SKETCHING TECHNIQUES

Drawing is probably not essential to painting, especially if you are doing certain abstract art that deals with non-objective stuff. But then, the merits of drawing or sketching in painting cannot be ignored. In general, if a person draws and sketches well, he or she can paint well too. The knowledge from sketching feeds in to your painting to make it better- you have a better command on your brush, you get a more clear picture of the tonal values that can help you to mix just the right shade of paint which would make all the difference to your painting. So, if you plan to make art more than a casual affair, taking out time to learn and practice drawing would be rather a good idea. I am going to give you a few techniques and exercises that you can do on the side to help you improve your sketching, and in turn, your painting skills.

Pencils

Pencils are the most convenient of all the sketching tools and yet so versatile! The world-famous artists have done pencil sketching over the centuries. And the best thing about using a pencil is that it is almost always possible to get some pencil and paper to work on, no matter where you are. You can bring them back home and turn them into beautiful paintings. Or if you use a high quality drawing paper, you can paint over it, if you decide to do so at a later date.

Pencils come in a range of grades, classified on the basis of their hardness. A greater percentage of clay in a lead will result in a harder lead. H (harder), F, HB and B (softer) are pencils of average hardness. Pencils ranging from 2B to 9B are softer still and are used for sketching; 2H to 9H are harder than average. The most familiar one found in the stationary stores is HB.

In order, the leads are (from hardest to softest) 9H | 8H | 7H | 6H | 5H | 4H | 3H | 2H | H | F | HB | B | 2B | 3B | 4B | 5B | 6B | 7B | 8B | 9B.

For beginners, the most useful ones will be 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, 6H & 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, 6B. I mostly have been using 2B, 3B and 6B pencils. A kneaded eraser is as important as pencil, since you are less likely to get it all correct all the time (I am not being judgemental here…hehe). And then of course, you need some good quality drawing paper to make all those nonsense pencil marks on (well…in the beginning at least ;).

Important: The pencil grade that you decide to use for a particular sketch will depend on how much detail you want, how much time you have got and overall effect that you want to achieve.

Techniques

By using a few simple techniques, you can get a variety of lines and shading patterns from the same pencil. By leaning the way to hold your pencil, you can make it do (almost J) whatever you want (Figure 2). The short hold position that you use when you are writing gives you the most control. The long hold drawing position allows more freedom over a large area. The flat hold position allows you to work large shaded areas with fast, free, broad strokes by using the long edge of the head.

Exercise

You can do some practice strokes by varying hold, angle, and pressure on the pencil (Figure 3). You can do this one by one with different grades of pencils that you have. This will help you to learn how your pencils behave, and will surprise you with the results. This would be somewhat similar to working with a big drop of water and all the random colours that we did previously with watercolours. This exercise will help you overcome your fear of sketching and will help you make those pencil marks more freely.

Sketching indoors

If you are a beginner, the best place to start sketching is indoors. You won’t have to carry all the equipment out with you and you wont have to be concerned about people watching you, or the weather going bad. Besides, you can be in complete control of the subject, lightening, and your own comfort.

Look around your house and pick anything simple to start your sketching with. It could be something as simple as milk can, a water bottle or some fruits or flowers (Figure 1, 4, 5, 6). Remember to put in a lot of construction lines to give your subject the stability and also to get the shape as close to the actual shape as possible (Figure 6). If you just draw an outline, your sketch will look weak and lifeless, so add shading to show form. The dark centre of sunflower in Figure 1 gives it a three dimensional look. All these drawing were made using a 2B pencil.

While practicing indoors, you can also use a picture to copy from. But it is always best to sketch from real life objects. Your drawing will look much more energetic if it is done from real objects than when from just a picture of them; and it’ll be more fun too. One quick tip is to keep the light coming in from just one direction, to have a better sense of shape and tones to incorporate into your sketches.

