ESMA Summer 2026 Online Drawing Basics
Teacher: Mr. Marsden
Email: [email protected]
This 8-week online course is a practical summer bridge for incoming 3D Animation & VFX Master students at ESMA.
You do not need to be “good at drawing” before we start. Some of you may already draw; some may feel nervous. That is fine. We will work from simple marks, shapes, objects and poses, then slowly build toward clearer drawings and a short visual sequence.
The main idea is simple: drawing is a learnable visual language. Together we will practise looking, simplifying, constructing, correcting and trying again.
Format
- Duration: 8 weeks
- Session length: 2 hours per week
- Delivery: live online via Microsoft Teams
- Materials: pencil, pen, eraser and paper are enough
- Digital drawing: optional, not required
The course can be done fully with basic traditional materials. If you prefer to draw digitally, that is also fine, but this is not a software course.
What you need
- Pencil
- Eraser
- Black pen or fineliner
- Plain paper or sketchbook
- A phone or camera to photograph your weekly work
- Access to Microsoft Teams
- Optional: tablet, stylus, Photoshop, Procreate or another drawing app
- Optional: watercolor, markers or brushes if you want to add simple greyscale washes
We will mainly work in black, white and greyscale. Color is not the focus of this short course. We will concentrate on line, shape, proportion, construction, space, gesture, weight, silhouette and clarity.
How each class works
- Short check-in
- Quick review of selected uploaded work
- One clear drawing idea
- Live demonstration
- First attempt
- Correction and discussion
- Second attempt
- Small upload task for the next week
We will draw during the sessions. The work does not need to be polished. The important part is to draw, upload, get feedback, correct and try again.
Course rules
This is not a copying course.
- No tracing.
- No copying finished images as final work.
- No copying manga pages, concept art, screenshots, photographs, AI images or finished illustrations.
- No AI-generated or AI-assisted visual submissions.
- Your uploaded work must be drawn by you.
We can use reference to understand things, but the exercises should come from observation, simple objects, live demonstrations, prompts and your own visual problem-solving.
A messy first attempt is normal. Restarting is normal. Correction is not failure; it is part of drawing.
Week 1 — Lines, Shapes and Confidence
We begin with simple marks: straight lines, curves, loops, ellipses, circles, squares and rectangles. The goal is to reduce fear and get used to putting marks on paper.
- Line control warm-ups
- Simple objects as flat shapes
- One object drawn twice: first rough, then clearer
Upload: one page of line warm-ups and one simple object drawn twice.
Week 2 — Learning to Look: Proportion and Comparison
This week we practise looking before drawing. We compare height, width, angles, spaces and positions. The aim is not perfect accuracy, but better observation.
- Height and width comparison
- Two objects together
- One correction after looking again
Upload: two simple objects drawn together, plus a short note naming one correction you made.
Week 3 — Building Objects with Simple Volumes
We move from flat shapes into simple forms: boxes, spheres, cylinders and cones. This connects directly to the kind of spatial thinking used in 3D animation and VFX.
- Boxes, balls, cylinders and cones
- Breaking down a simple object into volumes
- Inventing a small prop from simple volumes
Upload: one object broken down into simple volumes and one invented object built from volumes.
Week 4 — First Steps in Space: Simple Perspective
Perspective is introduced gently. We look at eye level, near and far edges, boxes in space and how objects sit on a surface.
- Boxes from different angles
- One object sitting on a table
- A simple room corner or tabletop scene
Upload: a simple tabletop or room-corner drawing with at least one object sitting believably in space.
Week 5 — Gesture Before Anatomy
We start figure drawing without heavy anatomy. A pose begins with action, rhythm, balance and simple masses.
- Action lines
- Simple head, chest and pelvis masses
- Standing, walking, sitting and reaching poses
- Silhouette checks
Upload: a page of simple gesture poses and one pose revised for a clearer silhouette.
Week 6 — Weight, Balance and Squash & Stretch
This week connects drawing directly to animation. We look at weight, balance, gravity, force, squash and stretch, and simple character acting.
- Heavy object versus light object
- Flour sack poses: proud, exhausted, surprised
- Simple impact, squash or bend under force
Upload: three flour sack poses showing different attitudes or physical states.
Week 7 — Drawing with Intention
Now we connect drawing to storytelling. A drawing should show what is happening, what the character wants, and how the viewer should read the scene.
- Same character, different intention: curious and afraid
- Same scene, different camera choice: neutral and dramatic
- One character, one object, one clear action
Upload: one simple narrative drawing showing a character, an object and a clear intention.
Week 8 — Three-Frame Comic Strip / Storyboard
In the final week we make a simple three-frame sequence. It can be a comic strip or a small storyboard. The aim is clarity, not polish.
- Beginning, middle and result
- One simple character or flour-sack figure
- One clear action
- One object or obstacle
- Readable silhouette and basic space
- Visible change from frame 1 to frame 3
Final upload: one three-frame visual sequence. Text is optional. The action should still be understandable without dialogue.
By the End of the Course
By the end of the 8 weeks, you should feel less afraid of drawing. You should have a basic drawing vocabulary: lines, shapes, volumes, proportion, space, gesture, weight, silhouette, framing and simple visual storytelling.
This course does not promise mastery. It gives you a practical starting point and a calmer relationship with drawing before the year begins.
Recommended Books
You do not need to buy these books. They are simply useful references if you want to go further. Libraries, second-hand editions and school resources are all fine.
- Stan Lee and John Buscema — How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way
- Andrew Loomis — Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth
- Andrew Loomis — Fun with a Pencil
- Preston Blair — Cartoon Animation
- Richard Williams — The Animator’s Survival Kit
- Will Eisner — Comics and Sequential Art
- Scott McCloud — Understanding Comics
- Scott McCloud — Making Comics
- Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston — Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life
Reminder: the aim is not to create polished portfolio artwork. The aim is to practise looking, simplifying, constructing, correcting and trying again.
For those of you who want to start experimenting with digital art and the PROCREATE software on iPad here are some tutorial videos for beginners. Most of these techniques would be exactly the same in Adobe Photoshop as well.
Optional Further Reference — Personal Style, Abstraction and Exaggeration
These links are optional external references. They are not required assignments, and the course exercises remain based on original observation, simplification and drawing practice.
For those of you who would like to explore personal style, abstraction, caricature and animation drawing a little further, I have added a few useful reference links below. These touch on observation, simplification, exaggeration, shape language and character design — all useful when trying to move away from purely academic drawing without losing structure. Try building faces, characters and objects from simple shapes first — circles, squares, triangles — before adding detail. Also work with expressions, moods and poses that read immediately. For this, one of an animator’s most useful tools is still wonderfully low-tech: a handheld mirror. In animation, clarity, silhouette and movement usually matter more than surface detail.
Tom Richmond — How to Draw Caricatures: The 5 Shapes
https://www.tomrichmond.com/how-to-draw-caricatures-1-the-5-shapes/14/02/2008/
Proko — Caricature Essentials from Start to Finish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGutjSF8XLs
Damian Osborne — How to Draw an Abstract Drawing
https://www.damianosborne.com/how-to-draw-an-abstract-drawing
Practice Drawing This — Practice Drawing from Observation
https://practicedrawingthis.com/cgi-bin/carousel.cgi?episode=article-practice-drawing-from-observation§ion=free-online-drawing-course
Art UK — Experimental Drawing
https://artuk.org/learn/learning-resources/experimental-drawing