Life Drawing Warm Up Exercises

Life Drawing: A Collection of Resources by Hester Berry

Drawing the human form is one of the most challenging subjects for an artist and can feel overwhelming – it's often difficult to know where to begin when faced with such a wealth of visual information.

We are delighted that Hester Berry, an experienced life drawing tutor and artist, has agreed to create a set of resources that we hope will help you get to grips with this very rewarding activity and inspire you to have go!

How to Run a Life Drawing Class

Introducing Hester and providing an overview of how Hester sets up and facilitates a life class.

An Introduction to Life Drawing

Getting started with life drawing and some simple warm-up exercises to help you become familiar with your drawing materials and the life model.

Capturing gesture

Hester provides some helpful advice along with a series of short drawing exercises, that will enable you to identify the essentials of a pose and successfully record the movement and gesture of the life model.

Drawing the head

Drawing faces can be daunting, but Hester explains how you can tackle them successfully using simple and logical steps.

drawing hands and feet

Hands and feet are tricky subjects and often get omitted because the forms seem too complicated to draw. Hester shares a secret shortcut to understanding and drawing these complex forms …think mittens and socks!

Understanding Foreshortening

When drawing the life model, it can be difficult to process your view of a 3D form into a 2D representation. Hester explains clearly and concisely how to successfully achieve a foreshortened figure to create the illusion of space in your drawings.

Using Tone

Hester explains how to use tone effectively to give your drawings more definition and an increased sense of volume and suggests ways of using tone when drawing short poses, that will build your confidence and skills.