Starting a drawing with a sketch.
I was actually thinking of doing this sea sketch in red. It’s much easier to start at something knowing that you’ll probably fail if you set out to fail.
But on second thought the point is doing it as good as I can and taking the risk of failing.
Any way. Last night in the shower I thought of something that is very obvious but for some reason I hadn’t thought about it: I could make a sketch in the colors I’m going to use.
The special part of that is that you usually do a sketch in graphite pencil and then color it in. Often you’ll only decide which colors you’ll use after you’ve made the sketch. The problem with this approach is that the black graphite is always visible and I don’t like that.
With this drawing I have to color round a white open space where the foam is supposed to be. So starting with a sketch isn’t a bad idea.
The difficult bit for me is that this reminds me of the tracing of photographic memories that I haven’t been able to do until now. What I did this time wasn’t really tracing but I’m getting there.
Sea 3
Looking around the internet for guidance I came across a drawing that is much better then anything I can make right now. But it does give me the feeling that I’m on the right track.
Shower of stars3
This drawing is by Shere Chamness
See me draw
Hi there!
I’m pleased that someone enjoys my colored pencil image of the great Leonid meteor shower of 2001. My late art teacher (David Wallin) once told me to pay attention to every mark I put on a page–great advice. Before, I had tended to scribble randomly in “unimportant” areas of a picture, just to get finished. This resulted in making the whole picture boring. David taught me to look at the individual marks in great art. Van Gogh is the greatest master of beautiful marks.
A few days after watching the meteor shower, I visited the Van Gogh exhibit in Chicago. I was compelled to draw the colored pencil image shown. Well, that’s my story. I hope it helps you too. Best wishes to you: art saves lives!
Hi Shere,
Thank you for your advice. I do tend to quickly fill in the unimportant parts of my drawing. It doesn’t make the drawing more interesting.
I’ll pay more attention to it.
I don’t know whether art really saves lives, but do know that I’m learning a lot trying to make it
Henk