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. :)