About a month ago I started looking over the artwork I’ve created in the past year. I enjoy what I’ve created immensely, but when looking back over the past year I must admit that I’ve seen very little improvement. Yes, this has easily been the craziest year of my life, leaving very little time to practice, but no excuses, I can do better. I fully expect this year to be just as crazy as the last and that won’t stop me.
I’m going back to the basics and pushing myself through the exercises in Nicolaides’ epic book The Natural Way to Draw. Considered to be one of the best books on the subject of drawing, many say it is the equivalent of a first year college level drawing course. The studies and exercises you complete aren’t meant to be shown, they teach valuable skills in observation and drawing, but the finished drawing is in many cases not much to look at. Nicolaides compares it to a singer learning to sing: They start with breathing lessons, no one would ever expect a singer to get on stage and perform their breathing lessons, yet the breathing lessons are essential to becoming a great singer.
Many of the studies I’ve done so far have been very helpful but completely unpublishable, even for my humble little blog. Because of this I will not be updating my blog as often, while I throw myself into my studies. For now though I’ll give you a little peek into what I’ve been doing.
An old-fashioned camera that we found at a garage sale. This study (same as the following ones) was done while looking only at the subject. While drawing you are not allowed to look at the paper. This is called contour drawing. Half an hour to complete.
A microscope. Once again done without looking at the paper. This took me fifteen minutes to complete.
I plopped down two stuffed cows to use as models for this exercise. Took me twenty minutes to complete.
This here is a quick (less than a minute) contour drawing of a kitten that was rescued from a friend’s car engine. Our friend is allergic to cats so we volunteered to take her in. We’re still working on what to name her, at the moment we’re just referring to her as the Motor City Kitty.
So there you have it! I have published the unpublishable! I may at times offer a few more peeks into my studies as I go along. Once again pushing the borders of what can be published. Okay enough talk, I’ve got to get back to work!
