The document provides tips for creating observational drawings from real objects. It emphasizes the importance of looking constantly at the subject being drawn and observing details, proportions, and how forms change with perspective. Tracing from photos is discouraged, as it does not teach skills and can result in soulless drawings. Using guidelines or grids to first map out basic forms and proportions before adding details is recommended. Mark-making should aim to convey textures, and details should be included or omitted based on what benefits the composition rather than difficulty. While accuracy is important, drawings also benefit from an artist's personal interpretation and soul.
The document provides tips for creating observational drawings from real objects. It emphasizes the importance of looking constantly at the subject being drawn and observing details, proportions, and how forms change with perspective. Tracing from photos is discouraged, as it does not teach skills and can result in soulless drawings. Using guidelines or grids to first map out basic forms and proportions before adding details is recommended. Mark-making should aim to convey textures, and details should be included or omitted based on what benefits the composition rather than difficulty. While accuracy is important, drawings also benefit from an artist's personal interpretation and soul.
The document provides tips for creating observational drawings from real objects. It emphasizes the importance of looking constantly at the subject being drawn and observing details, proportions, and how forms change with perspective. Tracing from photos is discouraged, as it does not teach skills and can result in soulless drawings. Using guidelines or grids to first map out basic forms and proportions before adding details is recommended. Mark-making should aim to convey textures, and details should be included or omitted based on what benefits the composition rather than difficulty. While accuracy is important, drawings also benefit from an artist's personal interpretation and soul.
The document provides tips for creating observational drawings from real objects. It emphasizes the importance of looking constantly at the subject being drawn and observing details, proportions, and how forms change with perspective. Tracing from photos is discouraged, as it does not teach skills and can result in soulless drawings. Using guidelines or grids to first map out basic forms and proportions before adding details is recommended. Mark-making should aim to convey textures, and details should be included or omitted based on what benefits the composition rather than difficulty. While accuracy is important, drawings also benefit from an artist's personal interpretation and soul.
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 16
OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING TIPS
TIP 1: LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE DRAWING
Failing to look at what you are drawing is one of the
most fundamental errors an art student can make. Be careful not to draw things the way that youthinkthey should look, rather than the way they actuallydolook. The only way to record shape, proportion and detail accurately is to look at the source of information. Human memory does not suffice. Forms, shadows and details are hard enough to replicate when they are right there in front of you; if you have to make them up, they appear even less convincing. In order to produce an outstanding observational drawing, you must observe: your eyes must continually dance from the piece of paper to the object and back again. Not just once or twice, but constantly.
TIP 2: DRAW FROM REAL OBJECTS WHENEVER POSSIBLE
The phrase observational drawing typically implies
drawing from life. Observational drawing provides a wealth of visual informationchanging light conditions; rich textures; views of the subject from alternate angles; as well as information from other sensesmells and noise from the surroundings etc. Transcribing from three-dimensions to two is ultimately much harder than drawing from a photograph, but it often results in drawings that are richer and more authentic.
TIP 3: DONT TRACE
Throughout history, great realist painters have traced from photographs or
worked from projections blown up onto walls. But these painters are not high school art students; nor are they assessed on their ability to replicate form. There is a place for tracing (such as when tracing over something you have already drawn or creating a repeat pattern), but tracing from photographs and then simply applying color or tone is not acceptable. Such methods of drawing involve minimal skill, teach you little and run the risk of producing clunky, soul-less outlines. Dont do it.
TIP 4: UNDERSTAND PERSPECTIVE
As objects get further away they appear smaller. The replication
of this change of scale on paper (through the use of vanishing points) is called perspective. There are not many theoretical aspects of art that are essential to learn, but this is one of them.
TIP 5: USE GRIDS, GUIDELINES OR ROUGH FORMS TO GET THE
PROPORTIONS RIGHT BEFORE YOU ADD DETAILS Many students start with a tiny detail (the eye on a face, for example) and then gradually add in the rest of the imageending up with a drawing that is badly proportioned or doesnt fit on the page (or floats aimlessly in the middle of it). This can be avoided by approximating the basic forms before adding details or by using guidelines to ensure that proportions are correct. If working from a photograph, using a grid can result in highly accurate work. It allows students to focus on one small segment of the image at a time and gives arbitrary lines from which distances can be gauged. This can be a helpful strategy when precise, detailed images are required and can itself become a celebrated component in an artwork.
