Drawing Without Lines
Apr 7, 2010 Drawing
Sometimes we get stuck in a rut and we can only see a thing in one way. When we think of drawing an object, most of us automatically think of the contours: the lines.
Today we’re going to focus on drawing shapes, not lines.
Challenging yourself to see things in a new way is beneficial for several reasons:
- it keeps your brain flexible and open to new ideas
- it can help get you out of a rut you didn’t even realize you were in
- it can give you another technique to use in your other art pieces.
For this kind of drawing it’s best to use a piece of charcoal turned on its side. This gives you a larger drawing tool, making it easier toshade in big areas and reducing the temptation to draw lines.
Always start by drawing the biggest shapes. Work from the general to the specific, adding details only at the end.
Another way to approach this exercise is to look at the negative space. Negative space is what surrounds the object your’e drawing. Focus on drawing the shapes of the areas around your subject and see how the object starts to form.
As you practice and become more confident in drawing without lines, you can start to integrate the technique into the rest of your work. You might even find that you like using a combination of different drawing techniques. This kind of variety can add another layer of interest to your work.
An artist has two tool boxes: the physical one that holds his pencils, brushes, etc, and the mental one that holds his ideas and techniques. Try this drawing technique and add another tool to your mental tool box!
Tags: charcoal, drawing techniques, drawing tips
The Best Way to Approach Portrait Drawings
Apr 1, 2010 Drawing
You’re sitting at your table with a clean, fresh piece of drawing paper in front of you. You draw your grid (or not) and then you outline the features of your portrait.
Now what?
All that white staring back at you can be intimidating!
There are probably as many ways to start a portrait drawing as there are people who draw them. I’ve narrowed them down to two basic approaches: the all-over approach and the wallpaper approach.
The question is, which approach is best?
The Wallpaper Approach
When papering a wall, you start on one side and work your way methodically across. When you draw this way, it’s much the same; you start on one side of the page and complete the drawing in sections as you move across. Brian Duey demonstrates this in his portrait drawing tutorial.
While this approach almost ensures that you won’t drag your hand through your work, it can be difficult to create smooth transitions between the areas you’re working on. You also have to be spot-on with your values as you work.
The All-Over Approach
This approach takes the entire page into consideration. Each layer of graphite is built up gradually across the whole portrait. My portrait tutorial is a good example of this.
Drawing this way lets you respond to the portrait as a whole piece, rather than just rendering each area as you see it, but you need to be careful where you rest your hand.
My Verdict
You can probably guess where I stand on this, since I used my own tutorial as an example! I am a fan of the all-over approach, and let me tell you why:
By working on one area in isolation, you can lose sight of the drawing as a whole. This approach lets you evaluate shapes and tones and values in relation to each other. It’s not the darkness of a shadow that creates depth, but the comparison of the dark areas to the lighter ones.
It also gives you the chance to exercise your artistic license. It’s up to you to determine how faithful you will be to your reference photo, and it’s easier to make these decisions as you draw. When you use the wallpaper approach, you can end up blindly re-creating the photo without consideration for the final art piece.
Another advantage of this approach is that you are able to correct mistakes easily. If during the first stages of shading, you realize that your eyes don’t line up properly, it’s easy to erase it. With the wallpaper approach, your line drawing needs to be exact, because once everything is fully rendered, it will be very difficult to go back!
Conclusion
All in all, I find that the all-over approach helps to keep the bigger picture in mind. It’s a more fluid and responsive process, more flexible and easier to change.
That being said, you need to discover which approach is best for you. Brian Duey is obviously a very accomplished portrait artist and the wallpaper approach appears to be working for him!
Tags: art tips, better drawings, drawing tips, portraits
Easy Composition Tips: Thumbnail Sketches
Whether you’re drawing or painting, you need to consider the composition of your work. Composition is the arrangement of the visual elements on your picture plane; or, where you put things. You need to take into consideration the relationship of the elements to each other, and the relationship of the elements to the edge of your drawing or painting.
Composition can help communicate feeling and meaning. The arrangement of objects can be balanced and harmonious and convey a sense of calm. Or they can be awkward and convey a sense of tension. You need to use this to your advantage!
Even if you’re working with a single subject, like a portrait, you need to think about composition. Where will the face go on the page? In the centre, off to the side, near the edge? Each arrangement will slightly alter the feel of the finished piece.
But how can you figure out the best composition? That’s where thumbnail sketches come in.
Thumbnails are small-scale drawings that let you play around with composition without investing a huge amount of time and effort into a single artwork.
How to use Thumbnails
First of all, you want to consider all the elements that will be in your piece. Below are some examples of thumbnails I did for an upcoming painting. I knew I was working with a horizon, a tree, two giraffes and the sun. My goal was to find the best arrangement for these elements.
