Drawing: Light and Form

Before you draw what something means, draw what it is.

About This Course

Personal voice needs technical control underneath it, or it collapses under its own ideas. This course goes the other direction. Deep, sustained observational drawing, building real control over light, tone and form.

What You'll Create

A sustained still life folio demonstrating tonal control, developed across two sessions per piece.
One final considered piece selected for the end of term exhibition.
A written statement on the technical and compositional choices made.

Course Details

Age Range: 15-18
Term: Term 1
Schedule: Wednesdays, 4:00pm
Duration: 10 weeks
Price: $480
Spots Available: 8 of 8

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What You'll Learn

• You'll render form through sustained tonal control.
• You'll learn to see value before you see colour or detail.
• You'll control value across a whole composition, not just one object.
• You'll sustain attention on one drawing across multiple sessions.
• You'll critique technical drawing honestly, including your own.

The Support You'll Get

You won't be handed the answer. You'll be shown how to find it.

Your practitioner has spent years making their own work, and their own mistakes. In the studio they work alongside you: asking the right questions, pointing out options you hadn't seen, helping you push through the moment you get stuck. The ideas stay yours. The decisions stay yours. They're there so you're never finding the way through alone.

Week by Week

Week 1: Why technical control matters, even for personal work. Setting up and drawing a simple still life.

Week 2: Value. Mapping light to dark across a full range.

Week 3: A more complex still life, multiple objects.

Week 4: Working the same piece across two full sessions.

Week 5: Materials study. How different surfaces catch light differently.

Week 6: A larger, more ambitious still life, with a figure element introduced.

Week 7: A final sustained piece, across two sessions.

Week 8: Exhibition. Public showing, families attend.

Every course ends with an exhibition

Celebrate what you created with the people and our community. Every term concludes with a presentation or exhibition of your work: a chance to share your process, your ideas, and what you've made.

Your Instructor

Charlotte Lance

Author & Illustrator

Charlotte has illustrated and written children's books published by Penguin, Pan Macmillan, Allen & Unwin and Scholastic. Her work includes A Really Super Hero, This Girl, That Girl, and Moth in a Fancy Cardigan. She builds worlds that hold stories within stories, working across traditional and digital media. She teaches the way she works: look closely, draw what's actually there, then make it yours.