In Drawing Fundamentals with Ron Lemen, you will learn about the fundamentals of drawing and shading and their use in dry, wet, and digital media. Your instructor is Ron Lemen, an award-winning designer with a career focused on extreme sports. He has worked for a variety of skateboarding and snowboarding firms and industry publications. He has also been a designer/director for various video games such as Myst 3, Whacked, Soldier of Fortune 2, and NBA 2006.

Drawing Fundamentals is geared to take you through the fundamentals beginning with the basics and on through some completed works. You will find out what it takes to turn drawings into reality. Drawing Fundamentals is divided into four classes comprising nine lessons lasting over four hours. I will break this down by class.

"Drawing Fundamentals" begins by taking you through the tools of the trade. Here you will learn about everything from sharpening pencils - graphite as well as different types of charcoal - different erasers, and using a sanding pad. You will see the difference between rough newsprint, layout paper, and tracing paper. You will see how to set up an easel and working it in to proper viewing angles, the proper posture, and movements from the shoulder. You will see why repetition is what you need to build dexterity and stamina; practice, practice, practice doing arcs, lines, circles, and more. You will also learn about spatial relations and line types.

"Form, Shape, Light, & Shade" now takes you from the 2D world into the 3D world. Now you move from working with contours to working with dimensions in space. You now will get more exercises in working with techniques like gradations, movement from dark to light forms, creating shapes like spheres and cubes, which helps to discuss lighting and shade. Getting a proper foundation in value, lighting, and shadow rules will help your drawing techniques become habit for when you are ready to tackle more complex drawings.

"Drawing From Life" attempts to show, by setting small goals, the creation of a complete drawing. Here the instructor breaks it down into about six steps. The first few are constructive and the last few are more about the rendering. Using a live human model, the instructor will show you how to go about doing a complete charcoal drawing of an individual. Here you will learn about the placement of features when portrait drawing, about shading and the creation of mass, and then the addition of the final details.