Drawing class is hard. The first half of the second week of had me so frustrated and discouraged and incompetent that I honestly kind of wanted to cry. The biggest thing I’ve struggled with over the years is drawing things without running out of room on the page. I started the first exercise and once again ran out of room and got completely flummoxed and started over. But I still couldn’t figure out how to make it work.
The second half of the class went much better and I’m really pleased with how I was able to make sense of things in that half. So, here's what I learned this week:
The first image is my first failed attempt in which I ran out of room. The second image is barely my work at all. It was my instructor’s strokes while he walked me through problem-solving the breakdown of the ‘seeing and evaluating’ part and telling him what I saw and then him executing that on paper. This approach did lead to helping me see clues in the still-life better, so it was helpful.
After break he taught us thumbnails: a way to plan our drawings by testing a series of ideas. This led to me seeing how the scale of objects on my paper interacted with ‘zoom’ (so to speak). I would end up with more or less on a page than I intended bc I’d started smaller or bigger than what I wanted to fit in my scene. After doing this approach, I decided on a tightly zoomed in view of a pot (Image 3) because [if I’d taken it to to a fully finished drawing) it was the most interesting to me. I used my thumbnail notes to determine placement for my larger drawing.
The pot was rewarding because I learned a lot about proportion and scale. I used the pot as my reference point for measuring all the other items in my image and it worked well until I got to the bottle (not shown) and my bottle didn’t add up. This led me to realize I miscalculated the top of my pot, which I reworked and then all the visual measurements worked out throughout the page! This was a very encouraging way to end the class.
Each evening after class, I review with Benjamin what I learned. This is for my own reinforcement but also so he can help support me in my practice. He listened carefully to my frustrations and pitfalls during the first half of class and was able to think of an exercise for me to do to help me see my composition and know where I want to place the overall scene on the page. It was very effective and I am grateful! I was able to take that knowledge to my ink and watercolor class last night and succeed in getting things mostly where I wanted them on the page.
So I’m learning a lot. And it’s not always fun and it’s definitely not easy. But it’s worthwhile and I’m grateful for it.
