drawanyway.com

Have a think about the drawings you’ve done recently. How did they sit on the page?

One thing that timid artists often do is keep to the centre of the page, leaving a large white area all around. A good exercise is to consciously draw to fill the page.

I don’t mean draw the subject the same size as you normally would, and fill the rest of the page with everything that is around it. I mean try to deliberately enlarge the subject so that each of its boundaries touches the edge of the page.

This approach often encourages a freer line, and, like the drawing without taking your pen off the paper exercise, it often forces you out of habits you didn’t even know you had. If you need to add shading, say, you’ll have to do it very boldly. Maybe you’ll decide that it’s better as a line drawing with no shading, in which case your lines will start to speak for themselves.

As with so many drawing exercises, there is also a hardcore version of this one, which is to get an A1 sheet of paper and make yourself draw to that scale. You put it on the floor and tie your pen or pencil to a stick so you can reach it. This has the effect of elongating your pen so much that you can draw ‘from the shoulder’ - a phrase that art teachers up and down the land mutter daily. But since we’re largely dealing with materials we can source from around us, simply take the biggest piece of paper you can find (actually, a page of a broadsheet newspaper would do - you can draw over it with a thick pen. But otherwise, an old bit of cardboard or some A4 from the office. A4 is probably about the smallest you should go).

I’m asking for trouble, aren’t I, getting you to post enormous pictures. Please reduce them a bit before you post!

Some !bonus! Drawanyway tips:

• OK, some people’s style is to draw tiny and close. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you don’t think you have a style yet, try this out because you might find you like the freedom.
• If you reach the edge of the page but still have more to draw, just slip another sheet of paper underneath and carry on. After all - who’s in charge, the paper or you?! You can see this technique done beautifully here, on the Daily Monsters blog, which, incidentally is also a lot of fun to watch.
• Another really fun thing to do is to take a very small or tight drawing and blow it up on a scanner or photocopier. Hmm. I think this might deserve a post to itself tomorrow.

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