Lesson Info
6. Evolving the Quick Sketch
Lessons
Lesson Info
Evolving the Quick Sketch
So we've just done a lot of sketching on location. We did slow speed, we did medium speed with celeste outside in the garden. And then we did fast speed with the girls playing spike ball. And that gave us pages and pages of drawings. And what I like to do after that is often to look through the drawings, Look over all the different pages and choose a few that I might want to work up and refine a little bit. So this idea of these drawings being very processed based right? These drawings were done quickly. They were done very gestural e. They were done in some cases kind of breathlessly is we were just trying to track this fast motion of the figures in space and that can be the end result for sure. And there's many really amazing drawings done on location that are just super gestural, we just get a sense of the motion of the body at different speeds. But these drawings can also be considered. Some of them may be raw material that you could work into a little bit to maybe make like slight...
ly more realized drawings. And what I like to do sometimes after going through my sketchbook and choosing a few that might have some potential for that is laying some tracing paper, some tracing vellum over the drawings. You could draw right on top of the drawings, but sometimes that gets a little bit um complicated. So having a piece of tracing vellum over the drawings. I've chosen these two very quick sketches of celeste in the garden. I chose them because one I feel like there's a very clear direction to the body. And I also like how they're sort of opposing each other on the page. When you start to see your page fill with drawings that relate to each other, it almost starts to imply a narrative. It almost starts to imply the possibility of telling a story with more than one figure, even if the figure is the same figure. So I'm going to come in with a pencil that's a different color. So I can discern what I'm refining versus the raw material and just start to pull in a slightly more realized version of these figures. So if I start with the one on the left here, I remember, you know, part of this is also in a way like working from memory. You know, I remember the curve of the back. So you're using not only the material of the drawing, but also, you know, you were just there, these aren't done from a photograph, right? You were just there practicing. So actually doing, you know, when you get back inside pretty soon after having drawn it, you can start to work with the combination of memory and the raw data that you collected on location. So remember the curve of the back. I remember the curve of the neck and then I remember, you know, and also I'm using the actual raw sketch that I'm working on top of here. I remember that she was looking down and here, it's implying that even with this gestural sketch and she had this big top knot on her head looking down, and then coming down into the shoulder area here, there was that the arm reaching down for the pot, but we can maybe start to take that gestural line and fill it out with just a little bit of an oval coming around the shoulder and then moving into the lower arm and you know, you don't have to know a ton about drawing hands to make just a basic shape. And I remember that she was cupping this little plant that she was about to plant. So you could even imply that, and then coming down the torso to the region of the hips, a nice oval for this leg here. And I remember it was sort of behind the pot, so you can even sort of show a little bit of space that way coming in and refining this leg. And then she wasn't quite, her body wasn't quite all the way down, but she was kneeling on the grass and then the foot was coming out off to the side a little bit, there was this sense of weight onto the ground. And then from that basic feeling, you could even come in and as we started to do a little bit on location, start to come in and create a little bit of a sense of the clothing, you know, she was wearing overall. So there was sort of an opening to the side. There were straps here, She was wearing a tank top underneath that. So just some simple lines to imply. The clothing can start to really create just from this raw sketch can start to create a little bit more of a sense of refinement and and really put a little bit more detail and a little bit more personality into the drawing. So we started with a sketch that was pretty rough. And then we ended up with a sketch was there was just a bit more refined with a little bit more clarity. Let's try this one. Now, this one was a slightly different position. It was actually done a little bit more gestural E so this might be a little bit of a challenge, but I love the way, you know, at least I captured the position of the head and so we can maybe start with the shape of the head here, and, you know, placing the top knot and from there there's the shape of the shoulders and again the leaning over of the body and then the arms were outstretched, reaching down to the planter. So we can start to relay a sense of, you know, the shoulder to the elbow, down into the pot. And then the same thing on the other side, down into the pot. Just, you know, the focus then of the planting, you know, really channeling the eye down to that area and then an oval for the body, a little bit more of a shape. You know, we're still following the gesture line, but maybe a little bit more shape to the upper leg and then at the knee coming down. And and when we can really trying to create a sense of grounded nous and planting the body on the ground. So, working in this way again with the raw sketch in a slightly different colored pencil to come down and start to create a little bit more detail can be a really great way to go from the raw sketch, something like that to something a little bit more finished and here to kind of, with a combination of memory, maybe a little bit of imagination, we can start to add in a little bit of the detail of the overalls. From this angle, maybe a little bit of a detail of the shirt, maybe a hint of the back leg, even though I didn't really draw it, we know it's there, and then maybe the seam of the pants coming down, that can actually create a really nice lyrical line to the body and I'm not gonna get too caught up in portraiture because this is very gestural, but I do like this possibility of going from that really raw sketch, just starting to add in some basic shapes. And then if you can just sort of see these two figures relating to each other on the page, what's really great about that is that you can start to imply a little bit more detail of some of the things around them, Maybe even add in some sort of uh ground plane in the background. Um you know, you can start to create a space that they could possibly exist in together and that again starts to give the possibility for some sort of narrative for some sort of story that you might tell with not one but two figures. So I recommend, you know, taking a chance and playing a bit with your raw material. I know at first it might seem like a bunch of scribbles and that's completely natural mind often feel that way, but as you look through the many, many, many drawings that you do on location. Don't be too caught up in finished work, just do them. But then when you come back maybe inside or or you have some time to look through them, there might be a couple that spark you as possible ones to elaborate a little bit more and over time you'll start to amass kind of a repertoire or or a series of drawings based on the figure that are a little bit more refined and that you could maybe possibly use at a later time to do something a little bit more sophisticated. So moving the raw material to something more finished is a practice in and of itself, I highly recommend using a little trace paper, maybe a couple different colors of pencils, but I think it's a really fun thing to do and it combines both raw material, what meant, what you remember and maybe a little bit of imagination. So give it a try.
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