Put your picture away
I’d like to apologise to Drawanyway readers because for the last two weeks, you may have noticed that I’ve been slightly less engaged on the site. It’s had to take a back seat while I’ve been preparing an illustration for a competition - with only a set number of free hours available to me each day, something had to give (something as well as the housework, that is).
The picture I’ve been working on is quite unlike what I talk about on Drawanyway. Rather than a quick sketch, it’s involved careful thought, at least one rough, and a pencilled version before I plunged into the full colour one.
Because I’ve spent so much time so close to it, I’ve decided to put it away for a few days before I send it off. When I look at it again, I hope that any faults will jump out at me in the same way as they would to someone looking at it for the first time. Last Wednesday I mentioned that many tips for aspiring writers also apply to artists: well, here’s another one. It’s always a good idea to put your writing in a drawer for a while, for all the same reasons.
Your task? Get out an old picture, or draw a new one and put it away. See if you can take a more dispassionate look at it with the distance of time. Of course, the hard thing is trying it again, if you think you could do better - but I am sure that’s what the greatest artists do.
This post is quite similar to the idea of looking at your picture backwards.
Posted: August 6th, 2007 under About drawanyway, Technique, Me.
Comments: 3
3 Comments
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I’ve had pictures that just weren’t coming out right no matter what I did, and if I gave up on them and had a look a few days later I’d be able to see where I was going wrong. I think it’s related to something I was saying a while ago, about not having developed my Artistvision well enough to see mistakes until it’s too late. Going away from the picture is one way around the problem, but it doesn’t work as well on subjects that won’t stay put!
In drawing this recent picture, with its difficult angles, I found that having a break for as little as half a minute would give me a fresh look and I’d be able to see how to correct it. Coming back to look at the finished picture the next day, I can see even more corrections I could make.
Another go at that link!
There’s something I really really like about that picture - your dodechahedron has character, which I guess is something that imperfections can impart.