Are you feeling crabby? Well I hope so! Today’s show is all about crabs.

We have wildlife artist, Bill Flowers, giving you drawing tips. Weird Crab lettering! What’s

in the mail? And then I’ll show you how to turn a crab drawing into a science fiction

mechanical monster! Stay right to the end for this weeks drawing task. But let’s not

talk about it… lets get on with the show!

A while ago I wrote a book about crabs for very young children. It’s not the longest

book in the world, but it’s hard writing long stories when you can only use three letter

words and only the letters s a t p i n m and d! I know the crabs look like they are wearing

fancy sweaters, but I still had to do a lot of research into how crabs look and how their

legs and pincers work.

If you love drawing wildlife, then I’d like you to meet Bill Flowers. Bill lives in Australia

and calls himself the Snake Artist.

Every Friday, Bill has a new wildlife drawing video. I find them an inspiration. Bill gets

out into the wilderness and draws animals from real life.

I asked Bill if he would go down to the beach and draw some crabs for this show. He’s

made you two fantastic videos, one is cartoony and one a bit more advanced. I’ll put all

the links at the end of the show and in the comments box below.

Just look at Bill’s sketchbook - Doesn’t that make you green with envy?

Are you feeling crabby, Bill?

I feel so crabby, I'm going to draw this crab. There are many ways of approaching a drawing.

I'm going to do round scribbly shapes here, just really really roughly working in the

shape of the crab.

and the really great thing about thawing a three dimensional object is that you can turn

it, turn around and see what's behind things, it gives you a better idea of the overall

shape of the animal.

I'm going to do a realistic drawing without using photos, and the claw of this crab is

the feature so I'll be a making a big feature out of theses claws. Through sketchpads, through

bits and pieces that I find, I can make up a drawing without having to rely on photos.

An that's artistic licence, especially when you are doing an illustration and you don't

have photos you can actually add bits, take bits away. If you are copying from a phot,

you can still use your imagination a little bit.

Now I'm sketching in the eye, and I usually like to do this first on an animal, I like

to put the detail in the eye first because if the eye doesn't work, I shall screw up

the iece of paper and throw it away.

But once the eye is okay, that gives me the confidence to move on and add in the details

here and there. I found bits and pieces of the crab on the beach which certainly is a

great help. These claws - theres more detail on these claws, as I say, these are the feature

of this little guy so I'm making sure that the claws really stand out from the rest of

the crab. A lot of drawing with pencil is to be sensitive and try and feel what the

object might del like. Try and get that different dimension to your drawing so you can imagine

what it would feel like to touch it.

Now, you do a really big curvy bracket here, there, like a skinny v, a half circle there

its the top part of the pincher. big round bit there, going into a bracket again. theres

the other pincher, so you can see it's coming along quite good, it doesn't have to be perfect.

Okay, with a line and a bracket - line and a bracket - straight line - bracket that way

and then maybe a bracket that way. A sharp claw so he can grip onto the rocks. keep doing

this cos crabs have those really sharp spider like points at the end of each foot, because

they have to do a lot of scurrying around and rock climbing.

and a squiggly line and a couple of dots- squiggly line and a couple of dots. I don't

know why I do this, its just one of the rings I like to do. I'm putting more and more shade

on, but I am being careful to leave white bits. It's very important that you don't go

overboard. which I am pretty much on the line of going over board!

The shade underneath, I've actually done some brackets and circles just to give it some

like a sandy texture, like dots and brackets and circles you can see on the left hand side

I've shaded it in a little bit more and there's your crab!

I hope you guys have enjoyed learning how to draw crabs, now if you like this checkout

some of my other how to draw videos some are a bit more complicated, some ar a bit more

easy - checked out, I'll see you next time.

Thanks bill, that was terrific - and now… what's in the mail? what's in the mail? what's

in the mail?

There's just one letter in the mail this week. Its from Dorrie Ratzlaf - artist and illustrator

from Galliano Island, British Columbia., Dorrie has put a Canadian year of the snake stamp

on there - you remember a couple of weeks ago we did a couple of snakes fro the year

of the snake. Thanks Dorrie, who says, I saw your video on the wednesday Drawing Show about

eyes. You put forward a challenge for artists to draw eyes on some kind of surface they

would not normally draw on and use some sort of marker they would not normally use.

I forgot the subject was eyes and drew the entire head shoulders and clothes of a fashion

model!wearing feather hat, stole and earrings she does however, have eyes! for the paper

of this drawing I used a brown paper bag from the purchase of watercolour tubes from the

art shop and to draw with I used an emery board as my marker. I did stick to my usual

medium which is watercolour paint. well, I did draw eyes, which she has, and I used the

edge of the emery board for this - and used the flat edge to create the feathered look.

