The Art of Drawing: Create stunning artworks step by step

INTRODUCTION

If you are a novice artist, you may be wondering whether you will ever possess the skill to match the standard of the drawings you have seen in books, magazines and framed pictures. But drawing is not just about creating fine works of art, it’s something you do in everyday life, for example, when you doodle, sketch out directions to a location, draw flow charts or diagrams, plan a new kitchen or design a garden, make simple drawings for a child’s amusement – the list is endless. You’ve probably been drawing for a long time without even realizing it. Yet suddenly, when you consciously try to make a lifelike drawing on paper, the process begins to seem much harder.

Making successful drawings that can be considered as art (rather than sketches with a purely practical purpose) is simply a case of learning to see things differently and looking at what’s really there, not just what you think is there. You can practise this at any time. Try looking around and momentarily turning off the autopilot in your head – that mind’s eye which immediately identifies what you are seeing, based on your memory of having encountered it before.

Next time you look at a building, don’t just register a rough shape of walls and a roof – study it more carefully, as if you had to record some of the details. Is the roof flat or sloping? Is it made of slate, tile, stone, or straw? Is there a brick, stone, or concrete chimney and is it plain or decorated? Are the gutters made of metal or plastic? Are they dull or shiny? Are they fixed to the building with ornate metalwork or simple clamps?

You can look at everyday objects in your home in the same way. Windows and doorways are easy to begin with because they tend to be regular square or rectangular shapes. If the frames are painted the same colour, do some parts appear slightly lighter or darker than others depending on whether they are in light or shadow? What about your drinking mugs or cups? Do they have straight or curved sides, plain or ornate handles? Are they shiny or dull? Can you see anything reflected in them?

Once you start to look at objects in this way, you’ll see all sorts of features, perhaps for the first time. Obviously, you can’t do this all the time or you’d be exhausted! But when you need to draw something, focusing more closely to work out what it really looks like is very helpful.

Of course the next step is to translate what you see on to paper! In the following pages, you’ll find plenty of advice and examples of how to make marks with a range of media. You’ll discover how to show texture and three-dimensionality in a way that turns your drawings into fully realized, convincing portrayals of the world around you.

We all come to drawing via different paths and at different times and whatever your reason for drawing, I hope you will be inspired. As for me, I am self-taught. I worked and studied in other fields for many years before I started drawing, by accident. I’d moved to a new area, made new friends at an evening class and, following a chance conversation at the end-of-term party, was invited to an occasional informal Saturday morning art group. I discovered I loved drawing and so began a very enjoyable new career!

Vivienne Coleman

Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look.’

David Hockney

Chapter 1

Getting started

In this chapter, we look at the drawing basics, including the materials you need, and at how to make those essential marks on paper. You will learn how to create the strokes, shapes and shades that form the basis of all drawings and see how to combine these elements into simple pictures. The great advantage of this approach is that by practising these strokes, shapes and shades in various combinations you will eventually be able to draw anything you like.

We look at some key drawing techniques, including how to scale your drawing and position it on the page, and how to create the illusion of perspective. If you have drawn before, you may be tempted to speed through the simplest exercises, but remember that practice is never wasted and these building blocks of drawing will always come in useful.

We also consider some advanced shading techniques, such as blending and creating ‘white bits’ in your drawings. You’ll see that most exercises can be completed with a variety of different drawing materials. And you’ll be encouraged to experiment to discover your favourite drawing materials as well as your own particular style of working.

Making marks on paper

Drawing is all about making marks on paper, and getting started is straightforward. All you need is an ordinary pencil and a piece of paper and you can begin to make marks straight away – it’s as easy as that! You just need to know where to start and stop, how hard to press, and the angle to hold your pencil. You can also make different marks using other drawing materials such as charcoal, solid graphite pencils without a wooden casing and graphite sticks.

The marks you make may be doodles; they may represent objects, scenes or photographs, or even images from your memory or imagination that you’d like to capture on paper. Whatever it is you want to draw, there is no right or wrong way to do it! We are all different, we see the world differently, and so it follows that we’ll all draw differently, just as we all have our own unique style of handwriting.

Drawing is the basis of other artistic disciplines, too, such as painting. So, by mastering the pencil essentials, you’ll begin to build your other skills.

The following pages look at various drawing materials, and then I’ll guide you through some confidence-building techniques for making marks that form the basis of all drawings. We’ll also look at different styles of drawing so you’ll be inspired to experiment, explore, and develop your own style as you find out what works best for you. Throughout the book, the examples begin with easy, small-scale subjects and progress to more challenging larger-scale subjects, scenes and compositions.

