sketching Archives - Making It Up

As I mentioned a while ago, (dear 15 year old me) I have spent most of my life convinced I couldn’t draw. When I took up photography a while back, I started seeing things differently. And then I started drawing.

To begin with, I wasn’t quite sure what to do, or what I was interested in drawing, so I just kind of pootled about doodling things. I used the book that Big was using, Anatomy for the Artist (Amazon affiliate link), but I didn’t get on with it as well as she did.

I have, however, very much enjoyed doing a variety of things sparked off by picture books. Like Lily and Bear, and the nowhere box. And of course, Augustus.

Really, what has worked for me is getting *good* art materials and experimenting. I’ve built up quite a stock 😉

My day to day carry kit looks something like this.

That’s a Winsor and Newton watercolour sketching set, some Derwent Pencil water pens, my Staedtler pigment liner pen set (that particular set exclusive to Cass Art) and a set of mini pencils that came off a draw by numbers set. They’re the only bit of this that aren’t high quality, given that the sketchpad is Moleskine, but if you shop around carefully, you can get quality at a really good price. For example, right now, Cass Art have a clearance sale, although their prices are competitive all the time. Their shops are treasure troves of artistic inspiration if you’re ever near enough for a visit too.

My experiments at the moment are inspired by an excellent book, Just draw it, that I found at the library. I like the way that it suggests a technique and links it to an artist, so not only are you getting to try something out, you’re getting to learn about artists as well.

So here’s my attempt at a Zen portrait. Not sure I’ve quite got the technique down.

Here’s the book in question.

And probably the best suggestion of all, to keep a sketch book, and just keep drawing.

What I’m trying at the moment is speed drawing, inspired by various Olympic sports. My rugby players don’t look this good though.?

I guess what I’m learning at the moment is that if you don’t try, you don’t have any chance of succeeding. And the more you try the more chances you give yourself to produce something you like. Which have been good lessons to learn.

Disclosure: Amazon and Cass Art links are affiliate links.

On recommendations from a couple of people, I dug out our copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence (Amazon affiliate link) today. (Turns out there’s a new edition. Must not buy.)

It seems that in my experimentation I’ve worked out the five basic principles of drawing, and they’re all to do with perception, rather than actual drawing. I’m kind of tempted to just go on experimenting and copying to work the techniques out myself given I’ve got this far, but at the same time, there’s a pull to take the short cut of reading the book. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, one of the earliest suggestions is to do three drawings and date them, so that you can see how far you’ve come when you’ve read the book, followed the lessons and so on. The subjects are yourself, drawing from a reflection (selfie time!), a drawing from memory, and your hand. So I sat down and did these.

And this

I had to have a little pause in between. I did that first sketch, popped it online, and then sat back and looked at it. And I was overcome by a wave of emotion – anger, grief, regret. All those years of thinking I couldn’t draw, when really what I was doing was looking at things wrong. And the book linked above talks about taking anyone who can hold a pencil from complete amateur to reasonable proficiency in 5 8 hour days.

If that’s really the case, why do so many of us get told we can’t draw? That we’re not creative? That you have to have special talent?

I’m sure that talent makes a difference. I’m sure that imagination, how you look at things, what you choose to look at, what you see, makes a difference to what you produce. And different people have different ideas, no two people are going to produce exactly the same picture even looking at the same thing. But art, creativity, it’s so very important to our sense of well being, and happiness. Drawing is making me happy. I’m glad that I’ve managed to find it under all those layers of “I can’t” that started back in the art room at school.

sketching

Learning to draw: my journey so far.

Sunday sketching.