Only mounting one of your own can allow you to appreciate the effect of quality mounting. A white border will make all the difference in the world.

To mount your painting in a very simple way you will need a sheet of clean and thick white paper. It has to be a few inches larger in each direction than the size of the painting. It’s impossible to give exact dimensions because they depend on too many things, but if your picture is 20 inches by 10 inches, for example, try to find a sheet of paper at least 26 inches by 16 inches. Narrow borders are better than no border at all, but they are not as good as wide ones.

Placing your picture correctly on its mount is very important if you want it to look as nice as possible. You have to put the sheet of white paper on a flat surface and then you have to put the painting or drawing on it, in what seems to be the best position.

Strangely enough, the painting will not look its best if it is exactly at the centre of the mount. The left-hand and right-hand margins should have the same width, but the margin below the picture should be a little wider than the one above it. If you do differently, the picture will look like it’s not firmly mounted. It won’t look as steadily placed, as it would if it was a little above the centre. If you don’t trust your judgment in placing your paintings on their mount, just do a little calculation. 20 inches from 26 inches leaves 6 inches. Divide this equally into two, and you will find that the left. and right-hand margins should be 3 inches each. 10 inches from 16 inches also leaves 6 inches. lf you decide to apply the rule for the top and bottom margin you should not divide equally, but into 3½ inches and 2½ inches, you will be able to make the top margin 2½ inches wide and the bottom margin 3½ inches wide. This way, your mounting will look better proportionned.

If you agree with this arrangement, mark the correct positions of the corners of your painting with small pencil marks. Then remove the painting, put a little glue on the back of each corner and put it back between the pencil marks on the mount. Put something heavy but clean on it while it dries. Then pin it up. You will be surprised how much better the painting will look once it has been correctly mounted !

Using a third approach, Piet Herzeel makes the link between Visual Ray and Perspective showing us that all this is, first of all, a matter of vision. He explains how our eye aims at a main point around which Perspective gets buit up. It is a fact that, when we fully use our eyes, we focus on a precise point and, around that point, we feel the presence of a certain area with a very uncertain shape.

In the « discover » workshop we’ll understand why and how construction of Perspective depends, before all, on the observer’s position. What we call « the point of view » will allow you, once you fully understand the importance of it, to judge and feel your drawings more fully.

Knowing how to build in Perspective is important, but the observer’s point of view, which is the drawer’s point of view in most cases, will have a certain weight in the perception of the subject.
Piet Herzeel demonstrates, always with precise exemples, how different points of view can produce different emotions.

The workshop will help you to put in practice simple rules that will help you to find the principal point and the horizon line of any subject according to the angle. But the question is : can you do this freehand without any outline ?

Your turn now… Try out Piet Herzeel’s « drawings to do » and enjoy a few constructions of his own, made to challenge you !

Therefore, the artist must ask himself the right questions in his observation work. But the animal of your choice, whatever it is, will not pose for you. Piet Herzeel is giving us a method that will allow you to grasp the essential shape of your subject before he takes a position of no interest for your drawing.

The whole method is described in the « Discover » section of the module: « THE FIVE VOLUMES ».

First, we must start with an observation work of the five specific volumes of your animal. These first outlines will give you the essential of your subject’s aspect. You will be able to touch it up later whatever position your animal decides to take.

Before practicing on the animals around you, go to the « Practice » chapter in order to make a first attempt on the rocky mountain goat. Piet Herzeel gives you step by step details on what your eye must look for.

But that’s not all. You will find some extra training exercices with the sketch tool supplied in the module. Several animals of different species to draw in a limited amount of time. A little bit of stress at the beginning because of the countdown but you will be asking for more after you’re done.

With this method, you can show Piet Herzeel what you can do in the « drawings to do «  gallery.

You can pick your own model or one of those displayed on Signus.

The question is: will your sheet be big enough ?

This module is full of surprises. A present is actually waiting for you there and one last advice if you haven’t checked it out yet: go to Gallery/museum on Signus and admire « the young hare » by Dürer. The observation work is amazing.

Our free trial on SIGNUS is actually a wonderful entrance hall to the world of drawing. It’s not designed to actually give you a certain level but rather to show you what drawing really means, how much time you will need to reach the level you want or what kind of satisfaction you can expect.

As for the full SIGNUS course, on the other hand, I can say with no hesitation that, for most students, a very high level can be reached. For some, it will take 6 months and for others, 18 months. It all depends on the amount of time invested by each one according to the availability.

Technique as well as creativity are both necessary in any artistic occupation. Those elements play a major role in the student’s improvement and they can be quite different depending on the person.

One will often be more at ease in an area more than in the other and, when both aspects meet, that’s when the work can become a masterpiece. That’s what I wish you to discover if you decide to follow the full SIGNUS course.

