We'll ease into the course with practical techniques for beginners including:

• drawing parallel lines

• drawing cross sections

• drawing curved lines and ellipses

The exercises in this section are designed to help you become familiar with different ways of moving your pencil. You'll gain confidence in putting marks on paper in a smooth and relaxed way.

Now that you have the basic line skills sorted we'll step things up a notch and start drawing 3D shapes. Learn how to:

• draw cubes, cylinders, cones and domes

• find the width, length and depth of a 3D shape

At the end of the section you'll find a practice module to repeat so you can build up your quick drawing skills and confidently sketch 3D shapes.

In this module you'll learn how to simplify objects into the simple 3D shapes we now know how to draw. Breaking objects down into their most simple shapes enables us to get the form right first, before adding surface details.

The two types of objects we'll practice are:

• Simple objects which can be broken down into one main shape

• Complex objects which are made up of two or more shapes

Hopefully you are comfortable using your pencil to sketch shapes and objects now! You may have noticed that they don't look quite right or are too tall or too wide or just a bit wonky. So the next step is to learn how to check and apply the correct proportions to an object.

We'll use a pencil as a measuring tool to check:

• the height and width of an object

• angles of edges

In the shading module we'll cover basic shading techniques. We'll also focus on how to identify shapes of value. 'Value' refers to shades of grey from light to dark that we can see in a subject.

There are two shading projects in this section for practicing the shading process.

In this module we'll take an indepth look at the drawing process as we draw a still life scene together. The key to a successful drawing is taking the time to complete each stage and not rushing ahead to draw the details.

We'll practice sketching, proportion and shading skills as well as new techniques like triangulation.

This module is designed to help with drawing organic objects that don't fit with our 3D shapes. We'll practice observational techniques like:

• Looking at negative spaces

• Studying edges with contour drawing

Up to this point we have been drawing isometric 3D shapes which are shapes that have equal angles and are not subject to perspective. But spatial perspective is a reality and needs to be applied to objects in a drawing.

In this module we'll cover how one point perspective and two point perspective work.

You don't need to always draw using perspective techniques but it is important to understand how perspective works so you can recognise it in your subject :)

In this final project we'll practice all the skills covered in the class with a still life drawing. It's up to you how far you take this drawing and what style you bring to it.