12, 13 and 14 January, 2024.

This course will help you create expressive and unique characters full of personality for your illustrations.

✦What we will be doing during the course?

Let’s start by helping you relax and overcome your fear of drawing people from life.

Get ready for fun exercises that will show you that drawing a person is not scary.

In fact, it’s super exciting! We’ll take our sketchbooks outside and learn how to capture vivid characters from life.

Then we will work in the studio, developing and improving sketches made from life. We’ll experiment a lot with various techniques and training our memory.

You’ll also learn how to tell a story through expressions, poses, gestures, clothing, and details to make your characters full of unique personalities.

✦ What will be in the program of the course?

• “Blind drawing” – making  lines free and loose

• Breaking through the fear of sketching people in public

• Basic anatomy for sketching

• Drawing gestures

• Sketching people in motion

• Capturing facial expressions and emotions

• Drawing characters straight from your memory

• Overcoming the fear of a blank sheet of paper

• Telling stories through your drawings – a narrative approach

• Bringing your characters to life, from rough sketch to full illustration

BIO

Artist and illustrator Victoria Semykina creates illustrations with compelling charismatic protagonists that she captures in all sorts of places: on the streets, in transport, in shops, in museums, and even in her dreams.

She has worked for clients like Google, Airbnb, Tate Modern, Starbucks, Esquire, and published many picture books for publishers like Penguin, Bonnier, Anredsen Press, Holiday House, Egmont, and many others. She has won numerous awards, including the Andersen Award and the Nami Grand Prix for the best-illustrated book.