Art Lessons
Artyfactory offers free art lessons for all. Our aim is to share our knowledge, understanding and experience of art to improve your artistic skills and to increase your enjoyment in creating artworks.
Our Latest Lesson
Our Still Life Painting Lessons explore the process of painting the above still life. Over a series of simple step by step lessons, we break down the painting process into manageable parts to help improve your technique. We explore the painting of the background and foreground, the transparency of glass, the gleam of reflective surfaces and the rendering of solid forms.
African Masks
Our lessons on African Masks teach you about different styles of masks. We explain who makes them, how they are made and where they come from. You can also design your own African mask by following our illustrated lesson with simple step by step instructions.
Ancient Egyptian Art Lessons
Our Ancient Egyptian Art Lessons teach you about Egyptian gods, Egyptian crowns, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. We invite you to try our painting lesson on how to create the time-worn effect of an Ancient Egyptian Portrait. We also host a lesson on how to design an Ancient Egyptian cartouche using our simplified hieroglyphic alphabet.
Pencil Portraits
Our Pencil Portrait Lessons teach you how to draw a portrait by explaining and illustrating each stage of the drawing process. We begin by exploring the basic proportions of a head. We then look at the technique used to draw each of the features of the face. Finally we take you through the entire process of drawing a portrait from a basic line study to a finished tonal drawing. We also throw in a page of pencil shading exercises to help you develop your tonal drawing technique.
Charcoal Portraits
In our Charcoal Portrait Lessons, we guide you through various step by step tutorials that illustrate a classical approach to drawing with charcoal and chalk. These include individual lessons on how to draw the face, eyes, nose, mouth and hair. We also explore different portrait lighting setups and explain the materials and techniques you need for charcoal drawing.
Color Pencil Portraits
In our Color Pencil Portrait Lesson we will lead you from the first tentative marks that you make on the paper, gradually building up the layers of line, tone, color, pattern and texture to complete a complex and skilful portrait. We also focus on the individual features of the face, explaining and resolving any difficulties you may encounter when drawing the eyes, nose, mouth, skin, hair and clothes.
Acrylic Portraits
Our Acrylic Portrait of Robert Burns is used to demonstrate some of the skills and techniques involved in painting with acrylics. Each stage of this portrait, from its commission to its completion, is carefully explained and clearly illustrated to help you understand this detailed approach to painting with acrylics.
Drawing Animals
Our lessons on How to Draw Animals explore different techniques for drawing and painting a variety of creatures. Each lesson presents an illustrated step by step tutorial and ends with a slide show of the drawing process from start to finish.
Still Life Lessons
Still Life is the best subject in art for both learning and teaching the skills of drawing and painting. Using a range of different media, our still life lessons teach you how to look at an object and see it like an artist - with a conscious awareness of its outline, shape, proportions, tone, color, texture and form. At the start of each lesson, you can view the key stages artwork in a slideshow.
Pop Art Portrait Lessons
Pop Art Portraits offers you the choice of two projects: our Pop Art Portrait Lesson - a single art project for the individual student and our Pop Art Group Project - a collaborative lesson for a group of up to 20 individuals. Both lessons use a gallery of iconic Pop Art Portraits which demonstrate the bold and colorful techniques of this popular art style from the 1960's.
Chuck Close Art Lesson - A Group Project
Our Chuck Close Art Lesson is a group projects for up to 20 students. It begins as a lesson on color and ends up as a large scale portrait that was inspired by the paintings of the American artist, Chuck Close.
Aerial Perspective Lesson
Aerial Perspective, which is also called Atmospheric Perspective, is the effect that the atmosphere has on the tone and color of a landscape when it is viewed over a distance. It is a very effective tool for landscape painting and is a less complicated technique to learn than linear perspective.
Perspective Drawing
Perspective Drawing is a technique used to represent three-dimensional images on a two-dimensional picture plane. In our series of lessons on perspective drawing we explain the various methods of constructing an image with perspective and demonstrate how these are used by artists and illustrators.
Pen and Ink Drawing
Our Pen and Ink Drawing Lessons illustrate two different approaches to drawing with pen, ink and color wash. The first approach explores a detailed technique, while the second uses a bolder and more expressive technique. There are also some worksheets to help you practice you pen and ink drawing techniques.
Art Quizzes
Our Art Quizzes offers you a fun way to develop your knowledge and demonstrate what you know about art and design. Each quiz is designed as an aid to study and can be used in combination with our art and design lessons.
- Artyfactory is a free online resource for anyone who wants to learn about the visual arts.
- Our aim is to enhance your artistic skills and to increase your appreciation and enjoyment of art and design.
- You can teach yourself how to draw, paint and design by following our illustrated step by step tutorials.
- We offer free Art Lessons, Design Lessons and have a growing section on Art Appreciation which can be used to expand the context of many of our lessons.
- Artyfactory is particularly useful to those involved in art education: art teachers, art students, homeschoolers and parents, as well as artists of any age or ability who are keen to expand their knowledge and understanding of art and design.
- Artyfactory places great importance on teaching art visually as opposed to verbally. We believe that artists teach themselves visually first and verbally second. This is why the visuals for each of our lessons are designed before the addition of any text. This ensures that they communicate the essence of the lesson in images alone.
- We hope that you enjoy using Artyfactory and find our lessons informative and fun.
Page Banner Image
'The Creation of Adam', 1513 (fresco) by Michelangelo Buonarroti.
