FROM THE DRAWING BOARD

Hi Brett,

I can never “see” the right shapes drawing freehand? I can get it close but then always come up against a point when nothing I change or add seems to make the drawing any better, it’s so maddening I can see it’s wrong but just can’t make it any better,

Hoping you can help, Kym. Hi Kym, Well you’ve hit the crux of the biscuit between good and bad and what drives everyone mad, there’s a few things I can tell you to help improve this essential element of drawing. The first is that everyone is paddling the same boat, no matter who is doing it or what it is they are drawing, no-one can just perfectly draw the linework stages of a complex composition freehand without a struggle, it’s not humanly possible, which I guess is why so many hit a wall and sadly surrender to non-freehand methods. Second, when you start any freehand drawing you have to keep in the forefront of your mind that, until it is finished and in the frame, it is nothing more than a ‘ work in progress’, which means it is never ‘ wrong’ but rather just at one of the many stages of its ongoing development. This is as equally true of a drawing that has only the first few light, rough shapes sketched in as one that is all but finished. You are the one that put all those pencil marks and lines down in the first place so you are the only one that can move and adjust any and all of the shapes and outlines as the drawing is developed. You have to lightly establish all the largest shapes you can see first the best you can and then start refining these shapes and adding more “shapes within shapes” as you proceed, using the ongoing visual information you are constantly adding ( and clarifying) to help you perceive ( or “see”) the larger overall proportions more and more clearly as well, which always require fine tuning quite late in the drawing as your overall perception improves as all the inbuilt optical illusions recede. Fourth, you can be your own worst enemy sometimes by just not letting yourself see and change the proportional flaws of what you have established on the paper in the earliest light sketching stages. Fifth, the longer and harder you try to ‘ see’ what needs to be altered to positively proceed the faster you’ll get ‘ proportion fatigue’, so give yourself a break and always remember patience as the golden- tinged tool that it is. Sixth, keep checking what is directly above, below, left and right of the various details and features of the composition as you go along and remember that there’s no such thing as too small an adjustment and that nothing is above suspicion. Every improvement you make whether large or very small will let you ‘ see’ the overall layout more and more clearly bit by bit, and the clearer you can see it the easier it is to see what could be adjusted next to move forward. Once tones start to be added to the linework you’ll find another whole slew of fine proportional changes are needed, generally the refinements become finer and finer but always be aware (and ready to act) on larger proportional adjustments as the truth emerges and it becomes clear a whole area of the drawing needs nudging or tweaking one way or another. And finally, always work the entire drawing up as you go along, sometimes you’ll find a certain area is becoming more detailed than the rest, consciously move away from that part of the drawing and work up a less developed area. Have patience, start rough and refine, you have to “wait” to see proportional “truth” emerge, and one last tip, your eyes ( proportional judgement) are always at their most effective when freshest, so use the first ten minutes of any drawing session to its best advantage to ‘ see’ the shapes and their true relation to one another and help plan the course of the day’s session. Long answer to a great question.

Hi Brett,

You mention instinct as one of the tools used to draw but what is that exactly, how would you define it?

B. G. Hi B. G., Others may think differently but I see instinct as the resource and even fuel that drives all artistic ideas, considerations and decisions based on every moment of past experience directly influencing every single direction you take and mark you make. It’s one thing to learn the

why’s and wherefore’s of drawing from outside sources but only you can make the decisions resulting in the infinitely variable marks on the paper in the ongoing years of your own drawing trip. Every single thought and action directed to your own work and contemplation of others art and the world in general is building up your ability to dip into your ‘ instinct bank’ as you carry on the business of creating your own original freehand artworks. It’s also predicated on what has happened to you in the course of your entire life on Earth as a hooman been washing over in a most direct manner into original fine art pieces, which after all are only and always a very personal expression no matter what the genre, medium or composition. Without your own instinct and the ability to act on it you’re just left with doing what some other pesky hooman tells you to like a trained monkey, in both life and art.

Hi Brett,

I always liked to take my own reference images as you suggest but haven’t since digital replaced film and the camera is now just another feature on a smartphone. I miss the challenge of getting my own wildlife shots to use but I find it fruitless wandering around trying to get a useable result with a rotten phone with a stupid touch screen. I want to use my beautiful ‘ old’ lenses again but you can’t even find film anymore where I live. I’m at a loss,

Sad regards, Brian. Hi Brian, You might have to bite the bullet and buy yourself a dedicated digital camera, good news there is you can acquire a good quality digital SLR camera ( Pentax, Nikon, Canon etc) second hand off ebay or gumtree nowadays for a relatively small amount. They were thousands of bananas when new but like everything when it becomes numerous and a few years go by with newer and newer models, the older versions get cheaper, fast, and still do a more than good enough job for what you want them for. You do take a bit of a risk buying a 2nd hand camera online but I find modern DSLR cameras to be a lot like cars nowadays, even when they’ve had a lot of use they usually still work just fine for ages and ages. I’ve always seen a camera as a tool just like a hammer or a spanner, you look after them of course but it doesn’t really matter if they get a bit scratched and worn along the way as long as they still produce the result you want. The thing with digital lenses is they are already ‘ loose’ when new as the lenses and housings are all plastic except the contact ring so need more clearance to stop grit scratching and jamming the focus ring, old school film lenses are actual ground glass lenses in brass and steel housings with much finer tolerances possible. I’m a Pentax aficionado myself but I’m sure other brands would be the same in regards to utilising old film camera lenses on a modern DSLR. All Pentax K- mount autofocus lenses off film cameras will go straight on all the digital single lens reflex ( DSLR) Pentax cameras but even older screw mount non- auto focus lenses have adaptor rings available which allow use of the even older school screw mount brass and glass lenses. A couple of hundred bucks should see you set up with a good 2nd hand DSLR camera body and a couple of adaptor rings and you’ll be back in the hunt wandering happily around the scrub looking for the perfect nature shots for the studio with all your old friends to look through.