇This is a really great alcohol marker project for beginners as well. 

If you've already got all the markers you want/need- let's dive into today's alcohol marker coloring project! Use whatever your favorite supplies are for coloring if you don't have or don't prefer to use alcohol markers. Here's what I used...

It's super important to know that the exact alcohol marker shades do not matter at all. I grab whatever color I feel like, in whatever brand is within reach. ALL alcohol marker brands blend well with one another.

Just keep in mind that for every color I use, you can use 20 different ones that would still work! With that being said, I'm just going to recommend the number of shades in each color family and then you can grab what you have.

You'll need 2 shades (dark and light) of:
Red (an orangey one and regular one)
Beige
Skin Color
Brown
4 shades of:
Grey + Black

I also use color pencils in similar colors. Again, brands and specific colors aren't that important. Use colors that match YOUR marker colors and you'll be good to go.

You should definitely make sure you're using fineliners that are pigment or water-based like these one: 
Fineliners like these are very affordable and a better option than Sharpies (which should not be used with alcohol markers) https://amzn.to/3DKH0i8

I'm using my Molotows in a variety of nibs.
Molotow Fineliners https://amzn.to/3Bp41GF
​
Sakura Jelly Roll 1.0 big nib https://amzn.to/3SQ2inE used for highlights (along with white color pencil).

👉Ready to get started? Let's go!

I've got you!! This project is definitely a bit advanced, not gonna lie! If you're not feeling ready for this one yet, I've got TONS of alternative lessons for you to choose from. 

👉If you're feeling Christmas-y and haven't done a project in a while, it's possible you missed the Holiday Cards series, inspired by Anne Keenan Higgins. I know the holidays are literally next weekend at the time of this post, so you may just want to do these as drawings in your sketchbook, or turn them into bookmarks instead:)

👉The Fun Fab Florals Classroom has the moon project shown above, as well as some other alcohol marker projects that are great for beginners. 

The Fun Fab Figures Classroom has lessons with just ONE figure as the subject, so that might feel less intimidating for you as well.

I hope you have FUN with whatever you choose! And remember, you can ALWAYS hop over to the Visual Index to choose whatever project looks most appealing to YOU today :) 

We are in the home stretch of December and starting to wind down for time with family and friends for the holidays. More awesome-ness is on the way, with our NEXT Brain Stretches & Sketches Friday, January 5th!

Happy December Fun Fab Drawing Club member!!

If you've been hanging out with me and doing the latest lessons each month, last week's Norman Rockwell-inspired lesson was a PERFECT warm-up for today's NEW lesson! 

If you didn't get a chance to do that yet, I HIGHLY suggest you spend the extra hour there FIRST, before starting today's new videos.

Since both the drawing and shading portion of today's new lesson are fairly involved, I decided to just release the drawing portion today so you can take your time and work on this in chunks over the week if you'd like.  Next weekend, we'll bust out our alcohol markers and have fun FULLY bringing this Christmas-y duo to life, Norman Rockwell style!!​

Drawing supplies are minimal today. I'm drawing with my .4 mechanical pencil on Bristol, but you use whatever you have and love!! 

👉Ready to get started on this 1-Hour Lesson? Me too!

You've come to the right place! There are SO many amazing projects to work on in the Fun Fab Drawing Club!! If you're in the holiday spirit and didn't get to join me for the last Brain Stretches & Sketches LIVE, this cute elf was really fun!!

This adorable elf COULD be your holiday card this year if you are still looking for something fun to send out with a personal twist!

In fact, if you didn't join me for last month's Brain Stretches - I taught the club how to take a photo of your work, upload it to Canva (for free) to digitize it, then upload that image to VistaPrint to get cards printed featuring your own artwork! Timing could be tricky with today being the 10th, but you still might be able to make it work! 

​If you're not celebrating any holidays right now, or are a bit tired of working on expressions, there are TONS of other options to consider. 

You could totally transfer your knowledge about expression drawing to the Fun Fab Furry Friends classroom! 

