How To…
365/43: Blind Contour Friday
This was a complicated and fun blind contour drawing to do.
Here's a brief outline of how to do a contour drawing.
- Purpose: Trains eye to follow edges and topography of a subject; hand to eye coordination; practice “looking” at a subject
- How:
- Look at the model; pick a start point
- Focus at the start point; imagine touching the point
- Once “touching” the model, start drawing slowly
- Match eye and hand movement
- Keep looking at the subject
- Do not look at the paper unless need to restart
- Practical Exercise: Draw non-drawing hand
Posted in Blind Contour Drawing, Daily Drawing 2010, How To..., MsKitty | 
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Daily Drawing 13; “How to…”
Still haven’t departed tulip land. I must be dreaming of early spring…or MsKitty is.
These “Peggy” drawings start out as simple, rough gestures. The main difference in this type of drawing is that this is an immediate dialogue between my paper and “inner eye”. I look at my paper rather than the physical model.
If you’d like to know how I do it or give it a try, here’s what I suggest:
Materials: Graphite pencil, drawing paper, knead-able art gum, paper towel or soft cloth for smudging
Try this:
- Either set up a simple still life, or take out a recent drawing.
- With a pencil, loosely, fluidly draw in the shapes. Feel free to alter location, orientation, shape, as fits your needs.
- Put the still life or original drawing away; work from memory.
- “Restate” or go over the lines that you like.
- Smudge lightly, pick out lines with art gum and pencil
- Look at shapes, nodes (where two shapes overlap or join). You’re searching for design
- Add, lift, smudge, restate…have a dialogue with the inner eye and the paper
- Eventually you reach a point where the drawing is going one direction. Follow that direction to a conclusion
- I like to alternate lights and darks. Select your “center of interest” shape that you want white.
- Start filling in the darks around, adding shapes or merging shapes to fit your needs.
- Take out another piece of paper and do it again.
The earlier you get to the “ugly” point, the better. It frees you to experiment. If the drawing starts out too pretty, smudge immediately!
The wonderful thing about drawing is that you have permission to stop anytime you want to! I have found, though, if I stick with a drawing through the ugly phase, I am rewarded with an interesting “Peggy” drawing.
If you’re having trouble with the idea of drawing in an “unrealistic” manner, consider this: all drawing is an illusion.
Should you take the leap and try doing a “Peggy” drawing and are interested in sharing, please let me know. Perhaps we can post it to my blog!
Thank you.
Posted in Daily Drawing 2010, Drawing, How To..., Kitty Still Lifes | Tags: abstract kitties, cat drawings, Daily Drawing 2010, how to draw | 10 Comments »
Drawing 55: “How I Do It”
For drawing 55, I thought it might be interesting to scan it as I worked. I’m trying to articulate how I arrive at my compositions. I welcome questions, comments and critiques!
State 1: I’ve just loosely divided up my paper; decided which object will go where and how much space they’ll get. I’m heading toward flat objects; note the flat bottoms and tops.
State 2: I’ve drawn in the outer borders of the drawing. My approach is to restate lines. Sometimes I work a little long in one area, being attracted to something. For example, the candlestick I wanted to make vertical. I used a triangle to ensure the vertical lines were at right angles to the horizontals. I have trouble with lines that trail off when I freehand. I’ve now drawn in a “skeleton. I’ve got to decide if I like the direction I’m heading.
State 3: I’ve done more restating of edges and shapes. The big change here is the background shapes. I’m not sure what I think of the stair-step angles. On the plus side, they break up the background and add contrast to the curves of the subject. Don’t know if it’s too much contrast. What if I repeated the curves in the background….
State 4, Final State: I just couldn’t see changing the back staircase shapes to curves. It seemed too loopy to me. The biggest difference here is the continued development and emphasis to the design already established. I played with alternating lights and darks in a subtle way. I added a few more curves. And, it’s achieved a state that will take only some minor tweaking, like squaring verticals and horizontals, prior to translating to a painting.
Posted in Drawing, How To..., Still Life with Toy Pony | Tags: Drawings, how I do it, still life with pony series | 6 Comments »
Two Memory Drawings
To follow up on yesterday’s posting on memory drawings, I am posting two drawings I did in 2003. They were done on successive days. To put into context, I had been doing “memory” drawings immediately after my morning exercise on the beach. I happened to encounter this woman doing her exercise two days in a row.
What I see when I look at drawing v1 is a stiff, labored drawing. I did not quite get the movement and the perspective is off. On the plus side, I did it from memory. And, I can identify with the day when the body feels stiff and uncooperative when I’m out doing my morning exercise.
The second drawing is more confident. The body seems to move naturally. The woman’s expression helps give a positive feel. The action of the hands and feet work a little bit better. I see a woman out for a walk; her body is relaxed, in rhythm and she is enjoying herself.
Difference between day one and day two: ME! I asked better questions and saw more in the brief encounter with this woman on the beach.
Both drawings were done in roughly 20 minutes or so. Drawing right after breakfast has become part of my daily habit and routine. I do about 20 minutes…because that’s as long as I can sit on the hard breakfast stool.
I would be interested to know what your experiences are.
Memory Drawing & Still Life w/Toy Pony #51
Another exercise that I have done over the years is draw from memory. This is one of the exercises I learned from Kimone Nicolaides book, “The Natural Way to Draw”.
Try This:
- When you’re out and about, try to pay attention to what you see. When you come home, try to draw something that you noticed like a gesture, a movement. For example, someone walking down the street; hand on a car door; cat on a step.
- Look at items in a room or on a table. Turn your back on the arrangement, or go to a different room and draw what you just saw.
Pick a time when you can do either exercise for 15 to 20 minutes a day. If you’re able to, try it for a couple of weeks and see what you’ve learned.
Background.
I had just retired from my previous career and finally was going to do what I always wanted to do: draw and paint. But, how do I teach myself to do these things? What does an “artist” do all day long?
I turned to Kimone Nicolaides book and started working through some of the exercises. I think he is credited with developing the contour drawing exercise for his students at the Art Student’s League. Another of the exercises he had was drawing from memory.
I started doing the drawings from memory 20 minutes every morning. What I learned was how to ask myself better questions and to see the basic shapes of subjects. Better questions are like: “how does clothing move when someone is walking?” “How do I know a duck is a duck and not a goose or swan” etc., depending on the subject.
How I Use This Lesson Today.
To put memory drawing in context, most drawings we do from “life” are memory drawings. Blind contours are an exception because you are looking directly at the subject. Otherwise you look at the subject, at your paper, at your subject, at your paper…etc.
Many of my drawings for my series are essentially expressive memory drawings. I think about the subjects as I draw. Today’s posting is one such “memory drawing”. As I step back, I can look at the expressive qualities as well as how I have handled the form of the subjects.
Let me know what you think and your experiences with memory drawings.
