by Henk ter Heide on Sunday April 4, 2010
My fountain pen is gliding over the paper. Up, down, up, down.
I love to watch while the black is slowly consuming the white paper. I could do this all day.
But I won’t.
If I just paint the whole paper black there isn’t much to look at.
But I would want to…
Then comes the hard part.
Although the colors I get with this color hatching technique are beautiful. They are also completely unpredictable.
I don’t like things that are unpredictable.
The shorter the lines, the more colors I use, the more unpredictable and beautiful the result.
Or I can begin with a layer of some color and then place a few lines on top. That’s far more predictable but not as beautiful.
I’m mostly fearful of my next few drawings.
I want to try to make kind of a landscape using my new color technique. But I’m not sure how.
If I can’t predict the colors how can I get them to interact?
Get a print of this drawing
Love and fear
by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday December 17, 2008
Follow three rules and become an expert on any skill you love.
I had a discussion with my counselor about the whole talent thing. How I had decided to spent much more time on drawing (and less time on other things) because I think that will give me a change to become an expert.
She didn’t agree. She thinks that talent does matter. She played a musical instrument in her teens. Although she practiced for years she never got very good.
Thinking about that I realized that she had a point.
My mother bought her piano in 1968 when we moved to Waddinxveen. When she died in 1989 she had been practicing for more then 20 years, strictly one hour a day.
But she never got any better then mediocre.
So how is this possible?
Why is it that some people practice for 10,000 hours and become world class artists and others practice for well over 10,000 hours and never get to be more the mediocre.
Is it talent?
I hope not.
Because if it’s talent I’m screwed. The last one and a half year have shown that I have no drawing talent what so ever.
A few years ago I bought a harmonica. It seemed like a fun instrument to play. It also seemed a fairly easy instrument to master even for someone with no musical talent.
But it turned out to be a very difficult instrument.
I had bought a few books on musical theory but none of them made any sense to me. And how ever hard I tried I never was able to blow a single note.
After a few months I gave up and threw everything out.
A few months ago my interest was rekindled by one of the videos Youtube recommended. I researched harmonicas on the Net and found a wealth of information on the kind of instrument you should start with and a lot of free music and some instructional videos on Youtube.
A nice read but I did nothing with it and wouldn’t have done anything if it wasn’t for the fact that I broke my hip and can’t leave my house for the next three months.
Getting rather bored I ordered a harmonica via the Internet and started practicing.
This time I found that the level of skill you can reach not only depends on your talent. It’s also depended on the kind of information you can get.
Thanks to the instructional videos I found I figured out how to blow a single note. And although I can only blow single notes for about 10 minutes it’s clear that I’ll get better with more practice.
But that’s the harmonica. An instrument that is played by hardly anyone in the Netherlands. And since hardly anyone plays it you can’t get much information on the instrument. But there are loads of people who draw. There are loads of good books on the subject and I have been researching the web since I started.
So does my lack of progress with drawing mean that I don’t have what it takes or is there something else I should take into consideration.
If I’d ask this question a week ago I would have answered that I suffer from a lack of talent. But this week I started with something I’ve never done before. I started with copying the work of other artists.
In doing so I figured something out.
Until now I’ve always tried to draw the pictures in my mind. Since that is the purpose of of this blog I never thought anything of it. Actually the only reason why I started with copying was because I ran out of subjects to draw but still wanted to draw something. Anything.
But in doing so I found that I had to push my self to get better results.
When I draw a picture from memory I’m the only one who know how the original picture looks. And since to me photographs, painting and drawing always look different from each other I’m easily satisfied.
But now everybody is going to get to see both the original painting and my copy of it.
I can no longer put up with the fact that there are hues missing in my drawing box. I can’t get away with adapting the drawing to my drawing box. I have to mix new colors to adapt my drawing box to the picture.
So in doing this drawing I’m learning more then I’ve learned in the last one and a half year.
I think that’s also the reason why my mother never got any better. Yes she did practice for 20,000 hours, but most of that time was spent repeating tunes she already knew by heart. She hardly ever tried new tunes.
By contrast. I’m finding that when I stretch myself and try something new I also get to practice the old skills.
If you want to be an expert at a skill you’ll need three things.
- You need the right kind of information.
If you don’t understand what you’re supposed to do, find an other book, website or teacher.
- You need to practice 7 to 14 hours a week. Which means that you really need to love this. Otherwise you can get good but you’ll never be an expert.
- You need to stretch yourself. Spent the majority of your time practicing new things.
It is important to practice the skills you already know. But to become an expert you’ll have to try and learn everything there is.
by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday August 19, 2008
The advantage and disadvantage of drawing less perfect.
My experiment yesterday to draw while tired taught me an important lesson: Either the lines are perfect or the overall picture is perfect. Never both of them.
In trying to get every line perfect you invest a lot of time and effort. So much so that you will never say something like “OK, now I know what I want, lets start over”.
You can’t after investing all that energy.
