How to Draw and Paint Balloon Writing

This is a fun typeface for posters or birthday cards or banners. you can see this and all my other videos in schools at www.shoo-tube.com

How to draw and paint a Shark

Here’s a video that shows you how to draw and paint a shark. They make my blood run cold, but some people like them and want to draw them!

You can see these videos in schools and libraries by going to my own video website, www.shoo-tube.com – enjoy!

How to draw a cute cartoon Japanese Geisha

I was asked to draw this by a YouTube friend in Croatia! I’ve always loved Japanese things so this is the result. She doesn’t look very Japanese. Everytime I tried to make her look Japanese she was either too much a weternised stereotype or it looked like an 18th century print. Have a go anyway.

If you can’t see this at school or in a library because Youtube is blocked, then go to my own site www.shoo-tube.com which is allowed through most content filters in schools.

Ha ha ha! – The laughing cavalier

Following on the post about shooshing up old portraits, inspired by the work of children I met in Milan this week, here is a picture of me as Frans Hals’ The Laughing Cavalier! I thought I do it because my profile pic on FaceBook has been of me being an astronaut for a while and needs refreshing. Here’s the astronaut pic too. I did it because my facebook friends were posting picture of their alter egos. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was young. Now I’m older, to be a jolly old cavalier reprobate seems to be an equally splendid ambition!

Ysgol Y Foryd

When last I visited Ysgol Y Foryd, I think it was still called Towyn Infant School. They still have the drawing and pictures that I did up on the walls – it’s always interesting to see them! I left behind a couple of big books last time. The Libraries recued them for me and I was finally reunited with them yesterday – and very pleased to be too – I only ever had one copy of Slug Makes a House, and it’s such fun to read in the big edition.

It’s unusual to meet a male Early Years teacher, and Mark Patterson made an impression on me last time I visited. He has a wonderful way with the children. I watched him work the electronic white board, flipping from a photo of me drawing to a drawing program, he got a child out to draw on the screen as I’d shown them how to do. Instant electronic recording and teaching – just what the electronic whiteboard does really well.

You can see the pictures at their website here.

Thanks a lot for a great day everyone, especially ElenHaf Jones, from Conway Libraries, who sorted everything out and “minded” for the trip! Remember to get town to the Library, borrow all my books and make Elen happy!

How to draw a Daffodil for St David’s Day

Just in time for St. David’s Day on March 1st, here is a lesson in how to draw a daffodil. St David is the Patron Saint of Wales. For my international readers, England is not the whole Island of Britain. Wales is on the west and Scotland is on the north side of England. Ireland is an island on its own to the west of Britain.

Wales is a country with its own language and culture. The Daffodil is the national flower of Wales.

I am English. I live about six miles from the Welsh border. My children went to school in Wales where they learned a bit of Welsh, my Grandmother was a Welsh speaker and I lived in Welsh-speaking, wild, West Wales for a while, when I was starting out as an illustrator. I learned a tiny little bit of Welsh in all that time. I was sat on my own for most of the time – you need to hear a language all day long to really pick it up.

You can always draw daffodils to celebrate spring or for a Mother’s Day card – which isn’t too far off either.

Speed drawing – just for fun

I know I like to watch the speeded up drawing on YouTube, so I thought I’d put one up there myself. Here you are a a speeded up bulldog drawing for your entertainment and amusement.

St Patrick’s Day Shamrock – Drawing School

My Valentine Rose drawing school video has proved very popular and on the strength of it, I’ve been asked to draw an Irish Shamrock for St Patrick’s Day. Here you are…

Colouring-In Worksheets

We didn’t have photocopies to colour-in when I was a lad. The teacher would draw diagrams on the blackboard and we would copy them or we would trace maps from books and draw them in or exercise books. Some smart kids had plastic templates in the shape of Great Britain and several other useful countries. I remember drawing around them when they lent them to me and I remember tracing the shape of the UK on hard toilet paper and rubbing it down onto the alternate blank pages of my geography exercise book – alternate lined and blank, that is.

Miss Sherbourne used to make amazing multicolour chalk drawings on the blackboard that we would copy. We would try and keep the drawing un-erased for as long as possible – maths lessons would be written around the drawings of red squirrels.

The act of drawing the outline so many times has built neural pathways in my brain such that I can do a pretty good map from memory, freehand. If you have only ever coloured-in worksheets and have never drawn the map from scratch, you will never be able to do this.

The act of drawing creates neural pathways along which extra data about the subject is scattered, so, as you draw the map, you recall where the towns are and the names of the rivers. The act of drawing reinforces the lesson learned and helps to recall the information later. Remember – a picture tells a thousand words. Then why do we not teach drawing and include it as a major part of literacy? Why spend so much time analysing a piece of text that can be explained in a simple drawing? Why, when literacy has been top of the list of education, has the major language of literacy, i.e. drawing, been downgraded or even abandoned?

Photocopiers and worksheets are at the root of the problem. If you don’t like drawing or, have been told you are rubbish at drawing at Education College, it is so much easier to find a worksheet, photocopy it out and get the kids to colour it in. Colouring in makes it pretty. It does not create neural pathways.

Now the blackboard has gone – replaced with the smart board. The board may be smart, but is is smart to use it? There should still be a white or blackboard alongside – as large and as prominent.

Colouring-in is a past time. If you want to learn – don’t color-in anything you have not drawn yourself.

How to draw a fierce Lion

Bethan and her little brother, Thomas, asked me how to draw a fierce lion. Well here you are – follow the instructions and – Voila!

Remeber there are more lessons at my online Drawing School.