Drawing Lesson

"It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover, to your surprise, that you have rendered something in its true character." - Camille Pissarro

"Drawing is the basis of art. A bad painter cannot draw. But one who draws well can always paint" - Arshile Gorky

Yes, drawing well is really important but the skill does not happen just because you wish it so. It takes practice, and more practice. 

The drawing book by Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is excellent and it's a drawing course classic. BUT you have to read it and DO the exercises.

Here's a couple of ways I practice drawing. 

Reference photograph: The Pear.

The first image is a photograph of a simple pear, but to draw the essence of the pear you have to see all the correct edges. Don't draw a symbol of a pear, but draw what you really see. You have to train your eyes to see and your drawing hand to follow what your eyes are seeing.

Drawing the edges of the pear

In this drawing I'm looking at the edges of the pear and the angle of every edge. How long is each line that composes the pear? What angle is that line? Is the pear sitting straight up or is it leaning? I draw a diagonal line to indicate the angle the pear is leaning.

Contour drawing of the pear

This is a contour drawing. Yes, it looks pretty funny but to do a contour drawing you don't look down at your paper at all while you're drawing. Follow the exact edge of the pear with your eyes and draw along as your eyes see each little variance of the edges of the pear. 

The purpose of this exercise is to train your eye to really see the shape and not just draw what you think it should be - when you just draw what you think it should be you'll fall back into the habit of drawing symbols instead of drawing the reality of the pear.

Shaded drawing

This is a drawing using shading to depict the 3-dimensional volume of the pear. 

First, I sketch in the angles of the pear, getting the leaning angle correct. Then, when I'm comfortable with the shape, I start looking at the shadow values. I draw the shadow lines as they depict the angles of the planes of the shape. 

More about planes later.

Buy a pear. Make sure it has an interesting shape, not a perfect shape. And practice, practice, practice.