The Artist Board

My Love Of Drawing

If I could only work in one medium, without hesitation I would choose the humble pencil for its ability to capture the essence of what you want to portray in a few loosely stated brief lines. And with a little more care you can have a line drawing of the utmost beauty.

It allows you to develop the drawing further by adding values in the form of shading which creates light and dark. Nearly every art teacher or instruction book will tell you that a good painting comes from ideas developed from sketches, these sketches have solved their composition and values for them and all that is left to be decided is the colours.

And these little drawings are often works of art themselves, and are often sort after by art collectors. Some artists place a great value on this work and refuse to part with these drawings, keeping them in their own collection It is a shame that other artists neglect this part of their artistic development and never experience the joy of doing a drawing that expresses exactly what they felt about the subject.

Some painters say their reason for not drawing on the canvas before they paint is that they like to paint the large shapes first and don’t want to be confined by lines. This is nonsense, because drawing is based on the ability to see shapes, and as most of the worlds best paintings were, and still are, done from preliminary drawings and cartoons that define those shapes, the worlds greatest painters developed their drawing skills to the highest degree.

And last, but by no means least when drawing, a good many artist start by drawing the largest shapes first, and gradually refine the line, and develop the light and shade bringing drawing to completion.

In fact there are many reasons to draw. There is nothing better than dashing of a quick sketch of something that has caught your eye. You can’t always paint it as you might not have enough time, but the drawing will give you all the information you need back in the studio. Life drawing will give you the skill to put believable people in your paintings. It can also give you the ability to get a likeness in portraits.

It is for all these reasons that I love drawing, the thrill of quick sketch that enables you to make a painting. So if you are one of those painters who never draw, invest a couple of dollars in pencils and cartridge paper and discover the delights of sketching you will so glad you did.

Both the sketches below was drawn onsite the first called the “Boilerhouse”

Took about one hour because it was a value study

The one beneath was more or less an

Outline sketch which was completed

In 15 minutes