July 8th, 6PM Uk time (10AM Pacific, 1PM Eastern)
I’ll be using this workshop to kick off the Drawing series, and explain further the general approach.
I’ll be showing you a couple of exercises designed to train both line and shape accuracy and compositional awareness. We’ll be drawing flowers 🙂
You’ll need tracing paper or a sheet of clear acetate for this one, and basic drawing tools – graphite or charcoal is fine.
Here’s a reference photo of a simple drawing for download and/or printout. I’ve supplied a PDF and a jpeg version. You can either use this one or make your own, but do make sure it’s a very clear line drawing with lines of mostly the same weight – a rough sketch won’t be too useful for this specific exercise.
Click here to download the PDF
Click here to download the jpeg
In the workshop, we’ll be drawing out some different sized and shaped rectangles – circles too if you wish – that are smaller than the drawng.
By laying the tracing paper or acetate over the drawing, we can isolate parts of the drawing. Some parts may appear quite abstract and unrecognisable – that’s fine.
You’ll also need a sheet of paper to draw on with either pencil or charcoal, and at least one mroe sheet of tracing paper/acetate.
We’ll be attempting to replicate, as closely as we can and completely by eye (no measuring) what we see in the box we’ve isolated in a box of exactly the same size and shape on a separate sheet.
It will be most helpful if you can do this exercise on a drawing board on an upright easel, since you’ll need to step back and check.
This is a variant of sight size, and is designed to stretch your ability to replicate shape by eye. It’s incredibly effective if done regularly for a little while.
Since we’ll also be chosing what part of the drawing to replicate, we can also spend some time trying out different crops. This a very effective way to practice composition and develop a sense of natural balance – this practice method comes from Arthur Wesley Dow, and if you don’t already have it, you might want to consider grabbing the free, downloadable version of the book:
Click here to download the book.
Just pop back here when we’re due to start.