Drawing exercises

Drawing execises is my constantly bad conscience. I know it is important. I know I need to do it. But I am resistant to do it! I  kind of think it is a bit boring. All though when I sit down and actually draw, it feels nice. So it is a matter of just DOING it. Here I have been drawing from a newspaper photo (the first drawing) and copying drawings from some nordic painters, the so called Skagen painters from the 19th century. Copying other artists is a great way to learn different tecniques so I will do some more of these copy drawings.

Figure drawing

 I need to practice my drawing skills. I love to draw figures so I really should start attending croquis sessions. But for these quick drawings with ink, I had a look in the book by Bill Buchman "Expressive figure drawing". You learn a lot by copying other artists so I think I will make more of these drawings.It is so fun and satisfying to draw in this quick and loose style.

Dry pastel portrait sketch

Painting day, but warming up with this quickly made dry pastel sketch.

Ink portrait

As I now paint with oil, I have started to warm up in the studio by very quickly drawing a portrait. I call this post a drawing (allthough it may look like a painting) as I actually drew the portrait by using ink. I then quickly used a flat brush and water to make shadows and light.

It is a very useful excercise to draw quickly - you get rid of hesitation and thinking too much, you just DO. And you get the reward of having MADE something - and that in just a couple of minutes. Very satisfying. And a nice start before I begin working on the canvases.

Ink drawing

I drew this portrait today, with a bamboo "pen" and brown ink. I then took a flat brush and water and created shadows with the still wet ink.

Ink drawing

A couple of days ago I bought a Chinese bamboo pen. I quickly drew this portrait yesterday with that bamboo "pen" and brown ink. I really like the feeling of drawing with kind of lack of control as the bamboo pen invites me to, and thus getting speed and spontanity into the line.

Drawings

Two different drawings of the same figure. One loose and very quick pen drawing, and another a little bit more elaborated, but still very quick, pencil drawing. It is interesting how the medium changes the expression.

I am fighting against my own impatience when it comes to painting, though. I like the quick and spontanous way of expressing my self on the paper. But I still don't master the watercolours and the different paper qualities well enough to be able to control such a way of expression. So, I have to fight my own desire to paint in a quick and bold way as it very often ends up with a disaster! There is so much to learn about painting tecniques, different paper qualities, amount of water held in the paper, how the different pigments flow. Luckily, this summer I am going to attend to workshops! It is in Sweden, at Gerleborgsskolan www.gerlesborgsskolan.se . It will be 4 days in July and 5 days later in August. I am looking very much forward to it!

Smile

Say hello to this guy! :)   He cheers me up and makes me smile. It is, as you may see, another version of the drawing in the previous post.

Loose pen drawing of old man

This year, I made a new year promise, which was to draw a drawing or paint each day every day to improve my skills. Each day I don`t draw or paint, the deal I have with my self is to give 5 Euro to a poor person as well as put 5 Euro into the piggy bank here at home. So it`s a win-win situation!

In the beginning, I drew very neat and nice pencil drawings. But that takes time. Because I don`t always have the time nor the patience to draw neatly, I started doing very quick pen drawings. I hold the pen loosely at the top of the pen and avoids lifting the pen from the paper while I draw. The result is like the present drawing, and I have to say I am both quite excited as well as surprised by the results! I really like what is coming through my hands in this way. What happens when I hold the pen in this loose way is that I also loose complete control over the line. But that is what makes both the act of drawing this way, as well as the result so enjoing; I don`t know exactly how the result will be, and the line is far, far much more interesting than the neat and "good" pencil drawings I normally would try to achieve.

So, the present portrait is an example of this way of drawing. I made it yesterday evening in a minute or two by having a look at a photo from the newspaper. Other times, I draw a quick drawing of the news reporters while I watch the news on tv.

What`s going on?

What`s going on between these two persons and who are they? Father and daugher? Husband and wife?

I drew a pen drawing from a small reference photo that I got from a newspaper. As I drew it in a small sketch book, the paper quality is too poor for the use of watercolour. Maybe I will elaborate the study in a bigger format and on quality paper later on.

Loose portrait

hmm... a spontanous drawing made this person appear on the paper. I haven`t been painting the last weeks, and I just got the idea to just draw very loosely and without lifting the pen off the paper to get a loose and somewhat odd expression - rather than make a "good" drawing. And then I just splashed some paint on. Took just a couple of minutes. Quite fun and satisfying to loosen up my self in this way. :)

Up-side down drawings!

Up-side down drawing! As you can see from the picture I have been drawing motives up-side down today. The idea behind doing this is to be able to leave the left-hand side of the brain, which thinks in symbols and therefore mess up the drawing abilities. When you turn your motive up-side down, the brain is not able to recognize in the same way the nose, the eye etc. Rather, you start to actually SEE the different shapes and lines of the motive. And that is when you start to see like an artist does - and become able to draw what you actually see.

These ideas are from Betty Edwards`book "Drawing on the right side of the brain" (my book is a Norwegian translation, which is very nice for a change). I have had it for many, many years, but I haven`t really practiced her ideas for the same amount of years! However - I highly recommend this book! If you want to improve your drawings - this is the book - your result will amaze you!

Below are today`s up-side down drawings of mine.