Step away from the art shop
You know how when you are in a new relationship, the longer you hold off actually jumping into bed, the more you want it?
Well, if you hold off for too long, I’m thinking the spark probably dies in the end. So no more prevaricating - it’s time to get the drawanyway party started. Tasks I promised, and tasks you shall have. One a day, if I can get my act together and keep it that way.
I want to begin by talking about media. You’ll have got the idea by now that Drawanyway isn’t about laboured oil-paintings on six-foot canvases. It’s much more about quick scrawls on the back of chewing gum wrappers. The good news is that in these peculiar times, both can be considered equally as ‘art’.
When you want to write a novel, the temptation is to go to the stationer’s and buy the nicest notebook you can find. This is a sure way to intimidate yourself out of ever writing that first sentence, let alone a blockbuster (believe me, I know). Meanwhile the Kerouacs and Rowlings of this world are scribbling their best-sellers on napkins.
If you’re a wannabe artist, an art supply shop is both thrilling and terrifying. Faced with every possible medium, it’s really hard to make a choice. Are oils only for professionals? What about all those bottles of solvents and mixers that come with them? Do they require ten years’ training? Will your painting suffer if you don’t choose badger hair brushes? How do you know whether to choose gouache, watercolour or inks?
Well, you don’t.
There are no rules. That’s what makes it so hard. You can use anything you want; you can even mix them all together if you really want to.
I’m suggesting that we step away from the art supplies shop for a while. If you want to draw or paint with confidence, you don’t want to be using a medium that makes you nervous. Media like watercolours come with a lot of baggage about the right and wrong way to use them, and then, even more confusing, the most lauded artists are those who have learned the right way and then come out the other side to do something beyond the rules.
If I ask you to imagine a biro [ballpoint pen], perhaps a slightly leaky one, being pulled over a piece of sugar paper[construction paper], you can do that easily, can’t you? You can see in your mind’s eye exactly what that would feel like, and look like. That’s because, without even noticing, you’ve had years of getting familiar with both those media.
When you can confidently predict exactly how an implement will react, that takes one stress away from the artistic process.
Today’s task: Look around your house or work desk. Find a pen or a pencil. I don’t mind if it’s a huge thick permanent marker or a thin little propelling pencil, as long as you can foresee what kind of a line it’s going to make before you even do it.
Then find something you’d like to draw on. Not a pristine sketch book. Here are some suggestions:
- Yesterday’s newspaper
- A piece of junk mail
- A sweet wrapper
- Your hand*
- Something out of the waste paper bin
Make a few marks. If any of your scribbles start to look like something, by all means encourage that, but don’t worry if you just end up with some marks on a piece of rubbish. Just have a little moment where you think about how it feels to be using that pen on that ‘canvas’.
Then come and tell me about it. Ideally, post your pictures (or scrawls, or whatever). I’ll be joining in, too.
(I’m working on keeping these posts a bit shorter, bear with me. I do see the irony in a ten-minute task that takes twenty minutes to read about…)
*A big wet felt pen on your hand can also be great for making a monoprint on a piece of paper.
PS - I am trying to iron out glitches across the site at the moment. Please be aware that if you are a first-time commenter, your reply will be held for moderation before it is published out. This is not currently made clear. Don’t worry, it’ll publish out when I see it. Thanks for your patience.
Posted: May 30th, 2007 under Media, Confidence.
Comments: 67
67 Comments
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(sorry the image was too big before, this is a re-post)
I did one! I used a brown envelope and a retractable pencil, and doodled some geometrical lines to get a feel for the paper (it was very SHINY paper!) Then I drew the cat on my workplace tea mug!
Also, really lovely directional work and mark making with the pencil! Should have said that right away.
You are officially the first picture poster!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well done! (and, er, look how horrible the interface looks. Sorry. Will add it to my list of things I will try - ineptly - to fix).
I used the pad and pencil that were sitting next to me. It’s a drawing of this weird yellow stuffed toy that Bob has on one of our bookshelves. It don’t know what it is — is it a tellytubby or something like that?
Click through to see the other stuff that was on the pad, and the pencil I used to draw with.
It’s a Pikachu from Pokemon, isn’t it? Anyway it shows you have a number of drawing skills in place, from 3D modelling with shading, to proportion.
Pika pika! :)
Well, some of the shading was actually caused by putting the lines in the wrong place to start with :)
See, I have nothing left to teach you!