Dorrie says, Thanks for your delightful and sprightly art videos which are inspiring and

imaginative and full of ideas and suggestions - well, thank you Dorrie

and here is Dorrie's picture and taped on the top is the emery board and this really

does show you that you really can draw with anything - it's just and old paper bag with

a beautiful beautiful picture - see you don't need expensive materials to get going drawing.

Dorri, This is going up on the wall of fame! How do I get my work up on the all of fame.

I hear you ask, well it's very simple. Just draw something and send it to me and I'll

put it up on the wall of fame. Next week it could be you! where do you send it? heres

the address

I love getting stuff in the mail!

I’ve always loved to do lettering. You can make up lettering out of almost anything - even

bits of crabs legs that you find on the beach. But I want to do something a little more exciting.

I’d like to invent a character called Robo Crab. Even though it’s made of metal, you

still need to know how crabs work and the best way to do that is to draw them from life.

I often get asked how to draw super heroes. Well, all those great Super hero artists have

spent thousands of hours in life class learning how Human bodies work and practicing how to

draw them.

Here, I’ve taken basic crab shapes and imagined how they might be made from metal as if they

were parts of a sci fi monster.

It’s the lines of the metal plates riveted together that give it that good old steam

punk effect.

Hang on an we’ll draw Robo Crab in a moment…

I get lots of emails asking me how to be creative and how to draw from the imagination.

Here are two very different snake drawings that were uploaded after the Wednesday Drawing

Show Snake episode a couple of weeks ago.

Maria says “You mentioned February is the start of the Chinese New Year and that reminded

me of Valentine's Day and that inspired my snake drawing.”

This shows the imagination at work. Creativity often happens when two ideas come together.

Snakes and Valentines day, but the creative step is the Heart shape that the snakes make

when they twist around each other. I love that Maria and thanks for sharing it with

us.

Mark Hubble showed us his snake that almost looks like one of those toy plastic snakes,

but he’s taken that one step further and made the segments look like sections of armour

plate. That sparked off an idea in me to draw a Robo Crab. That’s how imagination and

creativity work. Ideas come together and clash. The trick is to recognise the moment and then

do something about it!

Now! Here is my Robo Crab! A bit different from the Nip! Nip! book I showed you are the

beginning of the show!

Well, I picked up a great tip from Bill Flowers. I’ve learned to draw crab legs much better.

Line and bracket line and bracket with a pointy bit on the end! Except I’ve added bolts

for the hinges which means I need an extra blob at the ned of each segment for the bolt

head to fit.

I imagine that robo crab can replace the jaw sections of the claws so they need to be held

in with bolts too.

Drawing lines for the metal plates that make up his skin gives us the opportunity to suggest

the curvature of the body and legs by drawing curves instead of straight lines.

A bit of colour and shading and we are done. This actually took about 20 minutes. I think

I might make a longer video showing the thought processes along the way.

I imagine you can guess what this weeks drawing task is. I would like you to find pictures

or find real crab or something like that and use that to build up a drawing, but to turn

it from being an insect or a crab into a sci-fi machine and the secret, i think, is to draw

all those metal plates and draw all those rivets all around it and that's what turns

it into a mechanical version.

so, have a go at that, post it on the wednesday drawing show.com and the week after I'll share

all your drawing with everybody on the Sunday Gallery Review show and here is how to do

it.

Go to the wednesday drawing show.com and click upload your drawings. On this page you will

see an uploader section at the bottom. Choose file, choose the file you want to upload - click

upload to upload your file. you'll see the name of your file next to the

choose file button.

write a description and then, click once to upload. Just wait - and once you can see your

picture alls well and I will move it to the proper gallery and show it on the Sunday Review

Show.

I hope they show has inspire your imagination and you'r going to want to pick up your paper,

paint and pencils and get drawing.

Here are the links to the Sunday Gallery Review show and the Page to upload on the wednesday

Drawing Show.com where you can upload your drawings

and here are the direct links to Bills two videos and also go back and have a look at

the snake edition of the Wednesday Drawing show.

Well I hope you enjoyed that, and if you did, make sure you are subscribed to the shooraynerdrawing

channel and why not have a look at my nearly daily blog to see how this show comes together.

In the meantime, keep drawing, drawing, drawing. Practice, practice, practice. and I'll see

you next time, you take care now, bye bye