You want to draw something, anything, where do you begin?
Sketching is something human beings have done since time began.
Prehistoric mortals drew the animals they hunted: wooly mammoths, deer, birds, fish.
It's a question of looking first. Letting yourself turning into a presence. It's a question of noticing and observing. It's a question on dwelling on the beauty of something.
Hemmingway said "If you know a thing, it is in your work, whether you write about it or not" It is the same with sketching. Sketching and writing are methods of telling. You tell about something visual. And the more you look and the more you know a place, the more will come out.
Then, just let the pencil record, without making any judgements. Record its shape, its shadows, its details. The drawing you produce is a testament of having been in a place. It's something you record, and pass on, it's a gift for the future: a proof of having witnessed something at a certain time and place.
You must never make a judgement of what is being drawn. That is not for you. All you must do is allow the pencil to keep going on its journey of tracing the observations of your eye.
Writer Natalie Goldberg says: 'Drawing relaxes and focusses the restless mind' It gets you creating from a non-rational place. It jostles your mind out of logic. You must let something larger take over and give up control.
You must always finish a drawing. Never let self-criticism have a say. Keep going, right until you feel that you have told the whole picture and shown it all in its glory. The longer you look at it, the more likely the view before you will insist on being revealed, in all its glory. It will not want to be deprived of a vital garment: an elongated shadow or pretty ray of sunshine.
Sketching is something human beings have done since time began.
Prehistoric mortals drew the animals they hunted: wooly mammoths, deer, birds, fish.
It's a question of looking first. Letting yourself turning into a presence. It's a question of noticing and observing. It's a question on dwelling on the beauty of something.
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| Picasso: Mother Nursing a child 1944 |
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| Paul Signac View of Calvi, Corsica 1935 |
Hemmingway said "If you know a thing, it is in your work, whether you write about it or not" It is the same with sketching. Sketching and writing are methods of telling. You tell about something visual. And the more you look and the more you know a place, the more will come out.
Then, just let the pencil record, without making any judgements. Record its shape, its shadows, its details. The drawing you produce is a testament of having been in a place. It's something you record, and pass on, it's a gift for the future: a proof of having witnessed something at a certain time and place.
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| A Standing Moroccan man Eugene Delacroix 1832 |
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| Horse and Rider, Edgar Degas |
You must never make a judgement of what is being drawn. That is not for you. All you must do is allow the pencil to keep going on its journey of tracing the observations of your eye.
Writer Natalie Goldberg says: 'Drawing relaxes and focusses the restless mind' It gets you creating from a non-rational place. It jostles your mind out of logic. You must let something larger take over and give up control.
 |
| self portrait, Natalie Goldberg |
You must always finish a drawing. Never let self-criticism have a say. Keep going, right until you feel that you have told the whole picture and shown it all in its glory. The longer you look at it, the more likely the view before you will insist on being revealed, in all its glory. It will not want to be deprived of a vital garment: an elongated shadow or pretty ray of sunshine.
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