Part 4 ➤ Developing Drawing Skills 160 23. If you have a problem, use the plastic picture plane and transfer what you see to your drawing. 24. Draw a box for something that is hard to draw. Put the box in space, then draw the thing in the box. 25. See relationally. As you are sure of one shape, relate the others to it. Keep checking and adjusting until you are happy with your drawing. A Form for Form Now, begin to work on form. You can add tone, or try to define the form with line, or you can leave it a contour line drawing. 1. If you choose to add form, adjust your lighting if necessary. 2. Make a tonal chart for the values in your arrangement. 3. Squint to see the extremes of value in your arrangement and subdue the detail and mid-tones. 4. Pick out the lightest spots and the darkest. 5. Add some tone to the middle shades, from the lighter ones to the darker ones. 6. Try to see tones as having shapes on your subjects. 7. Look at shadows next to things and under things and on other things. 8. You can work toward a very tonal drawing or you can merely suggest volume, perhaps just with shadows. 9. Add detail and texture after you see the shapes and the form. 10. Use those naturalist’s eyes of yours for a clear seeing of detail. 11. Rendering texture requires a mark that is appropriate for describing the texture. Experiment on a separate piece of paper. 12. Detail and texture may also require a lot of planning and measuring if there is a pat- tern on china, a fabric print, or fine detail on seashells. 13. Get up and look at your work from a distance. Look with fresh eyes. Don’t hesitate to go back and fix something. Try the reverse end of a pair of binoculars. Consider the view from a mirror. 14. Work patiently—it is your drawing. 15. As you work, see the lines, tones, textures, and detail begin to work together. The finish point, as always, is your choice. 161 Chapter 13 ➤ This Is a Review—There Will Be a Test Exercising Your Rights As you may have realized by now, none of the exercises in this book is a one-nighter. You’ll want to go back to each of them again and again, because each of them has something unique to teach you that practicing can only improve. Don’t forget, practice makes perfect, and that’s part of what learning to draw is all about! In the rest of this book, you’re going to be drawing everything from pots and pans to land- scapes to animals to people, so you may want to review the exercises in this chapter a few more times before you take that big step. Or, if you’re like us, you’re ready to get out there and start drawing! The Art of Drawing See if your work is getting to be all one tone with little contrast. You can change your tonal range by lightening the lights or darkening the darks or darkening the main lines in the contour line, or erasing out part of the texture or tone to merely suggest it. Part 4 ➤ Developing Drawing Skills Your Sketchbook Page Try your hand at practicing the exercises you’ve learned in this chapter. 163 Chapter 13 ➤ This Is a Review—There Will Be a Test The Least You Need to Know ➤ Looking back through your drawings will help you see just how far you’ve come al- ready. ➤ You’ll want to go back to all of the exercises in this book more than once. Each of them has something unique to offer. Use the crib list to remind you of how to go about it. ➤ Use the checklist to remind you of steps toward seeing and drawing. ➤ Practice makes perfect! Chapter 14 All Around the House: A Few New Drawing Ideas to Try In This Chapter ➤ Finding subjects to draw ➤ Avoiding distraction and making time for your work ➤ Touring your house from top to bottom ➤ Making personal choices—your drawings will be as individual as you are I have probably drawn as many chairs and desks and corners and interior objects as I have landscapes. —Hannah Hinchman, Bloomsbury Review Interview, Jan/Feb 2000. The skills for drawing all that follows are yours—or, at least, within your grasp—if you pro- ceed step-by-step. Each of the next seven chapters has a theme area for you to explore: from inside your house to your garden, or out and about in the countryside, on a village street, at a boatyard, on a farm, at the zoo—anywhere you choose to go with your sketchbook or a full drawing set-up. Your House Is Full of Ideas for Drawing Practice In this chapter, you’ll begin by taking a walk through your own house and seeing what you’ve already got, just waiting to be drawn. Chances are, you’ve got a wealth of material. You can try any subject as a sketchbook/journal entry, or you can set up to try a larger, more finished drawing that you will work on a few times. If so, pick a nice piece of paper and spend the first session planning, arranging, lighting, and siting your arrangement on the page. Part 4 ➤ Developing Drawing Skills 166 Time Is of the Essence On the plus side, your house has all your favorite stuff. On the minus side, it has most of your distractions right there, too. Of course, highly disciplined professionals like Lauren and Lisa long ago came to terms with these distractions. (And if you believe that one, we have a bridge that you could buy …) Seriously, though, being earnest about your time is the first step. Maybe you have had enough success with this book to be more committed to your own work. If that’s the case, keep it up! Once you’ve found some stuff around the house you want to draw, you’ll want to set a time to work. Do enough of your daily chores to get by, but only just. This is the hard part, leav- ing those dishes so you can draw. You may hear your mother’s voice in your head, telling you you’re being self-indulgent or childish. Lesson One: Ignore her. Get your coffee, your lunch, whatever you need, and give yourself a time slot to work. Some people find actually writing the time on their calendar is enough to make them arrive in their studio, ready to work. Turn on the answering machine, turn off the computer. Turn on some music, turn off the TV. Put out the dog and let in the cat. The Art of Drawing The most important thing is to make this time your own. That means that if the UPS man rings the bell, you won’t answer; he’ll leave the package on your stoop or with a neighbor. It means that even if you hear your long-lost lover’s voice on the answering machine, you won’t give in to the urge to pick up the phone. You won’t go to see what the dog is barking at now, even if the coyotes are howling, too. Uninterrupted time is what we’re talking about here. Make a date with yourself—and then keep it. Your Kitchen Is a Storehouse A good place to start is right in your kitchen—you’ll be near the cof- feemaker. However, you’ll want to avoid the refrigerator, for obvious reasons—you’ll end up snacking instead of sketching. What you will choose to draw in the kitchen—or anywhere around the house, for that matter—will fall into three categories: 1. Objects seen up close and personal 2. A composed still life arrangement 3. A corner of a room—as is, or you can rearrange the furniture Back to the Drawing Board Rearranging is one thing, but major renovation takes time away from drawing. Don’t use it as an excuse for not drawing! 