Sketching outdoors

The best thing about sketching is that you need minimal equipment. For a hot weather, take a sun hat and always pack an umbrella, just in case it rains you would want to protect your sketch (or painting, for that matter) immediately. For cold weather, take plenty of warm clothing, because you wont enjoy sketching if you are feeling cold.

Make it simple

If you are sketching a landscape, you can’t put in every tree, leaf, stone, stem or every blade of grass in your sketch. You need to develop your skills in such a way that you are able to show a whole field of corn with a few pencil strokes.

You can eliminate the details from your scene, by:

1.    Squinting your eyes- this will allow you to see only the darkest and the lightest tones, whereas as, the middle tones with a lot of detail in them will disappear.

2.    Use a soft pencil.

3.    Using a long pencil hold will make it difficult for you to put in a lot of detail.

4.    Set a time limit on yourself (we will do this as a separate exercise).

In Figure 7, the landscape sketched with windmill in it lacks the detail. It was done quickly using a 6B pencil.

20-minute exercises

Pick a subject, or a scene, and set a timer for you to finish it in 20 minutes. Do this with a number of subjects, landscapes and using different pencil grades. You can try sketching the same scene with 3 different grades of pencils, for your own comparison (Figure7, 8). You will find that 2B will help you draw some detail, 3b will be quicker but less detailed, and 6B can block areas in minutes but wont allow you to put in any detail.

This exercise will help you get better quicker, stay focused and help you to eliminate the unnecessary details from a scene. This exercise will also equip you to take quicker decisions when deciding upon which pencil to choose for a particular type of situation.

3-minute exercises

This exercise might sound a bit daunting at first, you once you start off you will realize fun it is and how this time limit will make your pencil dance on paper and amaze you by conjuring up the kind of sketches you never thought you were capable of producing. And this will help you achieve a big skill yet again- the skill of simplifying your subject.

Birds are the ideal subjects for this type of exercise (Figure 9a, 9b, 9c). You can start with copying from photographs- this will give you an idea about the form and movement of birds. But do not forget the 3-min time limit. Copying from photograph will prepare you to do them from life later on. You will get only a minute or less for which the bird will hold a particular pose, and this is where your 6B pencil will come in handy.

Once you get more confident, you can do this exercise with human figures also (Figure 10).

Moving objects

The previous two exercises would have equipped you with simplifying your subject. The mastery of this skill will be very useful in sketching the moving objects. You must really need to simplify your subject and should not be obsessed with details or else your subject will be long gone while you would still be thinking about it. The simple rule is- practice, a lot of practice! You can start with slow moving objects, like airplane taxing on runway, a ship/boat leaving the harbour etc., till you get better and then move on to faster moving objects. You can also try sketching from television while they are playing some documentary or something. It’s going to be hard at the beginning, but as you keep at it, it will get easier and easier. (Figures11,12,13,14). See in Figures 13 & 14, how so few lines have been used to depict the figures.

Sketching people

Try sketching walking people. Always being with head and work down the body. Keep the pencil on paper all the time, to help you bring out a quick sketch (Figure 10). Do not try to put in too much detail, since people will mostly occupy ten percent or less of your overall sketch. If you want to sketch a crowd, just make sure that the people at the front assume the shape of human beings. The remaining figures can be sketchy, because you would have already created the illusion of a crowd. To get good at this, draw a lot of groups and crowds of people when you are out and about (Figure 15).

The 0-series (Figure 0’s)

These are the sketches that I picked up from my previous years. They are labelled as Figure 0a etc, because they were added to this blog as an after thought. They were done mostly for fun, as a hobby. I have tried to copy these from different paintings, magazine pictures and sketches. Only one of these (Figure 0a-right at the top) is a real life sketch, and one is my imagination (Figure 0b). Back at that time, I would just try to copy the stuff, trying to be as exact as possible, without any technical knowledge. I would use my common sense and keen observation to guide me. But then I realized that without any technical knowledge, I can never be an independent painter/sketcher, and so here I am. I am just sharing as I am learning along. That’s why some my sketches are so pathetically non-professional looking. But stay with me guys- we will definitely get better….and better. :)

WATERCOLOURS: WET-ON-WET TECHNIQUE

Before it becomes paint, watercolour is first and foremost water. And as we embark on the watercolour painting, we realise that we have no control over water and we can not force it do anything (a scary feeling indeed… lol). However, we need to learn to respect this property in it, and to handle it to our best advantage.