TIP 5: USE GRIDS, GUIDELINES OR ROUGH FORMS TO GET
THE PROPORTIONS RIGHT BEFORE YOU ADD DETAILS
A grid was helpful to create this graphite drawing of dog
and cat.
TIP 5: USE GRIDS, GUIDELINES OR ROUGH FORMS TO GET THE
PROPORTIONS RIGHT BEFORE YOU ADD DETAILS
If working from life, roughly sketching
outlines of the major forms will allow you to get the proportions right, before you add the details. While you do this, you should constantly check which points line up (i.e. edge of nostrils lining up with edge of eye) and the size of every object should be estimated in relation to the things that are beside it. You must get used to seeing things not in terms of absolute scale, but in terms of how one thing compares to another. This shows the first stage in an observational drawing (which later becomes a painting) by artist Douglas Flynt. Basic forms are carefully mapped out, ensuring proportions are correct.
TIP 6: BE WARY OF ELLIPSES
Ellipses the oval shapes that are visible at the top of cylindrical objects such as bottles or jars frequently trip up students new to drawing. All ellipses, no matter what angle they are viewed from, should be rounded (not pointed) at the ends.
This diagram by Rachel
Shirley illustrates some of the common errors when drawing an ellipse.
TIP 6: BE WARY OF ELLIPSES
These are photographs of a glass with horizontal bands of tape around it. These photos provide a superb illustration of how ellipses when viewed from any angle are rounded (as opposed to pointed) at the ends.
TIP 7: KEEP THE OUTLINES LIGHT
Real objects do not have dark lines running around every edge. Edges should instead be defined by a change in tone and/or color.
Note that there is not a single black
outline within the work: edges are defined solely through variation in tone. If you are producing a line drawing, a cartoon or some other graphic image, outlines may be darkened, but in an observational drawing especially one which you wish to be realistic dark outlines are never advised.
TIP 8: HAVE A GOOD RANGE OF TONE When it comes to applying tone to your drawing, as with everything else, look at the object. Observe where the light and dark areas are and copy what you see. In almost all cases, your drawing should have a full range of tone, from black, through a multitude of greys (or colored mid-tones) through to white.
Beware of blending tone
smoothly from dark to light and developing the habit of randomly shading all surfaces from dark to light. Tone should never be invented and it should never be applied by guesswork.
TIP 9: USE MARK-MAKING TO CONVEY SURFACE
QUALITY AND TEXTURE When producing an observational drawing, the mark-making used should help to convey the texture(s) of the subject matter. There are a multitude of different ways a pencil can strike paper hatching / dashes / smudges / dots think carefully before you decide which technique to use.
The surface qualities of the objects are skilfully depicted: furled cauliflower leaves, with the finely textured mottled surface of the cauliflower.
TIP 10: INCLUDE / OMIT DETAIL AS NECESSARY
One area where students often become disheartened is in the Depicting incredibly complex subjects can be frustrating.
When drawing trees, plants and bushes, it is not necessary to replicate every leaf or stick.
When drawing a person, it is not necessary to depict every strand of hair.
The artist is always in a position to pick and choose what goes in their artwork. As long as the decision is based on what is aesthetically best for the work rather than wanting to leave out something that is hard to draw.
TIP 10: INCLUDE / OMIT DETAIL AS NECESSARY
There is nothing wrong with omitting certain details from a drawing. In fact, often the composition is less cluttered and easy on the eye because of it. There are many approaches to this. Sometimes every single detail might be recorded with accuracy. Sometimes a certain area of a drawing is rendered in full, with other parts trailing away. Below is a good example of how it is sometimes beneficial to omit detail. The artist has included only part of the text, ensuring that the final work doesnt become over-cluttered.
TIP 11: INSERT YOUR OWN SOUL Most of the tips above are aimed at helping you create more realistic observational drawings. This last tip is something different. It is a reminder that sometimes it is the difference between the real item and the drawing that matters. Although observational drawings are usually expected to be realistic in nature, they do not need to be hyper realistic (in other words, they dont have to look exactly like a photograph). Often, it is the unrealistic parts: the unexpected mark-making - the gap between the real object and what is drawn - where the soul sneaks in. There is beauty in irregularities and artistic interpretation.
The Melba, Printing Publishing & Packaging S.C. Invites Eligible Bidders To Purchase 80 GSM 84 CM Wood Free Reel Paper by National Competitive Bidding (NCB)
The Melba, Printing Publishing & Packaging S.C. Invites Eligible Bidders To Purchase 80 GSM 84 CM Wood Free Reel Paper by National Competitive Bidding (NCB)
