Beginning Again: The Intimacy of Drawing

  continous line drawing

Every year, I teach a beginning drawing class and am reminded about how important it is to learn to “see” and to begin to feel the curve and shape of a form. My favorite way to draw is like the above picture of a father and daughter. I begin with one line and pretend I am drawing across and around their form, making choices, all the time, as to what bumps my pencil up or down or makes it curve and circle. It took me a long time to learn that every image I create may not be perfectly proportionate but that it would have some truth of the reality of the subject I chose to see. I think that is the real joy of being able to draw and anyone can draw, you know……..

My students begin by drawing blind line drawings of hands and faces and objects.

blind line of hand

blind line of face

They are instructed to feel the form and to pretend as though the pencil is touching the surface of the object they are drawing. They are instructed to include cross countours and move their pencils in arcs where the form bulges out and would change the form of their line.  All of this is done while studying the form and not looking at the paper. This allows us to turn off that left brain that wants to tell us how ugly our drawing is and allows our right brain to “see” more intimately and encourage our hand to discover the true shape of things.

Next we draw continuous line drawings while studying an object, in the same manner but we are allowed to look back and forth from object to the paper.

continous line of the hand

continous line of a bottle.

We note where we moved into a form and crossed over it and included indications of cross contours in the forms we created like wrinkles around the joints of the fingers and highlights in a clear glass bottle.

We, then, begin breaking our lines and draw, in contour line, the ghost of an object or objects without values of light, midtone and darks.

contour line self portrait

contour line of hands

Note that the green hand is an image of my right hand. I drew it with my non-dominant hand (left).  I have found I can draw as well with my left hand. It just takes me LONGER.

Next, we studied the negative space surrounding something and learned we could come up with the image, itself. ….and we could always use negative space to bring our positive object into a more proportionate drawing.

negative space of a slide

negative space child on a swing

Now on to value and perspective  Yay!

New Student Art: Beginning Drawing

Pat Dooley 2

We studied Blind line contour.

Tina Rutledge 3

We studied drawing in one continuous line as though we were feeling the edges of the form with the point of our pencil.

Tina Rutledge

We practiced drawing cross contours to describe form.

Sheila Kiester

We learned to see and use negative space; the space and shapes around a form.

Edmond Strange 3

We learned about and practiced perspective and how to use our pencils to measure distance and determine angles.

Sheila Kiester 3 Cloud Study

We talked about different marks we could make to describe values and form.

Lauren Pena

We practiced value studies from photographs and

Mary Ann Roach 2

Jeanne Franke

value studies we drew from still lifes illuminated by a light source.

Last night we finished the above class in beginning drawing. You can view the above drawings and more by visiting the Student Art 1 Page here. Thank you to all those who participated in this class!

Automatic Drawings

I have long been interested in automatic drawing. A while back Chris Carter had a post about automatic drawing and came up with this on a sleepless night. I finally decided to give it another go. As busy as I am, lately,  it is something I can do when I have a moment of time.

  click to enlarge

The above was my first attempt. I have no idea what the egg or the bird signify.  The book I read on the subject of automatic drawing said to start by making marks on your paper. They can be any marks (swooping lines, crosshatches, dots). You can use the side of your pencil and your eraser. The idea is to draw. It was suggested that you follow the shapes of what you are creating and can turn the format and view it from all angles as you work your drawing. As you begin to see something appear, shade and draw to bring that image to the foreground. I have a tendency to be judgemental, so I have to keep reminding myself to let go and let it happen.

click to enlarge

This was my second automatic drawing.  This one actually moved me as it began to appear.  I imagined a fairy- like figure shaping the landscape. I searched for what she might be fashioning. I stopped, prematurely, because I wanted to allow that landscape to become whatever the viewer wants to imagine it to be. I may try and watercolor and rice paper collage this one. I wonder if I can maintain the mystery in paint.  I will post it if I do so.

 click to enlarge

Back to another egg and figure and bird.  What is this?  I can assure you I did not set out to draw them. As it began to appear in the lines, I even had to erase back along the bird’s breast to bring the figure I saw forward. I think I’d like to paint this one, also.

If any of you try this, I’d really like to see what you come up with. I find it a great way to free me up and suggest possibilities for paintings as well practice my drawing skills.

Making Marks: A Study in Values

I am following Heather on her blog. She is studying drawing and has been practicing value studies and making marks to describe form. This runs hand-in-hand with what my students started last week.  I decided to take a black and white photo of clouds (thank-you Wet Canvas!) and practice some mark making of my own. I introduced my class to the marks made by Degas, Van Gogh, Seurat and a few others that are found in the pages of Bert Dodson’s Keys to Drawing book. We spoke about how we needed to try and find the mark making that best suited us. I decided to try some mark-making of my own.

 2H, B and 6B pencils

In this study I drew my marks all one direction laying line next to line and going over areas that were to be darker with a softer lead pencil. I found this to be very tedious and time-consuming. Notice my angle strayed off to the right in the upper right hand corner. Bad me!

 2H, B and 6B pencils

In this study, I used the sides of my pencils. This was the quickest method to get these shapes and values down. In the past, this is what I see my students doing. Makes me wonder if other forms of mark making are too tedious and confusing for them in the beginning.  My other thought was that this form of shading comes in handy for a thumbnail sketch, done quickly, for a larger finished drawing or painting.

 2H, B and 6B pencils

This way was, by far, the most fun for me. I tried to imagine the form of the clouds I was seeing and attempted to emulate their contours and gesture by allowing the point of my pencil to scroll over and around them. I like the feeling of roiling clouds that I was able to capture with this mark making. Note I made my strokes over the sky flat. I saw no form in that and made my marks to reflect that.