Pikachu! ;-p Nice drawing Kake! Hmmm. I am already behind on this…
OK, this really is in the spirit of a first attempt…
I wasn’t happy with it, and was about to redo it / choose another subject, when I stopped myself and decided to stick it up anyway.
Black biro on slightly shiny envelope that the subject itself came in. Oooh, how meta…
Big apologies for my layout screwing up your display as well…:( Will try to look into it.
And thanks so much for posting. Confident line, nice composition. Good understanding of how to represent small type from a distance - lots to be poleased with here! Gosh, I seem to be changing into my own art teacher from school.
It’s not your layout - I guessed with my resizing…
I know, very lax.
I’m thinking it might be just as good to get folk to post a link to the image… this middle column is rather restrictive.
Oooh, no. I like seeing the images all here on the screen together. If I had to click to see them, it would break the flow.
There’s a lot of ‘wasted’ space on either side of columns 1 &3. I’m not saying go to the edge, but by my reckoning you could easily squeeze another 170 or so pixels on, leaving a border, but being enough to get bigger pictures on.
I’ve just noticed though that the comments don’t go to the edge of the column - the ‘reply to this comment’ seems to have an extra column all to itself. Is it possible to extend the reply box, or is this the problem you’ve been talking about all along…?
Ah, see, now you’re making the classic mistake of thinking I know eff-all about coding. Although, it looks like kake has come to the rescue (again) - does it look any better to you now?
Indeed it does! Excellent job.
Except, from where I am, the first comment has a very deep blank space on top of it… ah dear, back to the drawing board…
Still looks OK to me - unless you’ve sorted it… No big gaps here.
Hmmmmmm….
I just checked. It shows up fine in Firefox, but there is a big gap if using IE.
Sadly, that’s where my knowledge runs out.
Oh - it shows up fine in Opera browser too.
Thank you! You are kindness itself.
“If I ask you to imagine a biro, perhaps a slightly leaky one, being pulled over a piece of sugar paper, you can do that easily, can’t you?”
Um…. no?
What’s a biro? What’s sugar paper? I’m already intimidated and I haven’t even gotten halfway through the first post on this blog!
Oh no! Don’t go!
A biro is a disposable pen (invented by Mr Biro) and sugar paper is rough coloured paper such as they use in school - construction paper - is that what you call it?
What’s a propelling pencil?
I haven’t been in an art class since I was in elementary school or something.
*weeps with frustration and hasn’t even picked up a pen yet*
A propelling pencil is just a pencil with replaceable leads - like a refillable pencil. Instead of sharpening it, you just push the lead down a bit further.
So it’s not an art term glossary we need as much as it is an English/American translator.
Thank you, I’m feeling less dumb already!
What Bingo McDingo said - no weeping allowed. I can see I’m going to have to try to make my language a little less British.
A biro is the same as a ballpoint - a Bic, etc. Those crazy Brits have a different name for everything. :)
OH! She’s ENGLISH!
NOW I get it. ;-)
Ha ha!
I’m afraid I tried, but I was feeling all tense.
Aw, lovely. These comments all look so much better in my preview pane where the stupid scroll bars don’t show up. I have a whole post planned for one day about text in images, so this is nice to see. Love the ‘lalala’ sea.
Here’s mine:
Drawn while in a meeting today, on the back of a pad.
Awww…love this!
It’s a Charlie Brown teacup! yay you!
Nonsense! You say you suck, then there’s a little cartoon face at the bottom which completely sums up your frustration - really simple and clean but summarises everything you’ve said. That is the kind of thing I wish I could do.
Yay!!!
I am a big fan of cups like that: I draw a lot of them myself.
I am intimidated too. You guys actually have *talent*.
No intimidation allowed! None! Hear me?
I did a drawing. Except not so much of a drawing as a number of doodles of a semi-geometric variety; and a very dodgy cartoon rat.
There is no photo of this, but Kake told me I should say I did it :)
Dead right!
There is a photo now! But it’s blurry because the camera refused to do flash, and it was taken at night under the living room lights. I did try to retake it in daylight but it seems that the camera refuses to take photos at all now. Woe.
(Click through for a slightly larger yet still blurred version.)
Oh, for the avoidance of doubt: none of that was drawn by me. Juliet did some, and doop did the rest. I think the person with the rat on their shoulder is doop, drawn by Juliet.
Have replaced the photo with a better one, as now have non-rubbish batteries.