I’ve started my drawing again and very soon found why I’ve never tried this before.
There is something very frightening about drawing and going for imperfection intensifies that fear. Even if you have a photographic memory and a visual thinking process, like I have, you don’t exactly know what you are going to draw until you’ve finished your drawing.
You never know whether you’ve drawn something you like until you’ve finished the drawing.
Going for imperfection feels as though you’re setting yourself up to fail.
And it’s quite possible that you are going to fail.
Actually it’s almost certain that you’re going to fail since this is only a sketch.
If you find that you like what you’ve drawn you will have to start over to make it a genuine drawing.
As scary as this way of drawing is, in this case it’s also more educational then trying to get every every line just right.
This time I started out with a kind of framework by drawing a line of squares from the down left corner to the upper right corner. The idea is that the steps in the upper right corner are higher.
Which is fine but in drawing the rest of the steps I find that they don’t exactly fit. I have to figure the logic of the drawing out the make it fit.
Since the point of this drawing is to learn to understand perspective it’s a good thing I have to think about it.
Stairway to haven
by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday March 26, 2008
Trying to influence the darkness of the color with different hatching techniques.
One of my biggest problems in drawing with color pencil has been my inability to control the darkness of a color.
For this practice drawing I decided to see what I could do to get a color darker or lighter.
I thought that both the number of times you cross hatch and the amount of pressure you put on the pencil might have an influence on the color.
I was only partly right.
The number of times you cross hatch does have an influence on the darkness of the square.
Putting more pressure on the pencil didn’t have much influence on the color of the line.
(Actually this isn’t completely true. If you put a lot of pressure on a pencil you do get a darker line. A problem arises when you start drawing with softer, more expensive pencils that contain more pigment. With these pencils your point will break if you use to much pressure.)
A better technique to get a darker line is to slowly rotate the pencil in your hand while your drawing. The business end of a pencil wears down while you’re drawing. By rotating the pencil you make sure you always have a sharp edge on the paper.
Whether this influences the color of the square depends on your hatching skill. If the lines are too far apart the overall picture will still seem very light.
Click the picture and go to the original size and you can see the individual lines both in the dark blue and the dark yellow square.
Hatching techniques
I also tried the hatching technique children usual use. Starting in a corner or at some arbitrary point and radiating out: First coloring the little bit where I started and then going on with a progressively larger space until whole the square is colored. (Lower right blue square and the brown square).
I’m not completely sure which I like better. I assume it has a lot to do with what you’re drawing. When drawing a kitchen cupboard traditional cross hatching would probably look better, but when drawing a tree seeing the direction of the pencil strokes could be very nice.
For the pink square I tried what would happen if I blended the color using a piece of kitchen paper. Since the piece of paper was far larger then the square the color bled over the edge. In my next drawing I’m going to try to use this effect.
by Henk ter Heide on Monday March 24, 2008
Hatching some squares.
The easiest way to practice hatching is to draw a few lines on a piece of paper and go about it in the same way that children learn to write. But that way turns out to be very boring.
This time I drew a few squares and colored them in with hatching and cross hatching.
Hatching shapes Squares
The dark blue square shows the importance of cross hatching. Not only is the color a lot darker but you can’t see that I didn’t stay within the lines.
I’ll have to practice some more.
by Henk ter Heide on Thursday February 28, 2008
Rethinking my method of learning how to (cross) hatch.
This morning I remembered reading a site about improving your handwriting. The site advised to go back to basics and start over with practicing to draw a hundred A’s, a hundred B’s etc. just like the way you did it in school when you first where taught how to write.
I never tried it because nowadays I hardly use any handwriting.
But it would be a good way of practicing hatching. Drawing a lot of horizontal lines instead of filling a grid with hatched lines and using more time turning the paper then actually hatching.
Thinking about method also gave me a clear picture on the level of skill I should aim for.
Until now I thought it would be sufficient if I learned to draw the lines the right length but it isn’t. I should get enough skill to (cross) hatch with the same ease as with which I’m type this article. (Cross)hatching lines should become as easy as touch typing.
I’ve been told that people with autism have problems learning new skills because we take more time to automate a skill. Personally I’ve always found that to be a big advantage. I never have the problem that I have to unlearn some skill because I learned it the wrong way the first time round.
But if you have the bad luck of not being autistic then this is a time to pay close attention to what you are doing.
Ink hatching 2
There isn’t a right and a wrong way to (cross) hatching as long as you get the job done, but there is an easy and a not so easy way. The problem being that what is easy for me doesn’t necessary have to be the easiest way for you. you’ll have to experiment a little.
I found that there are a few things you can vary to make hatching easier:
- The length of the line. (I’ve found that practicing hatching becomes much easier if you start with shorter lines.)
- Do you work towards your (drawing) hand or away from it. (I’ve found that for me it’s easier to work away from my hand even though that means that my pencil partially covers my work.)