I have some adorable lions, cats, and dogs (PLUS a happy baby orangutan!) in this classroom. If you take a look at the thumbnails for these lessons, look at where basically the whole expression resides on each animal. Inside the eyes, right?! And in some cases the ears. They're SO cute!!

If you haven't tried drawing any doors, window, buildings, etc. yet - let's step up your drawing game and increase your skills with some fun, fab facades!  In this classroom you learn all about perspective inside and out, plus how to do some urban sketching. This classroom could literally keep you busy for WEEKS and is going to help your skills as an artist GROW SO MUCH!! 

Choose whatever looks most fun to YOU. There's every subject under the sun from my childhood home to a country church, a lighthouse, a forest, cityscapes in London, and of course... A CASTLE!

If you've been enjoying expressions and working on faces, you might love to transfer some of this knowledge to the Fun Fab Fantasy classroom! You can experiment with drawing on toned paper, adding fairy (or elf!) ears and simply enjoy a different spin on face drawing projects. 

If you like the projects in the Fun Fab Fantasy classroom as much as I think you will, you might also REALLY love the Celtic Collective! You can see the Visual Index for the Celtic Collective by clicking HERE.

The Celtic Collective works just like the Fun Fab Drawing Club, except Lucy Brydon co-hosts the club with me and provides video lessons too! Plus- everything we do has a fantasy art theme to it :) 

If this is something you're interested in, shoot me over an email at Karen@AwesomeArtSchool, and we can get you hooked up with THE WONDER BUNDLE - which is ALL 3 CLUBS for the PRICE of TWO! 

Have an amazing week my friend!!

Hey Fun Fab Drawing Club Member! Welcome to December!! Are holiday decorations, cards, cookies and the works already in motion for you? 

Now is the PERFECT TIME to take a break from all of that and do a little drawing!!

Recently I was at a local used book store and found this AMAZING coffee table book called Love & Remembrance, featuring illustrations by Norman Rockwell. I've always been in awe of his work, and thought it might be fun to see what we can learn from his extremely expressive faces.

​For today's lesson, we'll be studying six of Rockwell's illustrations of young boys. Their faces totally crack me up! As a boy mom myself, I've seen ALL of these expressions and more in my own kids!

You'll find 2 PDFs of these reference images from my book in the classroom for today's lesson. ​

I kept things super simple supplies-wise for this lesson. I'm just using a Blackwing pencil and some cute cheapie mechanical pencils I found with colored leads, along with a little sketchbook I picked up at the dollar store. Use whatever you have on hand and love most! 

👉Ready to get started? Let's start this 1-Hour Lesson!

Were you able to join me LIVE last Thursday for Brain Stretches & Sketches?? Our little Christmas elf project was SO much fun!! Isn't he just the cutest?! 

In case you couldn't join me live, you can still have a blast with this project by watching the replay! Heads up - it's about an hour and 40 minutes, but remember you can stop and start as often as you like! 

If you didn't get to do any lessons last month, you missed a BIG ONE! We did three sexy figure drawing sketches to go along with the sexy/sultry expression we learned not too long ago! They were SO much fun, and can be found in your Latest Lessons for November, or in the Expression Sketchin' Classroom.

If you enjoyed the above lessons already, there are lots of other figure and sexy face drawing project ideas for you to check out HERE.

If you've been thinking of illustrating your own holiday cards but have no idea how to go about that or how the tech piece of a project like that might work to digitize your design and get the cards printed, I have the PERFECT lesson for you!!

Last month, we did holiday art inspired by Anne Keenan Higgens during Brain Stretches & Sketches and I took you step-by-step through how to take a photo, upload it to my favorite FREE drag-and-drop design program (Canva), and how to upload that design to VistaPrint! You should totally check it out! And remember- if you don't send holiday cards, you could do a variation of this project to print a bulk order of birthday cards to send to friends and family throughout the year, or any other holiday or occasion you send cards out for! 

If none of these ideas float your boat right now - definitely head over to the Visual Index so you can scroll through all the project images to find exactly what you've been looking for! ​