 2H,B,6B pencils and gum eraser

In this attempt, I used crosshatching and incorporated curved lines laying next to each other as well as layers of lines going the other way to build up the layers of midtones and darks. This took longer than the contour/gesture study but was shorter than the lines laid next to each other study.  I like this study because it incorporates the contours as well as gives furthur definition to the cloud forms and allows me to achieve better values in the sky. I used a gum eraser to lightly touch up some areas around the rays and to soften some areas within the clouds.

Faceless Figures and Echostains Blog

      Self Portrait

    My Son

    Life Drawing

   Life Drawing

   Life Drawing

Echostains Blog has recently posted about an artist who paints faceless figures. Take time to check the post out here. The artist she researched leaves his figures faceless for different reasons than I did.

I believe I have mentioned on a previous post that I learned to draw by drawing figures. I took from a very talented teacher who suggested we learn to draw by choosing subjects we believed we never thought we could draw. I chose people. The above drawings were done in 1981. I had taken drawing classes for a year’s time by the time I drew these and my drawings were largely of people.  About a year into drawing, I hit a wall and was frustrated by my figures and not seeming to grow very much. Instead of telling me I had hit a brick wall or saying to me that she did not like my faces, this teacher said, ” I wonder what would happen if you left the faces off?” I went home that night and drew the first drawing you see, above, titled self portrait. I was off and running and did not look back for about 6 months. Everything I drew had no face. If I drew my family, I left the faces out or drew their backs. If it was at life drawing sessions, I left faces out and began drawing figures over figures and portions of figures. What I learned is that I was concentrating too much on the face and missing the whole idea of the pose and the majority of a figure. This was a freeing exercise for me and one I will never forget.

Another artist who does faceless figures is Duck Billed Platitudes found here.

Jake

Jake was truly “one” man’s best friend. He is missed.

I am not a pastelist but took a couple classes in pastels a few years back. I manage to use them more as a drawing medium than these beautiful layered paintings I see accomplished artists create.    For class, we were instructed to watercolor a background on coldpress illustration board and create our pastel on that. This was mine.

Drawing Reno

Reno is a black shepherd of a friend of my daughter.  I was asked to see what I could do with graphite and Reno’s image. I have to say that the photos I received drew me right in to wanting to try this project.  The above image was my first attempt. I used Stonehenge 250 GSM vellum finish paper and 2B thru 6B graphite pencils. I began the drawing with contour line and some light cross contours trying to build up his form. For the intial line I used the 2B pencil pressing down a little on those lines I wanted to be evident in the final drawing. Next I built up his coat with textured strokes trying to mimic his coat. I built the darker areas up with cross hatching and some cross contours across the bridge of his nose. I used 3,4 and 6 B pencils to do this. I next used a kneaded eraser to smudge out some of the detail in his coat in the bottom right hand corner. I built the background by scratching in loose abstract marks with the side of a dull 3B pencil. I then took my 4B pencil and scraped over a piece of rough sandpaper allowing the pwdered graphite to collect on a sheet of note paper. I took a non-lotioned kleenex and picked up the graphite powder I made and began to rub it into the background. I left the background light around his nose and head and darkened the remainder with several layers of the 3B powder. This process also took the edge off the random marks I’d made earlier but still allowed them to show through.I did not smudge the portrait and had to be careful to not rest my hand on his head throughout laying in the background.

I had always admired drawings I had seen on gessoed paper, so I decided to try one with Reno, above.  I used a bristle brush to apply acrylic white gesso to a piece of Aquarius II watercolor paper, making sure I applied the gesso in abstract strokes running different directions. This leaves the artist with a textured surface to work on. I then drew Reno again using contour and cross contour line. The graphite looked darker on this surface right away so I began with a 2H. I then began crosshatching the forms of the darks in gradually working up to a B pencil and finishing with a 3B. The texture of the gesso supplied the textural qualities you see in this drawing. I had to be careful to not rest any portion of my drawing hand on the work as it immediately smudged. I did no rubbing to produce this image. I thoroughly enjoyed working on a gessoed surface and will use this as a support for drawing again in the future.

I sprayed both drawings with Matte Fixative to prevent smudging with handling.

Thank-you, Chrissie, for introducing me to Reno!

Griffin: a drawing

Sometimes I work in ink and wash. This is a griffin I  drew from a Schleich collector toy that I set on a stack of  books across the table from me.  I wanted to see if I could capture the leg and wing on the left side coming toward me and make this creature look believable. I used india ink and a dip pen for the line work and a brush for the washes and thick texture around forelegs, neck and head.

I don’t know if it is something in the air in Indiana, today, or just coincidence, but Ryan has just posted a phenomenal and complete ink and wash of a woodland scene and has written a great story to go with it. Take time to check it out. It is worth the trip.

New Year, New Book and Sister

My sister’s (Nancy Williams) book, Yoga Therapy for Every Special Child, is about to be released! Congratulations Nancy! I hope you reach out to many by sharing your program this year and in the years to come.

When Nancy began writing her book, she asked me to illustrate it. I drew and redrew to attempt to tailor my drawing skills to what she needed to best illustrate her text. This consisted of creating  simple line drawings of yoga poses to go along with her approach to yoga therapy for special children. I learned that I needed to push back self-expression and “draw out” the excess lines so the poses would be revealed in an easy illustration for the reader to assimilate.

For more on illustration check out Curious Crow’s new post on the subject.

June Malone has also talked about illustration.

Thank-you to Jay Bastian for his careful tutelage in Photoshop. Without these skills, I would not have known how to submit my drawings digitally.

Graphite and Tape Resist

 Royal Tern

 Heron

This week,  in creative drawing, we masked off areas of our paper with torn and cut pieces of painters tape. We then drew into these with graphite. For an explanation of supplies and how we did this check week six on the creative drawing page.