167 Chapter 14 ➤ All Around the House: A Few New Drawings to Try You will learn by trying all of these things. Perhaps, after you have tried to see it and draw it, you will also begin to see your house differently and end up rearranging it (unless, like Lisa, you do this all the time already). But now, since you’re all settled with your coffee and your drawing pad in your kitchen anyway, let’s poke around and see what we can find to draw. Silverware Forks, spoons, and knives can make the most interesting of subjects for a drawing. Reach over and open your silverware drawer and pull out one of each … or three of one. Arrange them on a placemat, or set up an entire place setting, complete with a vase and fresh-picked flower, and draw that. Silverware and place settings are just the beginning. Open your cupboards, too. Anything from around your house is fair game as a drawing subject. Set your table and draw it, too! Part 4 ➤ Developing Drawing Skills 168 Pitchers and Bowls When you wander through your local art museum or galleries, you’ll probably notice that pitchers and bowls abound in still lifes. These objects are artists’ favorites for good reason; they have lovely curved lines that are fun to draw, and their varying shapes and sizes can add interest, too. If you decide to draw a pitcher or a bowl (or both), you may want to use some other objects in the kitchen for your arrangement as well. A tea towel arranged at the base of a pitcher can add both dimension and shading. Some apples or oranges placed in a bowl can add color (even when you’re drawing in black and white) and tone. Make a simple still life by setting some fruit in a bowl and then drawing it. Or just draw your plate rack—dishes included, of course. Then, bring it all together. The truth is, just about anything in your kitchen is a potential drawing subject. So whether it’s a loaf of bread, a jug of lemonade, or thou, get thee to a drawing pad. Not Just for Sleeping Anymore If you’ve finished your coffee (and your still life), you’ve probably got lots of energy now. That’s good, because it’s time to get up and wander into some other rooms. Let’s start with the bedroom, where there’s a wealth of things just waiting to be drawn. First, take a look at the entire room. How is the furniture arranged? Is it pleasing? Pick a vantage point you like and quickly sketch what you see. You may want to toss a scarf over a bedpost to add some texture, or move a plant to create a more eye-pleasing arrangement. You may decide to leave the scarf and the plant where you’ve moved them after you’ve finished drawing, too; that’s part of the fun. Next, pick some singular arrangement in your room that you’d like to draw. Lisa has an old spider plant set in an equally old basket on an an- tique chair she got at a Nebraska auction for 25 cents (everything in Lisa’s house comes with a story attached). You might have some of your favorite photos or keepsakes arranged on your dresser, or a lamp and some books on your nightstand. The possibilities are endless. Back to the Drawing Board Watch out with stripes—you have to pay attention to where they go and where they come out. Make a flowered pattern work by carefully measuring and plan- ning before you start drawing. 169 Chapter 14 ➤ All Around the House: A Few New Drawings to Try Fabrics Fabrics can make a surprisingly pleasing composition. Even if you don’t sew, your clothes, comforter, pillows, and curtains are each of a different fabric, and setting one against an- other can create an arrangement you’ll want to draw. It may help to pretend you’re Martha Stewart. Artfully arrange a few pillows against your headboard. Add a breakfast tray (oh yeah, we all have those handy). How about a pretty nightie, or a fabric throw? (Or some craftsmen’s tools, a saw or two, and that Harley …) Arrange your fabrics as if they’re casually thrown, without them looking like a mess. Fabrics present their own unique problems. They are the essence of surface texture, with all sorts of spots, lines, patterns, plaids, flowers—you name it—sitting on top of some flexible material that has fallen into interesting but hard-to-draw folds, creases, and overlaps. The solution is to draw the shapes first, as always, but this is ever so much more important with fabric. Then look at tone, the lights and shadows of the folds of fabric. Try to lightly shade to define what the fabric is doing. When you can see in your drawing what the fabric is actually doing, then and only then should you start adding the surface texture. See it disappear as the fabric folds under itself. Or is it covered by another object? Does it come out on the other side? Don’t rush along here; pattern and texture take time and patience. Lisa’s spider plant on antique chair, drawn by her daughter. An artful arrangement of fabrics can make a lovely drawing. . subdue the detail and mid-tones. 4. Pick out the lightest spots and the darkest. 5. Add some tone to the middle shades, from the lighter ones to the darker ones. 6. Try to see tones as having shapes. of what learning to draw is all about! In the rest of this book, you’re going to be drawing everything from pots and pans to land- scapes to animals to people, so you may want to review the exercises. the House: A Few New Drawing Ideas to Try In This Chapter ➤ Finding subjects to draw ➤ Avoiding distraction and making time for your work ➤ Touring your house from top to bottom ➤ Making personal choices—your