Learn-to-Draw Tool: How to Use a Grid

After a bit of searching online, I found a good video on how to draw using a grid. This is a method I use a lot in order to enlarge photos or prep sketches, such as this one, which had to go from 7 x 6 inches, to 7 x 6 feet:

This tutorial shows how the small drawing above becomes the wall you see below. The painter in the video uses a 1:1 scale, since he's creating a small portrait, but the principle is the same.

If you want to try drawing and don't know where to start, using your snapshots and a grid can help. It's a good confidence-builder because it lets you draw in small, manageable bits, instead of plunging in over your head.

I still use this method when I need super-accuracy in an animal portrait or when I need to enlarge a source image.

Friendly Stuff for Beginner Artists

 

This is one of my favorite books for beginners. I use it in my classes a lot.  Most of the exercises and principles are the same ones you'd get out of a book like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (another favorite of mine), but I've found this one easier reading and more confidence-building for a lot of my students, with a very welcoming and soothing quality. 

If you've always wondered whether you could learn to draw, this book believably shows how you can. Highly recommended. It's on Amazon here.

On with the Dog & Pony Show

My works are all in progress, but I like to put nice pictures on my blog, so I'm borrowing one from my ridiculously talented friend, Kelly Williams.

Art Deco Ring by Kelly Williams. Sterling, amethyst, tourmaline, fired glass enamel. I want this. A lot.

Kelly has a newly redesigned website: KWGoldsmith.com -- full of beautiful things. Like most Serious Creative People I know, Kelly also has a great sense of humor, which is why she chose this for the portrait of her horse:

Cocoa Wants a Cookie, 9 x 6" pastel on paper

Today is Day Two of the Year of Living Less Safely, and the agenda includes: Schedule myself to attend one dog and one horse show, with sketch book, camera, iPad, and business cards on hand.

That's in addition to maybe-finishing In This Together before I go to work at three today.

Awesome Whimsy: Bent Objects

Photo Artist Terry Border has me laughing with twisty delight this morning:


BENT OBJECTS
 (this links to his blog)

Go forth and be inspired.

Peppergrass

Peppergrass, 11.5 x 8.5" pastel and pastel pencils on paper, by Tracie Thompson

Yesterday I went to WARM Coffee with the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota, and saw some great work by Patricia Olson and Carol Lee Chase (FYI to anyone interested: WARM Coffee is a great time, but no actual coffee is involved, so be sure to get your cuppa before you arrive).

The confluence of those exhibits and looking again at my good friend Jennifer Lowery's work led to the Peppergrass drawing, done last night; a companion piece for it is in progress today.

I emailed this drawing to Lauri Flaquer at Saltar Solutions, and she remarked, "For some reason it reminds me of a symphony." Thanks, Lauri. You've given me something extra to work with as I finish the next one.

"... but I don't know a thing about art."

Trail Drive-In, mixed media on paper, 5.5 x 7.5", by Tracie Thompson.

The other day I happened upon something I'd never expected from Roger Ebert (yes, that Roger Ebert):

You can draw, and probably better than I can

I didn't know Ebert drew, but it turns out that he does, and I have so much love for the way he presents this as something to be done for the joy of it, for the process more than the product.

If you've ever thought, "Oh, I wish," and gazed longingly at a store shelf with sketch books, pencils, watercolors ... well, why not? It costs very little. Nobody else has to see or judge. And you might spark something in yourself that you didn't even know you possessed -- a sense of immediate wonder, a sharpness of memory, an awareness that's worth a lot more than the drawings themselves.

For those who've wondered how professional artists feel about people who draw, paint, etc. for their own pleasure, this is the best take on it I've seen, and you'll note several pro artists in agreement, in the comments.  My experience is that we pros do not want the sandbox all to ourselves, not at all. It's so much more fun when the other kids come and play, too.

Beautiful

My friend, fellow artist Jennifer Lowery, now has a blog.

Her newest drawing:

Tiny Trojan Horse

I am utterly charmed.