Thumbnail drawings should only be a few inches big, but make sure they are the same scale as your finished piece. I know that my painting will be three feet by two feet, so I made each thumbnail three inches by two inches. This way, I know that the elements of the painting will fit into the thumbnail the same way as the painting.
Once you know what you’re working with, and you draw yourself several to-scale boxes, start playing around. Try as many different arrangements you can think of. This lets you see exactly how things will relate to eachother without just imagining it. This is important because artists are visual and need to see.
Choosing a Thumbnail
Pick a thumbnail that feels like it works. This really depends on the feelings you’re going for in your work. This is the thumbnail I chose for my composition. It is balanced and harmonious, each element is comfortably placed and nothing feels awkward. It also follows the rules of thirds.
We all know how it feels to suddenly get the perfect idea for your next piece. You’re excited and anxious to get going. It can be tempting to jump right in. But you’ll find that your finished piece will be better if you take a few minutes to do a little planning and find the best composition. The effort is well worth the result!
Tags: art tips, better drawings, composition
Drawing with Charcoal
Feb 21, 2010 Drawing
If the pencil is sturdy, reliable and precise, charcoal is like its wild counterpart: bold, daring and dramatic. Blacker than any pencil and rich in texture, drawing with charcoal is an altogether different experience.
Don’t get me wrong: charcoal is a versatile medium and you can achieve extremely sensitive, realistic drawings using it. There is just something about taking up that messy stump of charcoal that frees us to get big, expressive and gestural.
Types of Charcoal
Charcoal comes in a few different forms. You can get pressed charcoal that comes as a compressed stick. These can be hard, producing a grayer shade, or soft and very deep black. The softer the charcoal, the easier it will be to smudge. This is the kind of charcoal that will get your hands, your paper, and quite possibly your clothing and face dirty.
This pressed charcoal also comes in pencil form. This can be useful for detailed drawings because you can sharpen it to a fine point. It’s also much less messy!
A third type of charcoal is willow or vine charcoal. This comes in the form of an actual branch: it’s long, cylindrical and wiggly. Willow charcoal is very soft and produces a delicious dove grey. It has one of the nicest textures to draw with, but is also very smudgy.
Why Charcoal?
Charcoal functions in much the same way as a pencil. You can draw, shade and blend. But there’s something psychologically different about using charcoal. It allows you to get more expressive and work bigger without getting caught up in the details. Charcoal sticks especially, because they don’t have a fine point, can force you to focus on large shapes and general contours.
What to Draw
You can draw and shade anything in charcoal the same way you would a pencil. Charcoal also lends itself well to more expressive types of shading like hatching.
My favorite thing to do with charcoal, though, is gesture drawings. Charcoal is perfect for making the large, sweeping strokes needed to capture a gesture.
It’s always nice to have a variety of drawing tools to choose from. The pencil is perfect for detailed renderings, but when it comes to expressive drawings I always reach for the charcoal!
Please share your experiences! Do you prefer pencil or charcoal? Does it depend on what you’re drawing?
Tags: charcoal, drawing tips, tools
To Grid or Not To Grid
Feb 4, 2010 Drawing
From time to time I get e-mails from viewers asking for help or advice on certain topics. It occurred to me that other people might be wondering about these things as well. The folowing letter came from someone torn about whether or not to use a grid:
Hi. I was just wondering about using a grid.
What do you think about it?
I mean, for me I think it’s kinda cheating. I’ts a great way to help yourself so you can see were you should put everything but it feels like cheating.
Do you think it’s okay to use grids everytime you are doing a portrait?
And here was my response:
This is a great question, and one that I have also struggled with. You will always find people with different opinions when it comes to using a grid. Some people feel that it’s “cheating” and that it’s not art. Then again, some people believe that simply recreatinga photo (realism) is not art. Everyone has a different idea and at the end of the day, you will have to decide what you’re comfortable with.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with using a grid. I see it as another tool available to the artist, and why shouldn’t we use all the tools at our disposal?
One of the reasons I use it is time. I could draw a portrait without a grid, but it would take more time. When I’m doing commissions, I have to consider the amount of time it’s going to take versus the amount a person will be willing to pay. Anything that can help cut down on time is good!
Another reason why I don’t have a problem with a grid is that it still requires an “artistic eye.” Making a grid doesn’t guarantee a successful, or even a realistic drawing. The artist still needs to edit, make changes and measure relationships. When we draw, we look at how the different parts of the subject relate to eachother. When we use a grid, we are simply adding another element to measure those relationships.
You’re right, a grid can really help you to see where things should go. It’s a great tool for learning, but as you say, it may not be the best method every time. It’s really up to you whether or not you want to use it. Personally, if a recognizable likeness is your main goal, then I would not shy at using a grid!
What are your thoughts on using a grid? Cheating? Tool? Something else?
Tags: drawing tips, grid
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