Wet-on-wet is one of the most complex, but also most basic of the techniques. It requires a lot of focus and quick action at every moment. In this technique you have to manoeuvre the flow of paint as the water on paper meets the water in the brush (Figure 1).

A must-have brush

To act more spontaneously and without being interrupted, you need to adequately soak the paper with water. This way, you wont be wasting time constantly supplementing your water/pigment mixture. To wet the surface properly, you need a waterbrush that can hold a substantial amount of water. A squirrel hair brush is ideal for this . The fineness of its tip allows you to draw very accurately on wet as well as dry paper using pigment that is suspended in water. You can also remove extra water/ pigment from paper to tone down the colour.

Stretch the paper

To begin with, you need to stretch your paper over a broad frame to avoid wrinkling. They come in all sizes. You can even use a stretcher designed for oil colour painting. Add a border of 3cm so that it can be folded back. Make sure you do not confuse the back of the stretcher with the front. As the water dries up, it will draw on itself stretching like the hide of a drum. This whole process can be recreated after each major wash and will make it easier to manage water flow and increase /decrease in water density.

Wet the paper

Using a thick brush spread plenty of water over the whole surface of paper. The paper needs to absorb an awful lot of water to wet through. This prolongs its water drying time and gives you more time to act. If you put too much water, you can remove the access water by pinching the tip of your squirrel hair brush and using it to remove water by drawing it up by capillary action (Figure 2). Even if you want to paint wet on wet in the restricted area of your paper, you must still wet beyond the area that is to be covered, otherwise, the blends created by the suspended pigments will be blocked by the edge of the damp area.

The adventure begins

Depending on what results you are looking to achieve, you need to wait for the exact moment to release the pigments from your brush. For pronounced area of colour blending, where you want to paint skies or luminous atmospheres,  you can paint on to a very wet surface (Figure 3). For less spread out shapes, you can paint on partially wet and therefore matt surfaces (Figure 4). Alternately, you can also increase the density of pigment in your brush by adding less water. I have done both in Figure 5. For only slightly dispersed strokes, you can work on almost dry paper with just a little amount of water retained, like the strokes indicated on the extreme left and extreme right side of Figure 5.

My paintings

Figure 6: I started this painting off just as an exercise- more of an experiment. I thought I would play around with water and pigments to see how they behave, or infamously misbehave lol. Since I didn’t plan to make any painting here, I wasn’t all that scared to use large amounts of water. So I simply put a large drop of water and started depositing the pigments in this pool with the tip of SHB. I turned around the direction of pigments while still in pool, removed some water here and there, by using the pinching-the-brush technique as described above. I left out certain areas for the reflected light from paper. And as the time passed the paper started drying, going from a shiny to matt appearance. The spread of the paints also started becoming more controlled and I started painting somewhat more defined, less spread-out structures. And finally, as the paper was almost dry, I gave a few finishing touches, with bold lines and increasingly dense pigments. And here, I created something that I had not seen or visualized till I was 70% done. Here my focus was more towards learning how the pigments and water behave, and what all I can do with pigments, brush, water and my imagination. A good fun exercise to develop a relationship with your medium and understand it better -highly recommended. Don’t go by the artwork I created here. Just look at the strokes and techniques and created your own abstract maybe. A great way to get rid of fear of using lots of water in your paintings! Did the same with Figure 7 and Figure 8 paintings. These two look much-improved version of my previous experiment (Fig 6). I am less hesitant and more adventurous in using large amounts of water, an act that seems to have paid off well.

