I have received several requests to post a beginnings drawing series. In this series I hope to teach students how to begin to learn the art of drawing. However, more than that, I hope to inspire you to know that you can, in fact, learn to be a good draughtsman. The first recorded drawings were not done on paper but on the walls of caves in France and Spain, and Africa. People have been drawing ever since. However, the materials on which they made their marks have decayed in time, and we cannot see their early sketches. Most drawings before the Middle Ages were made to help the painter put the colors in the right places. In early Renaissance times (about 1450) young art students began drawing from plaster models of ancient sculptures. Their teachers made them copy exactly so they would learn about proportions, shading, lines, shape, and form.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, artists began to keep their drawings as a sort of source book for later work. Some even made drawings to record trips they made, like an art diary. Their sketches help us to observe how they saw the world around them.

When art returned to classical principles in the nineteenth century, drawing was the most important subject taught in art schools. Young students spent hours trying to show nature or sculpture exactly as it appeared. Other artists, however, began to use drawing as an exciting means of expression. Their charcoal and ink work became supercharged with energy.

Drawing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became a more personal means of expressing ideas. Artists began working in their own ways - just the way they saw things. Today, drawing can go off in all directions. Some artists, like me, work in a detailed and traditional way. Others use drawing tools to experiment and produce strong individual statements. Contemporary artists might combine drawing with collages, paintings, or even three-dimensional forms. There are many drawing styles and techniques that today's artists use to communicate what they see or feel and their interests. However, tools and papers have remained much the same.

An industrial designer, working on next year's automobile model, explores ideas using a pencil and a sketch pad. A leading dress designer works on a series of drawings to develop a new line of exciting sportswear.

The landscape architect makes a detailed drawing to show the client how the finished arrangement of plants, trees, and rocks will look. The painter, sculptor, book designer, and architect begin their work with some first drawing -- to get ideas flowing. It has always been this way.

When you draw, you will be following a method of recording ideas and thoughts that goes all the way back through history. But you are an individual. When you look at a flower or a cat, you might see it differently than your friend (or, for that matter, than Rembrandt). Your drawing of it may be individual and different. THAT IS GOOD.

DRAWING TOOLS AND TECHNIQUE

PENCILS are available in a variety of materials, like graphite, charcoal, and carbon, but the first kind is most common and we call it a lead pencil. Lead pencils are available in a variety of sizes (large, thin, flat) and intensities (from 6B, the softest and darkest, to 9H, the hardest and lightest). You should experiment to find which you need in certain situations.

Mistakes in pencil can be erased with several types of erasers. However, some erasers will also chew up the paper, making it difficult to hide corrections. Erasing should be kept to a minimum in all drawing and a soft eraser (gum) is recommended.

Contour drawing is simply a line that follows the way your eye moves over the edges of objects, like your hand.

CHARCOAL is the driest of the dry materials. It comes in several forms: natural sticks, compressed sticks, and pencils. Pencils are the cleanest because the material is encased in wood. Like lead pencils, charcoal has a range of values, from soft and dark to light and hard. Charcoal erases easily with a kneaded rubber eraser and can be smeared and smudged with a cloth, fingers, or a piece of chamois (soft leather cloth). Smudging can be useful in softening edges and blending values. The paper used with charcoal should be textured (try several). Charcoal tends to be messy because of its dryness, and finished work must be sprayed with a fixative to hold it to the paper. Before starting your drawing, try several ways to hold the charcoal in your hand. Try several pressures and papers until you like the result. Sketch lightly to begin. Then start to shade and add detail.

CHALK works like charcoal because it is dry, soft, and dusty. Unlike charcoal, it comes in many colors and allows us to include some variety in our work. A fixative is again necessary to protect the work. Try dipping the chalk stick into liquid starch before applying it to paper. The result will be quite unusual and no fixative is needed. Chalk can also be dipped in water and applied to dry paper, or used dry on wet paper, but fixatives will be needed when it all dries out.

WAX CRAYONS can be exciting to work with, and they combine well with other materials in mixed media techniques. Points, sides, and edges can be used to produce a variety of effects. Fill a page with different lines and textures of a single color.

PEN AND INK work is similar to drawing with pencils, except that erasing is impossible. You must also find ways to produce shading because the ink is of only one value. Look at some pen and ink sketches to see how cross-hatching, dot patterns, or closely placed lines will give a feeling of shadow or gray. Steel pen points are available in a variety of sizes and forms, and several should be tried to see what they can do. Some points are very fine, others are flat and wide. Although pen and ink drawing is generally thought of as black and white, colored inks may be used to add interest to your drawing. Blotting paper or paper towels help pick up unwanted spots and drips. Hard, smooth paper allows clean lines; softer papers give fuzzy lines using the same point.

BRUSHES can also be used to flow ink into paper. The resulting lines and shapes are bold and natural in contrast with the mechanical lines laid down by a steel pen. Cartoonists often use fine brushes for their drawing because of the thick-and-thin lines they need.

WASH DRAWINGS come close to paintings in appearance, because there are different values and a brush is used to apply the values. But since only a single color is used, we call them drawings.

In this pencil drawing of Thomas Church by Jean Auguste - Dominique Ingres (1816), you can see the artists first sketch lines in the simple treatment of arms, hands and jacket. The face has been carefully finished with shading, but was started in the same way.

SOME DESIGN SUGGESTIONS

Sitting down with a large piece of blank paper, pencil or charcoal in hand, can produce a feeling of hesitancy. Where do I start? What lines should I make first? Of course, there are many ways to proceed. But a simple three-step plan probably is the easiest to follow.

Line is the major element used in drawing. But value, space, shape, texture, and color are also important. The principles of balance, unity, contrast, emphasis, movement, rhythm, and pattern are as important to a good drawing as they are to jewelry, sculpture, or painting. Why is this true? How can contrast be developed in a pencil drawing? Can a crayon drawing make use of pattern?

Sketch the big shapes first, very simply and directly. Watch how the objects relate to each other: above, below, behind, next to, across from. If you are using tempera paint, this is all the preliminary drawing you need.

This concludes the first lesson on basic drawing. I have purposely kept the lessons short so as to allow time for practice. Use all of these mediums - see which fits your style. Come back next week and we shall continue. This series will last about 5
weeks. See you then!