Application of Line
Here is a bowl of apples for our first drawing. I deleted the background from the photo so, as not to confuse you as to what I want you to draw. It looks as if it is floating and that is a lesson unto itself that we will discuss later. For right now I want you to make a quick line drawing of the apples. When I say quickly I mean as fast as you can. Also I want you to try to draw the apples without looking at the paper you are drawing on. Don't be surprised if your picture looks strange, it is supposed to. Try one fast then try one slow. When doing this kind of drawing (without looking at the paper) it wills train you hand to move along with your eyes. Trace around the apples with your eyes very slowly and let your hand follow along. Keep practicing and you will find it easier to do as you gain experience.
STOP SCROLLING THE PAGE NOW AND READ THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH, THANK YOU
Once you have practiced the line drawing exercise above you can render a line drawing like this. If you feel that you have to trace the drawing for now then put a piece of tracing paper over the monitor screen and trace the drawing. Or you can copy and paste the .gif file to your paint program with win 95 or your favorite drawing or paint program and print a copy. This will not help you though and you will not get as much from the lesson. This is a simple drawing and should not be that difficult for you. It is only an outline drawing to help us in finishing the different inking processes below.
STOP SCROLLING THE PAGE NOW AND READ THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH, THANK YOU
These are the apples rendered using the scumbling or scribble technique. I call this method a controlled chaos and it is completed very quickly. This drawing took approximately four minutes. It is also basically a single line. I just continually scribble until I feel that I have captured the essence of the subject. The first thing I do is work to get the darks finished so that I can decide how to render the lights. Remember to also allow some white areas in the drawing for your highlights because you can not remove the ink once it is down. You may want to add these areas lightly in pencil so you remember not draw in them. After the ink is dry you can erase the pencil lines. It is an effective way to illustrate a study fast and record the light and shadow so if you wanted to do a painting you can remember what your light source was and how the shadow was.
STOP SCROLLING THE PAGE NOW AND READ THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH, THANK YOU
Because the apples are not perfectly round you must try to fool the eye into seeing the flat areas in the apples. The only way you have with the pen & ink is to create light and dark spaces.
Pointillism is a time-honored way of rendering a drawing for control of the subject matter. It does take a longer time to complete. This rendering took approximately forty-five minutes and a lot of dots. It was rendered using a 3x0/.25 nib size. I feel that scanning the image does not do justice to the work but it does allow us to see the softer effects in rendering the subject. It also shows the control you will have over the pointillist style. As with the scumbling technique you can use a pencil to outline your lights so that you do not lose them. Also you can use an art knife to remove a little of the ink if you feel you over-did an area. After all you are only removing little dots. You can use any or all of the drawing techniques in any given illustration. On the following page is an illustration I did where I used a couple of the techniques we have discussed. It is also a mixed media piece.
GO TO THE NEXT PAGE PLEASE.
Copyright Labyrinth Conceptions/HomeSchoolArts 1997-2006©
All rights reserved.
You may not copy or print this lesson to paper, floppy disk or any other data storage device to share with anyone or any group or any organization without expressed written permission from Labyrinth Conceptions. These lessons are designed for the home schooled individual student or other not-for-profit institutional entities and are not to be shared or passed around in any form without expressed written permission from Labyrinth Conceptions. The sharing of, copying of or giving of these lessons in any form or the charge of monies or any other type of remuneration for any of these lesson plans constitutes an infringement of copyright.
