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
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
Gesture Drawing
Jan 20, 2010 Drawing
On this blog I’ve focused a lot on tight realistic drawing, but there’s another style of drawing that I encourage you to try every once in awhile. Gesture drawing is a very quick, free style that encourages you to loosen up. Think of gesture drawing as the stretches that you do before exercise. It can get you out of that “must create art” frame of mind that can actually stifle your creativity. In fact, when you’re starting a new drawing, you should include a few gesture drawings in your preprations to let you get familiar with the subject matter.
If you’ve done any kind of life drawing, you’re probably familiar with the gesture. Life drawing sessions usually start with a series of very short poses (think 10-30 seconds). Your job is to try and capture the “gesture” of the model in a few quick strokes. This is a great exercise because it forces you to evaluate the shapes you see and simplify it to only the most important elements.
If you’re thinking that gesture drawings are only exercises, think again. Some of my best figure drawings were gestures! A gesture drawing is far more likely to capture the tension and movement in a body than a tightly controlled, realistic rendition. Canadian artist, Julia Trops, draws and sells some gorgeous, gestural figure drawings. These can be very powerful artworks.
Tips for gesture drawings:
- use a large pad of cartridge paper or news print and fill the whole page; the bigger the paper the freer your drawings
- use a big piece of charcoal or a graphite stick; using larger materials will keep you from getting too detailed
- limit yourself to a very short period of time to capture the essential “gesture” (no more than a minute or two)
When doing gesture drawing, try to experiment with different techniques. You can draw the linear elements of your subject, you could scribble the movement of the form, or you could use the flat edge of the charcoal to fill in the mass. Just remember that your goal isn’t to outline the subject, or to render any detail; you want to capture the essence of the form, its movement, tension or weight.
Tags: charcoal, drawing tips, gesture
The Art of Collage
Sep 20, 2009 Art General
Have you ever collaged? If not, I suggest you try it! Collage is a great, pressure-free way to explore and experiment. Free of the “high-art” connotations of painting and the technical pressures of drawing, collage is the perfect way to let loose!
I got into collage in my third year of art school. We were doing an independent project and I had decided to work in a sketchbook. My plan was to draw sketches from life that would later lend themselves to more developed drawings.
To my surprise, I found my drawings becoming more expressive and abstract. I began bluing little bits of paper onto the pages and everything took off from there. The collages seemed to take on a life of their own!
What I ended up handing in at the end of the project wasn’t several large scale drawings as I’d planned. I handed in my entire sketchbook, which had become more like a journal, probably the most honest journal I’d ever kept.
I’ve been hooked on collage ever since. You might even say that some of my paintings are a form of collage!
The most attractive aspect of collage for me is the total lack of expectation and pressure. Painting and drawing are so bogged down in art historical context that it can be difficult to shake the pressure to create an art piece. That expectation can be like a weight pressing down, smothering your creativity and expression.
Collage can free you from these expectations and let you express yourself in new ways!
How to Collage
Well, there really are no rules!
All you need is some paper or different colours, patterns or textures, and some glue. A glue stick works best, or rubber cement. Start tearing up and gluing bits of paper down. Try to work quickly and intuitively, responding to your work instead of starting with an idea of what you want to create.
I usually start by gluing down bits of paper randomly. As more paper is added, I become more elective and try to find where each piece fits. If I can’t find the right place for a certain piece of paper, I leave it and try a different one.
To start with, you might find it helpful to limit yourself to certain colours. The majority of my collages are done in black, white, gray and orange. This helps keep me focused and creates a sense of harmony in something that could otherwise become very chaotic.
Reductive Collage
Don’t forget that collage isn’t just adding paper, it can also be taking it away!
This is the fun part!
Try tearing up stuff that you’ve already glued down. Move it around, glue it somewhere else. Collage should be a fluid process of give and take, add and reduce. If something doesn’t feel right, tear it off or cover it with something else.
Adding Other Media
Once you feel you’re finished with the gluing part, consider reworking your collage with other media. You could use ink and water, charcoal, pastels or anything else you have lying around.
Drawing into your collage is a good way to finalize things. You can add depth, create a focus and integrate the bits of paper with each other. You may also find that you move things around during this process too!
What to Collage
You can collage basically anything! Get creative! I’ve used photocopies of old journal entries, old doodles and drawings, pieces of paper that I’ve written my name on, interesting articles printed off the internet…
You could also collage with anything lying around your house: magazines, newspapers, junk mail, old bills, packaging and wrappers. Anything goes! Have fun and don’t be afraid to experiment!
Willow Charcoal – Wingback Chair Drawing
Aug 11, 2009 On my Easel
Here is the latest in my attempt to get back into drawing in my sketchbook and working from life. This is the view from my couch!
The chair was a lucky find at Value Village. I’d always wanted a wingback and one day, there it was! It’s covered in a very retro blue velvet. Eventually, I plan on learning how to re-upholster furniture and then I will cover it in something more contemporary.
I did this drawing in willow charcoal. I love willow charcoal! It’s a very soft, delicate type of charcoal that gives a very richly textured gray. If regular charcoal is like wood or metal, willow charcoal is like velvet. It’s easy to blend and great for building up layers. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend you do!
There’s something about the simplicity and starkness of this composition that really strikes me. I find myself drawn to this image. It has an everyday sort of feel, but at the same time it seems a little unnatural and out of place.
I have an urge to paint this image. I did a series of still life paintings a couple years back that had simple compositions, and this reminds me of them. There’s a canvas on my easel right now that used to be an abstract painting. It wasn’t going well so I painted it out completely.
I think I’m going to go play!
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