Drawing as painting – two more pictures from the snow day

DJ

Dancer on the runway

These two were drawn on the snow day I talked about in my last post and both show what I think is the difficulty of dealing with large areas of uniform colour when using pencils and graphite sticks. These should really be paintings or at least ink drawings but I have no skills in either! Anyway, the fact that it is difficult to depict smooth colour or shading with pencil means that you get a gritty ‘scratched’ quality. I like how every part of the picture shows evidence of which way the graphite was applied. Of course I could be wrong and there are probably many skilled artists out there who can accurately depict every shade of grey in smooth perfection using just an HB pencil and their index finger…but right now I’m chalking up my imperfection to ‘style’, ha.

Freeze

Freeze - 2nd February 2009

This was drawn on Monday 2nd of February 2009, better known as Snow Day among Londoners. At the start of the working week we were treated to the heaviest snow fall in 20 years. Being snowed in afforded me the rare luxury of being able to draw all day. Needless to say I was pretty productive and churned out 4 drawings. Given the conditions of the day I thought it would be apt to post ‘Freeze’ first. It’s based on a photo of a bboy holding a freeze. Navigating the dancer’s clothes was probably the most difficult task. You can see the folds in the shirt and the shape of the jeans but unfortunately it still looks flat to me. Clothes, or just cloth in general, has always been something I’ve wanted to reproduce realistically. I once had the idea of sketching my unmade bed as an exercise but upon casting my eyes across the unforgiving mass of light and shadow I knew that it would just end in tears.

Lifter

Lifter - 31 January 2009

Based on a photo.

A little background info about my drawings. All of these were done after going through Betty Edwards’ fine book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It’s a how-to book aimed at total beginners and focuses on the psychological aspect of drawing, well seeing, to be exact. According to Edwards the brain is split into two modes the ‘left’ mode which is more analytical, language and symbol based, and the ‘right’ mode which is more intuitive, non-verbal and non-linear. Her book trains your brain to use more of the ‘right’ side in order to see things as they are, not what your mind thinks they should be. Doing this lets you accurately reproduce what’s front of your eyes. Although this  dichotomy is a bit oversimplified, it is a good way of describing how the mind perceives. If you want to learn how to draw properly, that is see properly, I highly recommend it.

Saying that I’ve just started Bert Dodson’s book Keys to Drawing to expand my skills a bit. This book’s also aimed at total beginners but takes a more practical approach that’s similar to studio lessons.There’s more of a focus on techique and materials.

If you’re looking to learn on your own I recommend either book. Keys if you don’t like reading through psychology theory, Right Side of the Brain if you do. Or just get both and immerse yourself in drawing!

Vogue Dancers

Vogue Dancers - 28 January 2009

Untitled (man)

Untitled (man) - 26 January 2009

Pencil on paper, based on a photo.

Self portrait in pencil

Self Portrait - 22 January 2009

Image reproduction is not the best. I’m still getting the hang of digitising pencil drawings.

EDIT: I’ve uploaded a new image with better contrast. I think this looks better.