I am afraid all that comes out when I put pen/pencil to paper is lists and doodles:
I am not sure I am doing this thing right…
Also I do not know how to write html any more apparently:
Mate, that will do for me. Marks on paper - that’s what I asked for!
HB pencil on the back of last year’s Christmas card list.
Hey Gemma!
I’ve always thought of your house as really pristine, so I was surprised to see you still have last year’s Christmas list!
That nose and those eyes are great. Lovely pencil work and shading. Now I have to try to stop sounding like a patronising art teacher.
Hello!
Pristine? Nooo way! I probably go on about cleaning the house and mention our little domestic triumphs so much because i feel like a bit of a failure as a housekeeper really. Everything is under something else or in an improbable pile or in a drawer labelled ‘important things’ ‘important things, big’ or ’stuff to keep’ and so on. It’s not the same as acual tidiness.
And aw, thank you. This face is pretty much all I draw these days when I doodle, I think because ages ago at school we had to do portraits of ourselves and it took ages for me to figure out how to draw my own nose. Now it’s like ’start with a circle, draw two bobbly bits at the side’, and the rest of the face just happens or doesn’t.
You don’t sound patronising at all, by the way. Not to me anyway.
So glad to hear it - mind you, cleanliness of houses is such a personal thing. How many times have I heard someone say their house is a tip, only to go round and think, ‘Ah, you won’t be coming to mine then!’
One good thing, at least all this drawing uses up the scrap paper in a thoroughly worthy way.
What I liked best about the nose is that it shows an understanding of the bone structure underneath it, and that, yes, you can build complex shapes out of simple ones like circles and lines.
Ok, I did one!
Actually my first page of drawing was more just scribbles and shapes, but when I looked at the other drawings posted in comments, I became intimidated, too, and decided I should at least draw something resembling SOMEthing.
I drew in my little Moleskin notebook that I keep with me for making lists, notes, etc. of things to buy or things I like or things I want to remember to look up on the Web. I drew with a red pencil that I use for editing–I know these red pencils inside and out, so it seemed like the perfect tool for my first task.
I love that shade of red.
I am finding it very interesting seeing people’s first ideas of what ‘drawing’ is - I mean, whether they draw something they can see, or something from the imagination like you have. And I like the pattern detail on the wings. It looks like you’ve really thought about the shape of the bottom wings too, and made them very symmetrical.
Finally, PLEASE don’t be intimidated. Everyone thinks that others are better than them, but this is a place where we’re all working towards better drawing.
I have been out of the habit of drawing for far too long, now. I read Kristen and then Karen’s livejournal posts about this site, and thought I might try it. As I dug out a pencil and my moleskine, this is the image that popped into my head.
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You’re more than welcome; it’s lovely to meet you.
Your IMG HTML does not seem to have worked - if you need help, give me a shout.
I mostly think of myself as a doodler. My notes inevitably wind up with little abstract shapes and designs in the margins. I am trying to cultivate various parts of my creativity right now, and this seems like a great way to try! I really like your site. :)
I often have trouble deviating from abstract doodles, so I looked over and drew the first thing I noticed–my guitar–with the blue pen and yellow notepad I already had in front of me.
Great perspective and proportion! I actually really like the blue pen and yellow paper effect here. The lines on the paper kind of add something for me, but then I have always been a fan of scrap paper (as you can probably tell from the look of this place).
Last night I was just about to leave work, and drew a lion on the back of a Royal Mail Registered Delivery receipt. It started off fierce but after drawing eyebrows it looked sad, so I put a thorn in its paw.
I took it home to scan it in, and promptly forgot about it. Noes!
Noes indeed! Ah well, any time you want to post!
Let me try this again:
Ah, super! The movement in that is just fabulous. And I can feel just where the muscular tension is. Great.
Is it okay to post recent but slightly old stuff?
e.g.
(posted again because I forgot to sub to comments the first time…)
There are no rules! So, yes, and, aww, moggy.
Ooh, finally I can post again! For some reason I couldn’t for the past two days. But two days ago:
Okay, so. The baby fell asleep on me and there was no paper within reach. Gel pen on left hand:
You can’t really see the Loch Ness Monster below my index finger, sadly. Then the baby woke up, so, hey, monoprint snails on the back of a “vote Green” poster:
You get the prize for looking like you had the most fun. Also, that top photo is pretty much art in itself.