-To change colour tones on the wet surface, simply increase or decrease the pigment : water ratio.

-Remember to use more intense colours than the effect that you are looking to achieve, because the colours are going to fade a little once the picture is dry.

The halo effect

While painting, accidents do happen. One of the most common ones with watercolour painting is accidental fall of a drop of water from your brush onto a wet or almost dry painting. This creates a halo effect with feathering on the edges (Figure 9). This halo effect can however can be tackled or even turned to your advantage if you master the skill of handling or even deliberately creating the halos for those special effects in your painting.

To reverse the effect of halo, you need to tackle the issue in two different ways depending on whether the drop has fallen on the wet surface, or matt/almost dry surface. If the wash is still wet, quickly pinch dry your squirrel brush, and then using the tip of the brush lift out the water from the centre of your halo. This will not only remove the pigment from the area but there is also a good chance that the original pigments that were dispersed towards the edge of the halo (causing feathering) would return to the centre, thus restoring the pigments to their original effect (Figure 10). The halo is a bit more problematic if the wash is almost dry, and the water spreads carrying with it the pigment that is still fresh and therefore creates a very pronounced feathering effect (Figure 9). To deal with type of halo, you need to wait till the paper is completely dry. Once completely dry, moisten the paper again with plenty of water, taking care not to press the brush or letting the paper weaken. Then lift out the surplus water from the feathered edge. You will see a little de-pigmentation around the wash, and even the light centre of the halo will remain, but its effect will be much reduced. And finally, whatever happens, do not get discouraged. Once the painting is complete, you will see that such small accidents add to the character and life of the whole painting.

Halo can be used as a creative tool as well. On a matt surface, if you gently touch the tip of a drained brush, you can draw on the pigment without causing feathering. The whiteness of the paper will make this drawing look like a halo that has been deprived of water (Figure 11). If you want the halo to be brighter, repeat the process of drawing on the painted surface by draining the brush one more time. To draw in your halos efficiently, remember to be patient and wait until the surface is partially dried and gives the paper a matt finish. You can use this technique to show filtered light or for something like drawing the veins in a leaf.

 Do these three exercises for attaining control over and making use of halo effect:

1.    Draw random lines on a matt surface, by using the tip of a drained brush (Figure 11).

2.    Prepare a pool of water in a matt and wash it with several pigments. Let a small drop of water fall and draw it up immediately by pinching-dry the tip of your brush, or by using a separate dry brush. The white of paper will appear, which will darken because of the bleeding in of the pigments from the surroundings. Repeat this exercise again by dropping and ifting a small drop of water, till the light of desired luminosity is retained (Figure 12a,12b and 12c).

3.    Draw the veins of a leaf by delicately directing the drop of water with the tip of your brush (Figure 13).

Painting with water

Painting with water onto a wash that is still wet is a form of recreating the halo effect, only in this case you are moving from simple forms to more complex shapes (Figure 14). This technique requires a good amount of practice and a lot of patience. Even if you do not get the desired results in first few attempts, you will end up getting better with each new exercise, learning a bit more about your medium and how to handle it, the precise moment to act, know when to stop.  Also, you will lose the fear of using water and working on wet surfaces, and get better and better each day.

SOME GOOD STUFF IS ON ITS WAY

Hi guys,

I came across this awesome book on the theory of watercolours. In this book, author explains the colours in great depth. He talks about the physics of primary, dichromatic secondary and trichromatic colours.  How colours in light are different from the colours in pigments. He shows how different combinations of just three colours can help you make 31 different colours (which I thought was just a hypothesis till today…lol). I am going to do that myself either tonight or tomorrow morning. He explains how the origin of primary colours was based on the study of an 18^th century ophthalmologist. He talks about Le Blon’s invention of first colour printing using a set of different primary colours (as compared to the modern day printing colours) in early 18^th century and how that invention influenced the warm flesh tones in the paintings of the artists of that time. How another chemist who worked with clothing dyes worked out “the theory of simultaneous contrasts”, that again influenced the painters of that time.