- In what direction do you draw. Upward or downward. (I started drawing downward but after gaining some experience I use both.)
- The angle of the paper. (I’m scanning this practice drawing in the angle I drew it. I’m right handed.)
- Drawing speed. (I found that drawing faster made it easier do draw straight lines. Which might mean that if you want to draw curved lines it could be easier to draw slower.)
- How much pressure do you put on the pencil. (The type of pencil you use has some influence on this, but I found that less pressure is easier.)
(Oh, the fun of writing an English blog if English isn’t you mother tongue:
Doubting whether cross hashing is one word or two word I looked it up in my dictionary and couldn’t find it. So I went on searching the word on Google, like I always do when my dictionary can’t help me.
Only this time I found that the word isn’t (cross) hashing but (cross) hatching. Sadly my spell checker didn’t save my from this embarrassment because “hash” is also an English word. Only thing is that it has nothing to do with drawing.
I’ve used the word hashing both in a few articles and in a few titles. I can’t change titles without breaking links that I have set up from other sites to these articles. I could change the spelling within the articles but I’ve discovered that if I do that people who follow this site via my rss feed get these articles again.
)
by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday February 27, 2008
Still practicing my hashing technique.
The last time I tried to hash with ink I found the line to be rather wobbly. But after trying it again today I found that my technique for hashing pencil also works with ink. You just have to draw at speed.
Not overshooting the mark is still a problem but it is clear that with practice it’s slowly improving.
Drawing lines that where a bit shorter also helped.
Ink hashing 1
by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday February 26, 2008
Continuing my hashing practice.
A few days ago I found that it is quite difficult to draw straight lines while hashing. Today I filled a grid with only short straight lines and showed some progress.
It’s a lot easier to get the lines straight when you draw them fast. Which results in the new problem that it is much more difficult to stop the line in time. I tend to either over shoot or stop to early.
I have to practice a little more.
One thing I did find is that it is easier to work away from yourself then towards yourself: Being right handed I tend to work from left to right. That way I get a good few on the lines I’ve already drawn.
But for some reason I found that with drawing short straight lines it’s actually easier to work from right to left. Even though that means that you can’t see the earlier lines that well because you are blocking your sight with the pencil.
Gray scale hashing 3
BTW I also figure out why I had the problem that white paper after scanning looked pink.
I found that if you don’t use the gamma control the white turns a little gray. If you do use the gamma control the white turn pink.
Apparently you should only use gamma control when you have colors in you drawing.
by Henk ter Heide on Monday February 25, 2008
Trying to get an even color by hashing.
Usually when I draw with color I find that you get to see a lot of lines. I’ve never been able to spread the color evenly over the paper. But yesterday when I was hashing with gray pencil I found that I could spread the pencil evenly about the paper.
So today I’ve tried whether I could get the same kind of result with color pencil.
I’m not completely satisfied. Although you can’t see it very good in the scan I still see a lot of color variation within one square.
Quite possible that it’s just a case of getting enough practice. So I went back to hashing with gray.
Here I also found that the gray scale varies within squares. But I stayed within the lines.
Color hashing 2
by Henk ter Heide on Sunday February 24, 2008
A few drawings to practice hashing.
Just like I expected yesterday I’m starting to get some idea about what it is that I want to accomplish by practicing hashing.
I’ve decided to start out with practicing with gray pencil. For one thing because gray pencils are cheaper than color pencils but mostly because I also want to be able to draw with gray pencil. As I look at drawing by other artist I get the impression that hashing and cross hashing are more important techniques with gray pencil then with color pencil.
For the first run I started out with at random putting some hashes (is this a word?) on paper. It didn’t feel that difficult.
Gray scale hashing 1
After filling a large part of the paper I thought that it might be nice to draw a grid and fill that with hashed lines.
Gray scale hashing 2
This turned out to be a little more of a challenge. It’s quite difficult to stay within the lines.
I tried to hash half a square and then the other half but run into to problem I have had earlier. The two half hashes tend to overlap which means that there is a part in the middle that is darker then the rest. (Line 2 row 4.)
The only solution seems to be to work with very long lines. But axectly the right length. Not so long that you over shoot the outer line and not so short that white shows.
For the corner squares I didn’t want to hash. The problem with hashing at the edge of the paper is that you overshoot the edge and get stuck on your way back.
Instead I wanted to draw parallel lines but that caused it’s own problems.
There are several techniques you can use to draw short straight lines but none seem to have a very good result.
One option is to rest your wrist on the table and use your fingers to guide the pencil. But if I do that I get a wobbly line.
The other possibility is drawing from the shoulder. But then there are also two possibilities that don’t work very good. You could draw very slow but if you do the line tends to get slightly rounded instead of straight. Or you could draw a lot faster but then you tend to overshoot.
(Which isn’t a problem when you are drawing at the edge of the paper but usually that won’t be the case.)
Clearly I’ll have to do some more practicing of both the hashing as the drawing of parallel lines.