Review: Drawing Dimension: Shading Techniques by Catherine V. Holmes (Craftsy)

Catherine V. Holmes is a visual artist and art instructor from Plymouth, Massachusetts. She's also author of the popular book How to Draw Cool Stuff.


Her art course Drawing Dimension: Shading Techniques on Craftsy is a beginner's course on shading techniques.

The whole course runs for 97 minutes and the lessons are as follows:

  1. Value Scale and Pencil Pressure
  2. Line & Cross Contour
  3. Light Source & Shadow
  4. Highlights, Blending & Shading
  5. Stipple, Hatching & Crosshatching
  6. Contrast & Focal Point
  7. Combining Techniques

This course is shorter in length than other Craftsy courses I've featured so far. After going through other Craftsy course which usually runs for more than two hours, I felt a bit empty when this course ended. That's not to say that the content is lousy, but I felt that there could be more content.

The course covers the basic fundamentals of shading and drawing techniques. Beginners with no experience in drawing will gain the most out of this course. The main tool is the pencil and the goal is to create dimensional drawings just by shading. Techniques taught are easy to replicate and the demonstrations are clear. You'll learn how to create form for your subjects through understanding light and shadow, and using shading and other simple drawing techniques to give your drawing depth.

As a standalone course, it's good and worth its money. However, I can't help but compare it to two other similar courses that deal with shading as well, specifically 10 Essential Techniques for Better Drawing and Drawing Essentials: Rendering Form, both of which I think have more content and hence even more worth the money.

If you feel like art is daunting to learn, I would suggest enrolling in this course. If you're up for a challenge, then I would recommend the other two courses instead.

You can check out more reviews on the course page below.

Check out other video courses from Craftsy that I've featured at https://www.parkablogs.com/tags/craftsy

Disclosure: This course was provided to me by Craftsy for review purposes. You can support Parka Blogs by using the affiliate links as I get a little commission from each sale. :-)

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