Drawing materials and equipment

You don’t need to spend a great deal of money to get started; it’s best to begin with a few items then add to your collection as you grow in confidence. Most of the materials I’ve listed are relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain. They are also very portable.

Top to bottom: Graphite pencil, propelling or mechanical pencil and clutch pencil.

The basic drawing materials are a pencil and paper, a craft knife and/or pencil sharpener, an eraser and something to rest on, such as a drawing board or smooth, stiff card.

PENCILS

Graphite pencils are the most popular. They are graded from very soft (9B) to very hard leads (9H), with HB in the middle of the range. Harder pencils have more clay content in them. ‘H’ describes the hardness of the pencil lead, ‘B’ is for blackness, and ‘F’ means fine point, originally designed for the precise marks of shorthand. ‘HB’ means ‘hard and black’.

The marks these pencils make appear shiny on the page. Soft-leaded pencils make darker, less well-defined marks and they tend to be more crumbly and wear down more quickly, whereas harder leads produce sharper, finer, paler marks and feel quite scratchy on the paper.

The lead in a propelling or mechanical pencil is not bonded to the outer casing as it is in a graphite pencil and it can be mechanically extended as the point is worn away. These pencils often have refillable leads. The lead in a clutch pencil, also refillable, is operated when the cap is pressed and the jaws open at the tip to allow the lead to extend or retract. Wood-encased graphite pencils will need to be continually sharpened and replaced.

Pencils are so versatile that you can create almost anything with them, using a wide range of pale and dark marks. In the two graded strips shown below, the top one was created with different grades of pencil and the bottom one with a single HB pencil using different pressures on the paper.

Top: Marks made with graded pencils from 9H to 9B.

Bottom: A range of pale and dark marks made with an HB pencil.

There are many brands of pencil and you’ll find that the darkness and lightness of the grades varies slightly between manufacturers. There are even variations within single brands. This could be important if you’re working on a large drawing and need to make consistent marks across it.

Different HB pencils, applied with the same pressure.

GRAPHITE STICKS

Solid graphite sticks without a casing also come in different grades. They appear duller on the page than pencils and with their wider strokes will cover areas more quickly. If you’re a beginner, a useful range of pencils includes 6B, 4B, 2B, B, HB and 2H grades.

Graphite scribble and stick.

CHARCOAL

Charcoal is much softer (and messier!) than graphite and smudges very easily. It comes in sticks and pencils and makes very dark marks which are ideal for working on large drawings. Charcoal pencils are best sharpened with a craft knife.

Left to right: Charcoal sticks, charcoal stick scribble, medium and hard charcoal pencil scribbles.

PEN AND INK

Ink pens include technical drawing pens, biros and calligraphy fountain pens. They are great for sketches and line drawings as they produce clean, crisp sketches. Technical drawing pens with ink cartridges are easier to use than traditional dip pens and you can buy a range of nib sizes to create different line widths.

Top to bottom: Technical drawing pen, biro, calligraphy fountain pen.

Most of the exercises in this book can be produced using all these different materials so I encourage you to happily experiment!

ERASERS

You’ll need an eraser to remove unwanted marks, of course. The most common are plastic and putty erasers. Plastic erasers are versatile and can be cut into slivers for precision work, but they do leave little crumbs of eraser on your paper. Putty erasers leave no detritus and can be moulded to a point, which is great for lifting out areas of pencil.

SHARPENERS

Many artists recommend using a craft knife to create a long, sharp pencil point, but I find a good metal pencil sharpener is perfectly acceptable. A sanding block, or sheet of fine sandpaper, is invaluable for keeping a point on your pencils, which will last much longer if you only sharpen them when the lead has worn right down. To make a block, simply glue or staple a strip of fine-grade sandpaper to a small piece of wood.

Clockwise from top: Sanding block, pencil sharpener and craft knife.

RULER

It’s great if you can measure and draw straight lines freehand but if, like me, you struggle with this then a clear plastic ruler is ideal, especially one with a finger grip to lift the ruler easily off the paper. A ruler can also help you to size an initial layout, scale a drawing, create lines of perspective and make other accessories such as viewfinders and grids.

BLENDERS

The purpose of blenders is to soften and blur areas of pencil or charcoal to make a smooth transition between adjacent dark and light areas, or to create areas of even shading. Blending stumps are soft, colourless, solid cylinders of tightly rolled paper or felt paper, tapered at one or both ends.

A tortillon (the French name for a blending stump) is hollow, shorter than a blending stump and usually made of rolled paper. You can make your own by tightly rolling a sheet of paper across its diagonal (I start by rolling the paper around a very thin knitting needle or large paper clip), taping the paper to stop it unrolling, then trimming the end(s) to suit.

A burnisher is similar to a blending stump but is made of a harder, colourless material. You create a more polished