The free trial is not a full class, it’s only an initiation. It would not be honest on my part to let you think that it will make an advanced artist of you. You can find, however, plenty of fun and discoveries in the world of drawing. No need to reach for a level, then. It doesn’t have to be a goal in itself. You should, instead, ask yourself what could bring you a good amount of satisfaction and joy in your life. Drawing is practically a way of life. Think it over…

Piet Herzeel

If you want to learn how to draw the human body, you will need to respect the “Canons of the Human Body” as we call the model used for reference in order to draw a body with correct proportions.

The first to be known whose proportions are listed in a chart goes back to the Egyptian Middle Kingdom. To establish a canon, one needed to decide what was “beautiful” in a body and gather those rules in one single model. Of course, the concept of beauty is quite subjective and discussions are still vivid.

In the Signus drawing course, Piet Herzeel explains very clearly what a canon is and how useful it is in the art of drawing. He introduces different models to us and then shows us how they evolved in time and how to use them.
Piet Herzeel defines what should be a good canon for the drawer.
In the special workshop about the human body, thanks to the step by step explanations, you will be able to draw a person with realistic proportions.
This first approach gives amazing results. In the “drawings to do“ chapter  you can have fun building different bodies using the special charts.

Short, tall, fat and skinny people… You can give the right proportions to all your characters thanks to Piet Herzeel’s explanations developed in the specific module about the human canons.

But even if you think you know what trees are like and even if your eyes feel aware of the general outline of trees or forests, drawing leaves and trees could be very deceiving. When children try to represent trees, even though they have lived among them since they were babies, they tend to misunderstand the basic shape of leaves, branches and trunks. The most common mistake is to consider the branches and the trunk as something of a different nature. It is important to visualize the branches as the continuity of the main trunk.

First of all, most trees don’t grow straight. They are full of curves and irregularities. From bottom to top, they have nothing but unexpected bending and twirling shapes. Almost every tree has a strong and thick base actually needed for its solidity. The roots give an impression of strength and grace at the same time. They sort of counterbalance the top of the tree full of branches and leaves. The roots dig into the ground when the branches reach out for the sky. Sometimes the roots gracefully stick out of the ground giving strength to the tree when it grows on a hillside.

There is a huge variety of trees corresponding of the region where they grow. We all know the heavy and majestic oak tree that grows in temperate climate areas. Of course the pine tree that often grows in the mountains is among the well-known. I particularly love the Mediterranean kind with its flat top and curvy trunk. We also know the birch tree with its silver white bark and of course, the giant sequoia with its impressive size.

The branches are the necessary part of a tree. They give him its majesty. Even though obvious, It is important to mention that branches are thicker at the base and thin out as they grow away from the tree. They don’t always grow up. Some go out horizontally and some, mainly on the lower part of the tree, can even go down. The branches and the leaves follow the same pattern: thick base and thinning motion as it grows from the main stem.

Some species have a lot of “elbow” shape branches. We must not be afraid, when we draw trees, to duplicate (with minor differences) this type of shape. It appears that the same type of trees tends to repeat the same pattern among its limbs.

As an artist, it’s important to make a difference between forests and lonely trees. Even among forests, there is quite a difference between a wild forest where nature follows its ways and a civilized forest where man has trimmed, cut and organized the trees in his own special way. Where trees are planted or kept up by man, the trunks will be straight and strong. In a wild place, trees have more competition and try to overpower each other in a race for light. In the same way, bushes and small plants will tend to be scarce underneath a thick group of trees. Pine forests have their own characteristics: needles on the ground, high branches…

Some trees are very different depending on the place where they grew or on the elements they had to live with. The wind, the soil or the rain can have a drastic influence on the shape of a tree. Just like with people, time and circumstances play an important role.

When drawing a mass of trees, it can be helpful to concentrate at first on the outline more than on the trees themselves. The general light and shade must be the first priority. The details are more precise in the foreground and tend to fade away as we move toward the background.

Trees all participate to the beauty of nature in their own way and I have to say that sitting down in a meadow as you are drawing trees of any kind is a true blessing. It reinforces the impression that you are part of this whole wonderful construction and it gives you a feeling of what it is to be a creator.

The concept is a little more subjective than line perspective or tone and shade perspective. Nobody likes to follow rules about the use of colours. Where to use them and how to use them is very personal. Nevertheless, it is important to know that some colours tend to stay in the background of a painting or a drawing when others tend to move forward. Once you are trained or if you have a natural sense of perspective, you will be using the right colour with the corresponding subject. To summarize, a warmer colour would be more adapted to an object in the foreground and a colder colour would be more adapted to the background.

The painter’s palette is often divided into “warm” and “cold” tints. It is actually not that simple. For example, purple is hard to define as warm or cold. It is admitted though, that yellow or orange would be placed among the warm colours when blue or green would be placed among the cold ones. It makes sense to associate the yellow, red and orange with fire or sun and to associate blue and green with ice or with the ocean.

