I like painting birds. I like drawing birds too. When it comes to our 'paint and sip' classes, birds are a popular subject matter, but they are often a double-edged sword. They are great subject matter, but painting a bird can often be a little more technical compared to, say, a generic landscape. Its pretty important to get the shape of the bird just right - the shape of the head, the length of the tail, making sure the beak is in the right place on the head, getting the eye in the right place in relation to the beak, etc. After all, most people that come to my "kookaburra" paint and sip class want to take home a painting that looks like a kookaburra, and not a bin chicken! (No hate to the bin chickens - I love painting Ibis!)
So it's always worth taking a bit of extra time to get all the shapes and lines in the right place before you start going nuts splashing all the colours around! A bit of time spent on drawing before you start painting.
Here are some Art hacks for drawing and painting that the pro's use for making better looking art.
First things first:
Free-hand drawing is over-rated!
There. I said it.
While free-hand drawing is a great skill to have and to keep working on, don't get caught up with the idea that 'free-hand' art is the only way to make 'valid' art. A huge percentage of professional artist today don't 'free-hand' draw if they don't have to, or don't particularly want to. These days, a lot of pro's use computers to create their images! Very often drawings are done "NO-hand", let alone "FREE-hand"
But even before there were computers, artists have utilised all sorts of tools and tecniques to help them to (a) help make more accurate representations of their subject matter when required, and (b) save themselves a lot of time and mucking about with free hand drawing.
So if you want to get better at painting and drawing - and I'm talking about the "old school" way, with an actual pencil and a paintbrush in your hand, not a tablet - here's a few hacks that will help you not only improve your free-hand skills, but aslo to create the paintings and drawings that you want to create right now, regardless of whatever your free-hand 'skills' or 'talent' level.
(1) Use a grid!
One really good option when you're painting or drawing something from a reference picture is to use a grid. It helps you to get your lines and shapes right, and it helps to maintain the correct proportions of your picture.
Place a simple square or rectangular grid over your reference picture, and then rule up a matching grid of the same proportions onto your work surface. Then it's just a matter of transposing what is in each section of the grid of the reference photo onto your surface using the gridlines as your guide.
Handy tip: When starting off your drawing, use a very faint, nearly invisible, colour. Once you're happy with the initial 'guideline' drawing you've mapped out, then you can gradually add the darker shades and lines and start layering up your painting! Any near invisible 'mistakes' , or bits you don't like, will be so faint that they will not be noticed , or you can easily paint over them as the work progresses.
Using this grid technique is also a great way of improving your free-hand skills because it forces you to STOP looking at the subject matter, and START paying attention to the subject's construction! It's no longer a kookaburra, its just a bunch of connecting lines and shapes on a grid: What angle are they on? Where do they intersect with each other? Where does this line cross the grid-line exactly? How far does it go? Where on the grid does it finish? You're switching off your 'left-brain' and engaging your 'right-brain' - which is the secret to effective free-hand drawing! The more you fire up and exercise these 'right-brain' neurons, the better you will become at free-hand drawing. Before too long you won't even NEED a grid! Your right-brain will take over from your left-brain and do it for you!
(2) Use a projector!
As children, for some bizarre reason, most of us were made to feel guilty if we 'traced' a picture - as if it was some sort of sinful short-cut that immediately invalidated our artwork! "If it isn't drawn free-hand, it doesn't count! Tracing is cheating!"
Fact: Tracing is NOT "cheating"!
Its just another technique for making a drawing. And - just like using a grid - tracing actually teaches your brain how to draw free-hand! When you trace a picture, you switch off your left brain and engage your right brain. The more you trace, the better your free hand drawing skills will become.
The sad fact is, if more of us were encouraged to keep on tracing pictures when we were little, instead of being made to feel like a fraud, a lot more of us would have pursued art as a hobby into our teens and adulthood.
I'll let you in on a little secret: Many professional artists 'trace' images as part of their creative process every day, all the time. Of course, the pro's don't generally use a piece of transparent paper laid on top of a picture in a book, like we used to do as kids.
