Drawing and Sketching
When I was just starting to take my art semi-seriously (around 2018) and began working more on my skills, I ran into this most confusing thing. There were people who were painters who didn’t think they could draw and who didn’t like to draw. What?
Seriously, this confused the heck out of me for the longest time. And when I first started trying to paint, I kept getting terribly frustrated. It was clear to me that what I was trying to do was to paint with a brush, and that painting was something else, but the instructors I talked to at the time couldn’t explain to me what that was. In fact, one of them expressed to me the opinion that you couldn’t teach someone to paint; they either knew it or they didn’t. Which was, of course, even more frustrating, but when you run tiny something like that, the correct interpretation is that the person doesn’t know how to teach the skill. In all fairness, he wasn’t bad instructor. I learned one heck of a lot from him and I’m very happy I got to spend time with him, but how to paint wasn’t one of the things I learned.
I’m still sad that the oil painting class I wanted to take the second session of this fall won’t be around in the same form because I learned a lot from the first class. I didn’t learn very much useful (or at least new to me) about color theory or composition, but I learned one specific way to paint with oil paints. And if I could manage that version, there was every chance that I could learn other ways of painting with oils as well, so I’ve embarked on a process of learn by failing, and it’s been interesting.
Don’t worry, I’m getting back to the point. One of the things I discovered along the way as I painting from photographic reference, is that my paintings tended to come out better if I had first done a decent drawing based on the photo. In this case, the drawing is something not intended to be turned into a painting, but to stand on its own, even if that’s just inside a sketch book. But when I’m ready to start the painting, I generally do another sketch of the same reference, and it’s quite a different thing. When I’m sketching to make a painting, I’m thinking about the painting and so I include different details and different levels of details. That’s also when I’m more likely to be thinking about the final composition.
Weirdest of all, sometimes when I sit down to do a drawing, I start thinking about painting, and the sketch changes. Proportion, placement, and rough values are critical. Finesse in rendering becomes a waste of time. Mark making becomes short hand. And then I have to decide if it’s worth it to start over to make an actual drawing or to give in to the preparation for another painting.
I still think the idea of a painter not liking to draw at all is a bit silly. You don’t need to be able to render a charcoal masterpiece to paint, but a basic facility with a pencil or charcoal is a very good thing to have, particularly drawing from life. Speaking of which, I need to get some more practice with that soon.
