(eBook Tutorial) Farp - Pencil Drawing

8/9/2019 (eBook Tutorial) Farp - Pencil Drawing

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that maybe (a memory, a thought, a scene in front of you) in a style that ispersonal to you.

Of course, as artists we should learn from other artists (I will mention oneor two artists during the article at relevant points) and feed off what otherpeople have done. However, the end result must be yours; if you copy thestyle or work or ideas of another artist then the artwork might as well be

theirs. It stops becoming personal and original.

Originality in artwork comes in many forms, it could be in the style, in thesubject matter or the idea that is governing a piece of art. I can't comment onthe artwork of everybody who reads this (without make sweeping and mostlyinaccurate statements) so I'm going to comment on mine.


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FARP : Pencil Draw ing

By Adam Duncan ([email protected])

Learning to See
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FARP : Pencil Draw ing


What is Good Drawing?

"Anyone can learn to draw, just as anyone can learn to speak or write.Drawing is a perfectly ordinary way of communicating information."- IanSimpson from 'Drawing, Seeing and Observation.'

As I stated at the beginning of the article I won't be going through a


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Balance, this seems to be the most abstract word that I've chosen todescribe drawing so I have decided to start there. The most important balancein a drawing is the balance you create using marks. This makes no sensewhatsoever yet but hopefully it will as you continue to read. I am basicallytalking about one aspect of composition that incorporates the marks you useto make the image.

Lets begin with tone and line. In the real world there is no line, lines are

man made You get lines on a piece of paper or on a computer screen but


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Which, of course, there is nothing wrong with. I use line in a lot of mydrawings. It is a wonderful drawing method which gives the artist the ability todescribe what she/he is seeing or what she/he wants to draw. Lines can beeasily manipulated and can create very attractive and expressive drawings.

It is important that you understand the difference between line and tonebecause there is a distinct difference. This leads me back to the balance of theimage. The first balance, that I am going to talk about, is the balance betweenline and tone. They are both methods of description, they both show form,shape and depth in different ways and as a result they contradict each other

This isn't to say you should stick to one and never use the other, pick thebest method for a particular image. This also isn't to say you should never useboth in one image, however to create a more effective image you must strike a

balance An easy way of doing this is to make one dominant (i e most of the


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FARP : Pencil Drawing


Using Line

Drawing is about representing something. Not necessarily in a realistic way and notnecessarily representing something in the real world. In order to show the viewer what youwant them to see you have to be able to describe that 'something' on paper. Line is oftenbadly used because people don't use a range of marks. When they are describing somethingthey use the same method of description over and over again.

In order to help explain exactly what I mean about mark making and line quality I wouldsuggest looking at several experienced and popular artists such as Marshal Arisman, RalphSteadman, Chloe Cheese and Lane Smith. Although I haven't been able to locate many of


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Arisman's drawings on the internet there is a large collection of his painted works. Markmaking applies as much to painting as it does to drawing so I would recommend looking athis paintings. Ralph Steadman and Chloe Cheese are both very skilled at drawing.Steadman's website includes sketchbook work so I strongly suggest stopping by there. I alsorecommend viewing the Amsterdam exhibition work of Mario Minichiello (you can find it onthe internet). Take a look at the work of these artists and look around at the many others,

decide what you find visually appealing and why. By doing this it will help you to discoverwhat your own personal style is.

To help you describe something using line, I am going to cover a few basic aspects of linedrawing:

Quality of Line and Line Thickness

What do I mean by quality of line? Different lines have different properties. You changethe properties of a line by changing how hard you press down on the paper, by changing fromusing the tip of a pencil to using the edge. By changing the way you are drawing you can

achieve many effects. For example:


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This drawing shows how you can create the illusion of depth in an image by changing howhard you press down on the lines. In areas you can even make the line fade out (not all detailis necessary but I'll go into that more below) even with a medium like pen. There are manymore effects that can be achieved with just a simple line.

Economy of Means

You do not need to draw everything. Areas of the image (as I noted above) can fade inand out, quite simply by changing the amount of pressure you apply. This technique has

seemingly been labelled 'Lost and Found,' where you lose the line (by gently decreasing theamount of pressure you are applying to the pencil until you take it off the paper) and thencontinuing it later (by reapplying pressure).

Another point I'd like to mention is that you do not have to draw every detail of an objectto make it look like that particular object. For example, let us take a face. You do not have todraw in every wrinkle and feature, if you get it right, using only a few lines you can create a

recognisable face.

I want you to remember that sometimes the drawings you do quickly are the best

drawings you produce. Just because you spend a long time on a drawing does not mean it isgoing to be good. If you're a professional artist it never hurts to speed your work up and stillmaintain a similar level of quality (you never know it could even be looser, more dynamic andmore expressive - making a better piece of artwork).