In the techniques part, that I just started, he gives a whole new insight into the simple and already known techniques, explaining the relationship between paper, water and different pigments. As I was practicing my brush strokes and was playing around a little, a little abstract patch in one tiny corner of my drawing sheet developed into a small, very plain painting… I just created it as I went along, without any pre-conception. I am posting it here. It should be considered as no more than a practice exercise for brush strokes and wet in wet painting colour technique- a kind of doodling in watercolours (I think that the inconspicuous magenta coloured house far, deep, in the centre of the painting is kinda cute.. lol).

Right now, I am a bit busy studying this new material and practicing a little. I will write the whole account of what I learnt, once I am done with my part of job here- some really good stuff is on its way. It might help you add a whole new dimension to your paintings if you are an amateur just like me.

WHY WATERCOLOURS?

Two of my favourite paint media are oils and watercolours! Oil paints are classical, rich, bold and beautiful, with a lovely texture. They are easy to work with, very accommodating, forgiving, and help you produce magnificent pieces of art! But to work with oils, you need to dedicate a specific space where your work is not disturbed for long periods of time. In my case, working at home, where, although fortunately I do have enough space, but with a toddler around, there is no guarantee of it’s remaining undisturbed.

So, I decided to start off with my second favourite medium- watercolours. I love them because of their texture, transparency and almost electrical and magical effects that they create. In addition, starting with watercolours in my situation would mean- to create a painting that will dry fast and can be stored away quickly, needing less work-space and a small and compact paraphernalia that could be packed away and tucked safely in a jiffy, no permanent stains or spills, and most importantly, not having to handle any toxic pigments (unlike oil paints) that might turn out to be harmful for a young child. And a big jackpot- “quick results”, which might turn out to be good motivator, especially if you are starting off after a long time, or starting afresh and are a bit scared to take up a marathon task.

STARTING TO PAINT AGAIN

I am thinking of starting to paint again after a long time. The whole thing looks much more daunting than it had ever before. With all the knowledge and experience and a few burns in life, some people tend to get more cautious- the category that I now fall into. I have had a complete makeover of my personality- from rash and impulsive to patient and cautious! Probably, the presence of kids in your life has a lot to do with it. 

I have been thinking of seriously painting since over a month. It is one of the 3 most serious projects on my list. So, it is very important. I have bought books, taken out my brushes and other accessories, bought some fresh paints, a third sketchbook  (because I wanted an A4 now), and even a new eraser (although I already had an old one in a very good and usable condition). And finally,  I realised that I had been doing all this necessary as well as unnecessary stuff to buy more time. I am scared to make my first brush  stroke. I am so hesitant.

Being naïve, and rash is quite a useful trait sometimes(oh how much I miss it!)-at least to start off at the things.  And even if you feel stymied later on down the road, since you already are on track, it doesn’t take all that long to troubleshoot your hurdles (both actual and perceived ones). Being a researcher, to some extent, slows you down. You have that uncontrollable need to thoroughly research anything and everything about a topic before you start off on a project- even if it is something as small as making a dish J. Now I get all the jokes that people used to tell me about the PhDs, when I first joined mine! I know, too late! You do become a bit obsessive and paranoid after some time into research. And what if you already are a tiny bit obsessive to start with? Now you get me! Right? J

Since I am going to thoroughly research my subject in any case, this time I thought, I would make a record of it for my own future reference; and also, if I could, to some extent, help the people out there, who, like myself are struggling to start off at having a go at painting, a bit later in their lives. In this blog, I wish to achieve two things- 1. my research on various aspects of painting ; and 2. my experiences with painting as a go along on this unique and colourful journey.