Staycation Art #15: Drawing Tricks: Part 2

Take a moment to remember that you are breathtaking! Take a deep breath — it’s what keeps you alive. There’s a lot on your to-do list, but, just for now, set aside all those other things and take a moment to learn or refresh some drawing tricks. Another deep breath… Glorious! Now, let’s be curious and have fun.

This week we’ll learn more pencil tricks for drawing accurately. We’ll go back to Whiskey Bay where we were in the last lesson, but this time we’ll look in the other direction and plan a composition that includes the cliff that you saw in Staycation Art #12 .

It can be difficult to determine the angle of the “line” made to indicate where the water meets the beach. Our mind knows that the surface of a lake does NOT tilt up!, Yet it must be drawn as an angle because it recedes into space (linear perspective). Pick up your pencil and check it out.

Directions: I will refer to the illustrated examples, but please use the world around you and practice the following:

• Look up and be curious about the angle of some edge that you can see. Ask “How would that edge appear as a line on paper? How slanted would I draw the line?” If it is full of curves and shifts, find the “average” / general direction; you can put the variations in later.
• Hold your pencil horizontally either above or below the edge in question. Both shown in illustration. Close one eye.
• Let your pencil cross the line so that you can compare the angle to your straight edge. You are making a shape similar to a protractor.
• You have now isolated the angle and can make a better assessment of it. Is it about what you expected it would be?
• Assess some nearly vertical angles, but this time, hold your pencil vertically.
• Alternative method (shown with purple pencil above): hold your pencil in line with the angle in question. It is easier to see that angle by looking at the pencil because it is no longer “the shore line” and subject to thoughts about tilting-up water.
• When you are painting, just use your brush instead of your pencil. Note the two fan brushes in the illustration below.

You can casually and quickly do these checks while drawing without breaking your rhythm.

Directions for more pencil checks:

• Draw a scene from life. It can be out in nature, a room interior, or a still life.
• Proceed as you normally would but occasionally check you observations by asking “What is directly above or below this?”
• Hold your pencil or brush vertically and note what things line up. You can make it a natural part of your process with a flick of the wrist. A grid could be used, but this is more in the flow. Note the brown brush above and pretend I’m holding it in front of the real scene and wondering how the foliage lines up with the base of the cliff.
• What things will be on the same level in your two dimensional drawing? The blue brushes are positioned for that check. Note that one of them isn’t exactly horizontal. Don’t worry about that, your drawing is an interpretation of the scene and you are getting a general answer to the question “Am I heading in the right direction?” You will want to change things anyhow, but you don’t want to get confused about placement. The changes from what you see can be decisions not accidents.

Refresh your memory of drawing tricks part 1 if you don’t recall it.

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