Exercise


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1.Begin by drawing a face -

NB. If you are going to copy a face, try to copy from life and not a photograph butit wont kill you if you do use a photo.

2.Take as long a you like to draw the face but do a line drawing (no tone)

3.Now after you have finished drawing and studying the face (this is good if doing a

self-portrait), try and speed up your drawing.

4.Spend time doing a series of faces (using the same reference, self-portrait orwhatever) but trying to do them using as few lines as possible (and still make itrecognisable) and do it as quickly as possible (and still make it recognisable).

Important things to note in this excercise:

- Try and work from life to get reference for the face (just use a mirror and do a self-portrait!

- By quick I mean less than 10 seconds per drawing (and remember you still have to make itrecognisable - quite a challenge isn't it? The only way you learn and progress is by pushingyourself)

- Try and do at least 10 (more is better) fast drawings and work as big as possible (as largeas A3 or A2 would be good but admittedly very difficult)

- Practice, practice, practice. Keep doing drawing exercises like this every day (notnecessarily this one, in fact I recommend variety, do this once or twice then try otherexercises, invent your own.).


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Here is some of my work as an example, I don't want you to copy me but it is just to geta general impression. The image on the left is a 20 second portrait, the middle is a 10 secondone and the right took me 5 seconds (probably a little too quick but you learn something newall the time.
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FARP : Pencil Drawing


Mark Making

Lets look at two differing surfaces - brick and human skin. You know and I know thatbrick is very different from human skin, it is almost completely opposite. It isnt soft andpliable, it is rough and hard. Look at a brick surface and then look at your hand, imagine theywere the same shape and form - you would still be able to tell the difference. Why? becausethe surface and texture are totally dissimilar. Now I have found that some people don'tunderstand the following concept but I will try and explain it as best I can. If the surfaces areso opposing, so different then why draw them in the same way? Why use the same soft pencilshading (that you use to describe skin) to describe the harsh, hard surface of brick? It doesn't

make sense. A lot of people think that they do change marks but in actual fact they really are


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not using the full potential of the medium (I know for a fact, as this problem has plagued mefor the past few years).

Marks like the above could be used for a mass of different surfaces and textures rangingfrom hair, skin, cloth to brick, bark and stone. As before I said that the most importantbalance in a drawing is the balance of marks. I meant by this, that you have to try and notmake all of the marks merge into one, that you have to create a focal point in the image aswell as trying to find a balance between line and tone. It isn't as difficult or as complex as it

might sound, just keep practicing and enjoying what you are doing. Try the following

excercise to help you with mark making.

Exercise

1. Begin by making a 'library of marks,' do this by getting your sketchbook and try (just using

a pencil) to create as many different marks as possible. It can be difficult at first but justexperiment with using the pencil. You can smudge mark with your fingers if you like to createnew and interesting effects. If you're stuck for ideas, wander around with your sketchbooklooking for interesting surfaces (not shapes and forms) to try and re-create just using a pencil.

2. Once you have a wide range of marks - start to draw. Draw whatever you want, it could befrom life or it could be from your imagination (maybe you've got a good dragon scales marksomewhere in that library of yours). When you come to a particular surface say a wizard's hator a stone wall, look through your library of marks and see if you have somethingappropriate. Draw the stone wall or the wizard's hat in the same way you drew those marks(albeit in a more refined way). Try and keep the drawing to mostly line (remember to strike abalance).

Important things to note in this excersice


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- Don't spend too long creating each mark in your library, these should be quick and dontworry about trying to describe something just lets the marks happen. Doodle!

- When drawing the main image, remember a couple of things. Firstly and most importantly,try the mark making excercise out on a drawing you were going to make already. That way itwill (hopefully) not make this excercise a chore. Secondly, use the marks as a starting pointand adapt them, dont just draw a wizard then fill him in with a particular mark. Applyperspective to the marks, distort them, alter them, add a bit of tone, adapt and experiment.

- Experiment and have fun, it doesn't matter if you don't get it right first time and it doesn'tmatter if it goes wrong! You learn through trial and error.

Here is an example of some of my work to give you an idea of what it is I am getting at.On the left is a small library of marks from which I can pick and choose different textures thatmight be appropriate. On the right are a couple of quick sketches showing me playing aroundand experimenting with the marks.


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To Conclude

Finding the right balance takes time and practice. I've had plenty of it and I'm still notthere yet, many of the artists we aspire to often say that they aren't happy with pieces ofartwork, that we find jaw dropping. You have to have the ambition, you have to believe yourartwork can be better but also that your artwork can get better otherwise there is eithernothing to aim for or you are attempting the impossible. In reality it is neither and any of youcan produce amazing drawings (many of you are).
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(eBook Tutorial) Farp - Pencil Drawing