Lingo

In the Netherlands we have a game show on television called “Lingo”. In that show people have to guess a six letter word in six turns. After every turn they are told how many letters of the word they guessed where good and how many letters were in the right place.
I look at this game show every so often and I find it a very difficult game. Guessing a six letter word knowing that the second letter is an “l” and the last a “s” is not something I’m very good at.

Lingo experts

Once or twice a year they have a contender who’s very good in this game. What I’ve noticed is that those people don’t take the known letters in account when guessing the next word. They come with two or three wild guesses and then with there fourth or fifth guess they know the word.
They suggest words that have a lot of different letters. So after three or four guesses they know all the letters. A six letter word containing these letter (o, l, c, d, u, s) is much easier to guess. Especially when you know that the second and last letter are in the right place.

Looking for help

One of the hurdles I had to take when I started drawing was the realization that drawing and pictures aren’t supposed to look the same. The subject matter can be the same but a drawing will never look exactly like a photograph.

When I try to draw clouds I run into a very similar problem.
Having a photographic memory means that I have a whole range of clouds in my memory. But I can’t draw them because the pictures in my memory have a structure that can’t be drawn.

In the hopes that it would make the process easier I’ve been studying picture of famous paintings. So apart from pictures of real clouds I now also have pictures of painted clouds in my memory.

Sadly paint has very different properties then pencil. Using oil paint it’s possible to paint white on black or grey. With pencil that isn’t possible.

Imagine a drawing

I have to go back to basics. Which means that I’ve have to imagine what a drawing of clouds will look like. Just like I did with the trees when I first became aware of this problem.
Only thing is that clouds are a little more complicated then trees.

Clouds 2th sketch

Do you like my work? Subscribe to See me draw!

Expert mode

I find myself playing Lingo with clouds.
I try to imagine what a drawn cloud would look like and get a vague picture which I draw. With the next drawing I imagine I get a little help from my last drawing so the next drawing could be marginally better.
This way I could go on forever without ever getting it right. So I’ve opted for the expert mode. I’m drawing pictures that don’t necessary look like clouds but that, hopefully, will help me to imagine drawings of clouds.

Clouds 3th sketch

Featured on See me draw

Andre Weis beautiful drawings are Deeper than words.