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How to Draw (Preperation)

15/02/2010

How to Draw

Drawing is an art in itself but we will be covering the subject in terms of two different applications:

• Drawing an outline or underdrawing for a painting to act as a guide for applying the paint in order to suggest the forms of the subject.
• Drawing as an end in itself - a sketch or drawing as a finished work of art.

If you want to concentrate on watercolour or acrylic painting then you will most likely be using a pencil to make some linear forms to help you apply the paint in the right places. With watercolour paper, care needs to be taken with the surface as it can easily be damaged with rough treatment or sharp insruments. You need to use a fairly soft pencil grade, say 2B. B stands for Black, as opposed to F which stands for Fine, which is a harder fine grey. This grade could damage the paper. The other pencil grade is HB (which is between F and B) and BB which is extra black and very soft.

Eraser

Rather than use an ordinary hard rubber which can damage the surface of watercolour paper, you should use a 'Putty'rubber, a bit like the consistency of Blue-tack, is pliable and softer on the paper, less likely to scratch the sized surface of the paper. You can buy a putty rubber in an art store - they are not expensive. 

Drawing / sketching

If you really want to develop your abilities in drawing then it's important to get into drawing what is in front of you, whether it's a simple object at home such as a coffee mug or a tea pot. or if you prefer, an outdoors subject which could distant trees or your own garden. I am going to make the following distinction between the terms drawing and sketching:

Drawing is a general term, but usually refers to a more exacting form of recording a subject, such as technical drawing or design for more commercial purposes. What I mean by sketching is learning to LOOK at a subject, as though for the first time. We need to develop the discipline to not be too influenced by a  pre-conceived idea about how something should look - we may well be deceiving ourselves. It is especially true in these days of media point of sale imagery that surrounds our world to the point of being less aware of the unenhanced natural world you can encounter on a walk in a country lane or even just in your local neighbourhood - I was amazed recently when we had the snowfall, how much it changes any landscape, even the rooftops of the houses in the view from my kitchen offered an interesting tonal composition that wouldn't normally exist.

When you are in that zone of 'seing' and enjoying the experience of seing a representation of what is before you, develop on the paper before you, you are well on the way to understanding the experience of what it means to be a creative artist. Don't worry if you aren't happy with the likeness of what you're drawing. The wonderfull thing is that it is your artwork, nobody elses -it's unique, so be proud of yourself.

Here are a few more suggestions on materials to use:

You will need a few more grades of pencil:  2B, 4B, 6B and a chisel edge pencil (like the old carpenters pencil) is useful for filling in areas of tone. Try and get artists pencils from the art store as they will be softer and offer a better texture than the bog-standard graphite pencils you'll find in the newsagents shop.

There are lots of different drawing mediums that you can buy in pencil form, such as pastel, wac crayons, watercolour pencils, charcoal and carbon. For the sake of simplicity and tring to make life easier for you, I would suggest that you just concentrate on grahite pencils at this stage. All these drawing mediums are great in their own way, but there are specila techniques involved. I will cover their use at a later date.

Paper

Get yourself one or two sketch books of cartridge paper. An A4 size should do for starters. When you get more confident and ambitious, you may want to expand on to larger sketches and use an A3 size pad - especialy good for landscape work. Try and get hold of pads that are ring bound; they are easier to work on, and you don't have to hold back the leaves of the pad while drawing. However, a useful tip is to use a bulldog paper clip for that purpose.

So, there you go. Get started and enjoy!


In the next session, I will cover the basics of using watercolour