Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

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Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

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When was the last time that you sat down and created something for no reason other than “a need to create”? I create all the time… for this site, as gifts for friends and family, items with a purpose for around the home… It recently occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time that I sat down to create for no reason other than creative expression. 

When I was a kid, my mom and my sister drew all the time. They were good at it. They took classes and created beautiful pieces of art. If they drew a deer, it looked like a deer. If they drew a person, it was immediately identifiable as the person they were drawing. I took a few drawing classes too. My deer looked like camels and my people… well it was clear that it was a person. Who that person was (or what planet they came from) was a different story. 

When I “grew up”, I worked as a children’s book publicist, and again I was surrounded by amazing artists. I would sit in long meetings and watch the doodles that would sprout up in the margins of meeting agendas around me. I think when most people hear the word “doodle” they think of it as silly little scribbles that wind up getting tossed in the recycling bin afterwards. These doodles were works of art. I literally hung some of them on my walls as artwork. Many of these doodles could have graced children’s picture books or be printed on notecards. They were good. My doodles? Well those were the likes that ended up in the recycling bin. 

I always like to get my family creative gifts, so this past Christmas I went to the dollar store and bought each member of my family a coil ring sketchpad. They were $3.00 each and perfect for doodling, sketching, writing and journalling. I customized each journal cover using my Cricut Explore, and gave one to The Hubs, Bean, Turtle and myself on Christmas morning. When I gave myself this gift, I told myself that this was going to be the year that I learned how to doodle. 

Fast forward 6 months, and while I’ve been doing a good job at keeping with my New Year’s Intention of “Happiness”, I haven’t been doing as good of a job with learning how to doodle. I was having one of those days where I really needed to do something just for me, and so I decided to sign up for Creative Bug. 

Have you heard of Creative Bug? Located in the “cool arts and crafts” capitol of the world– San Francisco, Creative Bug is a website that offers online arts and crafts classes from many of the creative thought leaders from around the world. We’re talking Lia Griffith, Heather Ross, Betz White… and many, many more. 

Basically if you’ve ever thought “Hmmm… I’d really like to learn how to *Insert art or craft skill here*.” Chances are, that Creative Bug is going to have the creative expert to teach you how to do it. You pay $4.95 a month and then you have access to all of the classes you want to take each month.

When I decided that I wanted to learn how to doodle, I started to try to think of what style of doodling I wanted to learn how to do. I really like the look of line drawing and have admired the work of Julia Rothman and Lisa Congdon since discovering their art while working with Chronicle Books. I looked on Creative Bug and sure enough, Lisa Congdon has a Line Drawing class

I love Lisa’s style because she teaches that imperfection is what makes a piece interesting… and imperfection is definitely something that I can handle. I’ve told a few friends that I’m taking the class and have had so many questions that today I thought I’d share what I’ve drawn so far (be kind… I’m a line drawing newbie). 

To start off with, here are a few pieces from Lisa… Amazing right?

Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

I’m about half way done with the class, and so far we’ve covered drawing flowers and succulents from a photo, from imagination and from real life. 

Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon Learning Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon DSCF1447 Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

We’ve also covered geometric shapes and how to draw using triangles, scallops and unconnected lines. 

Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa CongdonLearning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa CongdonLearning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

I loved some of the line drawing examples that Lisa showed in class and was inspired to do a page with mushrooms and bugs. 

Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

The class has been so FUN so far, next I’m going to start Lisa’s 31 Day Daily Drawing Challenge where she gives you a prompt each day and shows you different ways to draw the item. 

Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

One of the things that I love about drawing is that you really don’t need any special materials to do it. Here is what I’ve been using for the class.

Learning to Draw with The Creative Bug Line Drawing Class With Lisa Congdon

-$3.00 Sketch Notebook from the dollar store (that I added a quote to)
Purple Micron Pen With A .45mm Tip (I already had this and use it to add a pop of color to some of my drawings) 
Black Micron Pens in 01, 03 and 05 sizes (I found this set and picked it up since it was a good deal. In reality I probably could have gotten away with just 1 of them.)
Black Pigma Graphic Pen in size 1 
Tombow Dual Brush Pens (I was given these at a conference I went to. I have them in black and pink and like them for coloring things in like the black and pink squares in the triangle drawing.)
-Pencil
-Sharpie Pen in blue (this came in a Sharpie set that I received. I found that the other Sharpie Pens that are like the Micron’s make lines that are a bit too thick, but this one seems to have a smaller nib on it.)

Honestly, a Micron pen (or something similar) with your favorite sized tip, a pencil, some paper and maybe a colored marker or two will get you started! 

I also want to buy Lisa’s book 20 Way To Draw A Tulip And 44 Other Fabulous Flowers

What do you say? Want to draw with me? Sign up for Creative Bug, join the fun and tag me in photos of what you are drawing or share the links here!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, that means if you click through and buy something that we suggested, we get a small percentage as a referral fee. It helps us keep this site up and running. As with every post on Hello Creative Family, we only share things that we really, truly love! 

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