They use a projector.
 | If you've ever seen any of the amazing "silo art" murals around country towns, then chances are you have seen the results of a professional artist that utilises tracing as part of their creative process. At least 90% of these murals were created by the artist using a projector to 'trace' their initial images onto the silo walls before they begin painting. They'd be mad to do it any other way! Photo courtesy of GoBlues at Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/wheat-silo-art-country-victoria-3389811/ |
Want to know something else? Many of the great masters throughout the centuries also 'traced' their initial drawings. They used the technology available for their time - the "camera obscura" and the "camera lucida".
Using a simple lens and a mirror or two, these devices will'project' an image of whatever they are pointed at onto the artist's work surface to trace. No electricity required. The 'camera obscura' ( literal translation is 'dark room') uses a darkened box (like the one in the image below). A 'camera lucida' (light room) does the same thing as a 'camera obscura', only without the box.
Rembrandt used a 'camera obscura' all the time - especially for his portraits. He would sit his subjects in front of his camera obscura, and then 'trace' their outlines and features onto a canvas or paper, getting an extremely accurate drawing of the subject down in very quick time. The sitter could then leave the studio and get on with their day, while Rembrandt had an incredibly accurate drawing of his subject to work with, without requiring the subject to be sitting in front of him for hours on end.
Credit: By unknown illustrator - 19th Century Dictionary Illustration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13346295
Rembrandt was quite open about using his 'camera obscura'. For him, it was just another handy "tool of the trade".
Caravagio, the great Renaissance master, turned his entire studio into a giant 'camera obscura'. He would set up his subjects outside the studio, and, through a small hole in the wall, an image of the subject would be projected onto the opposite wall inside his studio (albeit upside down). He'd then plonk a board or canvas in front of the projected image on his wall and get to work tracing the image! There's even evidence that Caravagio coated some of his blank canvases with light-sensitive chemicals like mercury salt, so the projected image inside his 'dark room' studio would be visibly 'burnt' onto his canvas surface for about 30 minutes, allowing him to 'trace' over the image with permanent paint before the chemical image faded away.
That's right. Caravagio was taking photographs 200 years before photography was even a thing, so he could trace them to make his masterpieces!
Let me give you my two cents worth: If guys like Caravagio and Rembrandt had access to the technology we have available to us today, do you think for a second they'd be fiddling about with a camera obscura or a camera lucida? Not a chance! My guess is they would head straight up to their local office supply store, buy themslves a $49 projector that plugs directly into their smart phone and get to work making art. Because a projector and a smartphone will do exactly the same job as their old 'devices' were doing for them 400 years ago, just way better.
Tip: If you haven't got a projector, get one! They're a brilliant tool! You can project any image directly from your device onto your work surface and start making art today! Just make sure that your projector is pointing directly at your surface - not on an angle - so as to avoid any image distortion. A tripod is usually the best tool for achieving this. You can get a perfectly decent tripod from your local office supply store for around the price of a takeaway meal.
Similar to using a grid, tracing over a projected image will actually develop your free-hand drawing skills! Just like a grid, it forces you STOP looking at the subject matter, instead making you to concentrate on the lines and shapes that make up the image. As a bonus, a projector will also help you to engage with 'values' - the areas of light and shade - not just the outlines and shapes.
(3) Make a simple stencil!
As much as a projector is brilliant for getting your drawings and paintings looking 'just right', sometimes they aren't convenient, or you just might prefer to do a bit more 'free-hand' work. A stencil is a great 'in-between' option.
A stencil is a basic cut-out shape that you can make yourself using your printer. Print out the image you want to draw or paint. Cut out your subject and then paint or draw around the outline to get the basic shape of your subject onto your work surface quickly and accurately. Don't worry. The real art is yet to come! You still have to paint the background and all the interiors of your subject. Its just a great way to get your initial shape done and dusted so you can get on with your artwork.
(4) "Dot" stencils.
If you want to practise your free-hand game a bit more, but still save yourself a lot of time getting the perspective and proportions right, try this "join the dots" stencil technique!
Print out your stencil, but instead of cutting out the entire shape, just make a few key points - or "dots" - on and around the subject. Punch some holes through the dots, and then lay your perforated stencil onto your work surface and transpose the "dots" onto the canvas with a pen or pencil or even some paint. Then you can fill in the rest of the drawing or painting by yourself. You get to practise your 'free-hand' drawing skills, while keeping your subject's proportions perfect.
Feel free to drop a comment if you find any of these techniques helpful, or if you have any other hacks to share!
Happy painting!
Chris
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