Tonal Drawing – Vadim Fine Art

Tonal Drawing: Landscapes & Perspectives

Join Vadim Zang for a focused exploration of tonal drawing, open for students of all levels. Whether you’re a beginner laying a foundation or a practicing artist refining your skills, this class emphasizes the core academic fundamentals necessary for visual art.

What is Tonal Drawing?

Tonal drawing emphasizes interpreting an image through shapes and values rather than lines, training artists to see and simplify forms into their essential shapes. By focusing on big shapes first and refining details later, students develop a stronger sense of composition and volume. This approach encourages thinking in terms of tonal relationships, allowing the drawing to serve as a foundational tonal solution for any composition. Since painting is ultimately an arrangement of large shapes, tonal drawing acts as a crucial bridge, helping artists transition seamlessly from drawing to painting with a solid understanding of form/structure and light/shadow.

This is one of the core areas of focus offered through Vadim’s private lessons.

What You’ll Learn:

How to convert and design any given reference into the minimum amount of shapes, creating the tonal solution of the composition, before getting to minor details.
Editing and Composing – Artwork stops at a point where there is nothing else to hide or show, ensuring the picture is neither too busy nor too empty, revealing only the main story.
Learn to relate images in any given composition to the eye level and vanishing points using 2-, 3-, or 4-point perspective.
Learn to distinguish tone from color by referencing the color image as you develop your volumes.
Learn to strengthen hand-eye coordination with daily exercises designed to improve symmetry, proportion, rendering, and volume. Over time, your accuracy and control will sharpen, enhancing the quality of your drawings.