When painting, of course, the general rule can be bent to some extent. If you want to represent somebody with a bright sweater in the background of your picture, you might want to reduce that colour with a little white and if you want to represent somebody with a light colour coat in the foreground of your picture, you have to strengthen it with a darker tone. Nevertheless, the general rule is to use brighter colours in the foreground and lighter colours in the background.

Here is an exercise you can try. First imagine this scenery with an old castle, trees, a river and a few people walking around.

Divide the scenery in three views: the foreground, the middle ground and the background.

In order to be able to see the three views as you superpose them, you need to cut a good size opening on the middle view and a bigger opening on the front view.

On the background, you can draw or paint the old castle with people standing by and the sky  and clouds above. On the middle view, you can draw the river with trees along the banks and maybe a boat on the water.

On the foreground, you can place a group of trees on both sides of the scenery.

For the background, you have to limit yourself drastically with the use of colours. The castle, the trees and the sky have to be relatively dull. That means the colours you are using have to be restricted to grey, blue, green and cold or dull tints in general. In any case, when you have to represent something bright in the background, you have to dilute your bright or warm colours with a whitish blue or green. We could say that the colours for a background are close to pastel colours.

For the middle view, you can allow yourself to use a little more yellow or brown or dark green. That would be perfect for the river and the trees.

As for the foreground, if you want to represent trees and flowers, feel free to use all the bright colours you have in mind. You can also paint somebody with colourful clothes. The scarlet red, the orange or brown are welcome.

Now, as you superpose all three images, you will be amazed by the impression of distance between the three different views. As mentioned previously, colours also, are ruled by the laws of perspective; a different kind of laws, but important whatsoever.

Of course, once you are totally aware of this principle, you still remain the creating artist. If your inspiration tells you, for any personal reason, to divert from the rule, you are the master.

This is the summary of “The pratice of science of drawing” wrote by  Harold Speed.

Just follow the links and you will be able to read the ENTIRE book for free.

The nine typical viewpoints

There are nine typical views which will help you many a time. Try to fix these views in your mind by practising as much as you can, first by referring to the model and then gradually on your own.

The 9 typical views of frontal perspective. There are 9 boxes in front of both of these figures. Note that the numbers, from one illustration to the other, are a mirror reflection since the viewpoint represented on the right is that of one or other of the figures facing us on the left. Boxes 4 to 6 straddle the horizon line, so their upper and lower sides will not be visible.

The aspect and number of sides presented by the boxes will of course be the same for the two spectators. Only the floor plan will be seen differently, but this is not what concerns us here. Up to now we have been looking at boxes made of opaque material and with only one, two or three sides visible to us.

But if the boxes were to become transparent, you would be able to see all the other sides and represent them by drawing their edges, even if they are concealed.

You will note that the observations we made in the three preceding pictures remain valid for the sides which were hidden:

• The vertical lines of the boxes remain vertical in the drawing
• The horizontal lines perpendicular to the visual ray remain horizontal
• The horizontal lines parallel to the visual ray all converge on the principal point

If you look at the central box, you see very clearly that the side perpendicular to your visual ray – the front side – is much larger than the rear side. This is an optical phenomenon that one comes across time after time.

This observation seems obvious enough but please remember one very important notion which can be summarised as follows:

The further away an object (or shape), the smaller its size as it appears to us.

Why is this the case?

An illuminated object emits rays in all directions. Each point of the object emits numerous rays, some of which move towards our eyes. Only the rays which reach the crystalline lens are “seen” by our eye. Those that do attain the crystalline lens pass through it and are deflected. The optical properties of the lenses cause all the rays to converge on a single point on the retina. So we can simplify our diagrams by concentrating solely on the ray which passes the focus of the crystalline lens (grey star) and is not deflected. In this way we can determine the place where the image of a point is projected on the retina.

According to this principle, when an object is in front of your eyes, it is “printed” on your retina upside down, like this red triangle.

Each reflected point of an object will follow a trajectory equivalent to the point passing through the focus of the crystalline lens.

The coloured stars dotted around this drawing will follow the same optical principle before appearing on the retina. Thus, as seen by your eye, the red star will be below the blue star and the yellow star above it, whereas in reality it is the other way round.

If several points are situated along the same “path”, they will be situated one behind the other as far as your eye is concerned, and you will see only one of them – the point nearest to you.

The points reflected by the objects constitute in their entirety the “picture” projected on your retina. Look at this illustration. The two grey bars marked respectively by a red star and a green star are two objects of the same size situated at two different distances from an observer. They could just as easily represent two vertical poles as a slanting view of two railway sleepers.

By looking at the trajectories of the luminous rays reaching the retina, we understand very well that the object furthest away is projected in a smaller size on the retina than the nearest object.

The apparently diminishing size of the more distant objects is an additional observation which will help you make a convincing representation of reality.