Back to the Drawing Board
Kevin gives some wonderful tips on getting back to the basics.
We all have fond memories of drawing on scraps of paper when we were kids. Smudging those messy oil crayons around a giant sheet of butcher’s paper drawing Mum, Dad and your brothers and sisters in front of that square house with the mandatory smoke billowing chimney was where it all started. It was here and throughout school that most young artists were inspired enough to pursue art as a career. Some of us loved those art classes where others loved mathematics and chemistry. But once the call of art is heard, it is nigh impossible to deviate from that calling.
To be a good artist I believe one must be able to draw proficiently first and those skills need to be honed on a regular basis; pulling them out of the cupboard and dusting them off so to speak. I do not agree with some art instructors who say you do not need to be able to draw well to be a good artist. It would be like owning a Ferrari without having a driver’s licence. I believe an artist must be able to draw perspectives and understand the basic principles of anatomy etc before painting, as I have tried to get exact perspectives with a paintbrush only and 90 per cent of the time, I have failed. I must pre-draw my paintings with a pencil first and most times I will do three or four drawings prior to painting
so I get my composition and tones right before touching the canvas.
Not only do we need to re-evaluate our skillset, but we need to integrate new technologies and products into our arsenal. One such product I have found to be cutting edge for artists is the Zest-it product range. They have revolutionised drawing by inventing a liquid which when used with a Tortillon or Blending Stump has an amazing ability to blend tones perfectly. They also make products for oil painting and are working on a product to enhance acrylic paints.
It is hard to pull yourself away from the wonderful world of colour and that feeling of laying paint down on a canvas is hard to leave and go back to a pencil and paper… but don’t despair, the feeling of that pencil lightly building up a tonal base on a sheet of paper still holds an addictive charm and not only that, but the portability of the skill is also a drawcard ie, you can sit in a café, railway station, bus stop or anywhere and pull out your pencil and paper and off you go. This is how the Masters used to do it. Masters like Pablo Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh were all amazing traditional artists before they found their own styles, but all three of them were advocates for excellence in drawing.
I live in the tropics 600 kilometres south of Darwin in a little village called Daly Waters with a permanent population of five people so the only thing that changes in my life is the visitors to this tiny township. From November to April the weather is unbearable without air-conditioning.
The build-up to the ‘Wet’ is from September to December and in the daytime temperatures reach around 45-50 degrees Celsius until the rains come. It is not uncommon to have temperatures of 54 degrees around 4pm each day during this period. So, why have I just bored you with the local weather report? Well, during this build up and through summer it is almost impossible to paint with acrylic, even Atelier Interactive paint tends to dry very quickly, not only that but where I paint is in a 20 x 10 metre studio which is almost impossible to cool down. So I retreat to the comfort of my air-conditioned home and change my artistic pursuits to watercolour painting and drawing. I have found this diversification very satisfying because by the time winter comes around I am champing at the bit to get back to acrylic painting. It is a very pleasing cycle of life.
So here I am in my nice airconditioned room and wanting for inspiration as the Katherine Prize art competition is looming on the horizon. Artists are only allowed to put two entries into this annual prize and I only have two months to come up with a one-metre painted masterpiece (remembering I can only paint between May – August each year) for the big night in July each year. So what is my second entry going to be? … It must be a drawing but what? I started doodling and came up with the inspiration of drawing 36 pencil portraits of people in the Northern Territory to place into a frame 1m x 1m. Last year I received a highly commended and sold a painting for $1800 which inspired me to do better this year, so in order to do that I had to go ‘back to the drawing board’, and by doing this, it has motivated me to become a better artist.
I have found two inspirational books which are a must for any artist when it comes to back to basics stuff. They are “What Painting Is” by James Elkins and “Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting” by John F. Carlson. Both these books illuminated my perception of people, objects, nature and art. Little phrases like “you must paint the message you want to portray to the viewer”, and “what are you trying to tell the viewer?”. This taught me that rather than replicate an image you must tell a story first, as most art buyers want the story first and foremost … I suppose what you are doing is selling the sizzle not the sausage. I had to sit back and let this statement sink in, and eventually it did. So you see, sometimes by going back to basics you can stimulate artistic thought, because I am sure as an art student you had a couple of sick days and missed a couple of very pertinent statements like this.
So my basic drawing kit is as follows:
A pencil wrap (36 pencil capacity). These wraps have little pockets for erasers and small pencil sharpeners etc and they have a strap to keep them all in place. I keep a supply of at least four pencils of each grading.
Make sure you have a quality pencil sharpener. I recommend the A5 Helix sharpener as they have five settings and give the pencil a wonderful long lead with amazingly sharp points.
I have a small stock of kneadable erasers but I much prefer to use the Faber Castell Dust-free eraser, so I have a stock of at least six of these. I use one for blending so it has a soft rounded corner. The second one has a sharp corner which I keep sharp by slicing a fine edge off the end of the whole eraser. This gives me the ability to remove small amounts of graphite in detail. The other four erasers can be moulded to your own taste.
Only ever buy good quality cartridge paper which is acid free and has a minimum weight of 150gsm.
Once the drawing has been completed I put it in a plastic wallet but firstly I spray it with workable fixative from Westart.
These items are just so portable so I take them everywhere in my little backpack. Because I have a pencil wrap I can be a little more robust in my handling of the pencils as I know they are protected. If you do not have access to the pencil wrap then you can use any old box or fishing tackle box so long as you wrap your pencils in bubble wrap or equivalent. I like to keep my drawing sheets separate in a clear plastic wallet which I attach to a foolscap clipboard. I just take the sheet out and put it on my clipboard which gives the paper a more solid backing than leaving the sheet in its pad.
You can make your own Tortillons at this website: http://monologues.co.uk/ Portraits/tortillon.htm and the Zest-it range can be found at: http://www.zest-it.com/products.htm . I recommend you visit these sites if you are keen on improving your drawing skills. Furthermore there are so many drawing and painting tutorials on Youtube and many free PDF downloadable files regarding basics in art, so do your art a favour and hang up your paintbrushes for a while, make yourself a cuppa and start drawing family portraits and the world around you in pencil … you won’t regret it!
Cheers. ■