Learning To Draw

One of the things I've always felt about art was that the better you were with the pencil and charcoal, the better you would be as an artist overall. In my opinion, learning to draw should form the basis of your art education. Of course, I am also of the opinion that if you can sign your name and it is halfway legible, you can draw. About the only thing it comes down to is a desire to learn and the lesson plan.

Given this, I have decided to work on my drawing technique and wanted to start from the very beginning. I have been drawing for quite some time, years in fact, but I've never had any formal lessons in the use of the pencil other than one five week course at the local community college and it really wasn't all the helpful.

One of the crutches that I've used from the beginning was the use of a lightbox. Now, I don't feel there is anything wrong with using a lightbox. Professional artists have been using them for decades and even before then by holding a paper to a window with the sun behind it and transferring a design to a new sheet. But, the really good artists are the ones that could draw freehand and do it well, only using the lightbox when they needed to.

My freehand drawings are getting better and I am getting more and more comfortable with it, but I still go to the lightbox once in awhile to speed the process up somewhat. At the bottom of this entry you will see two drawings. The one on the left started on the lightbox and the one of the right was freehand. You can see that I have a ways to go with my freehand.

So, the question for me was, whose lesson plan should I follow. I have picked up a number of books from Amazon on drawing so I knew I didn't have to venture any further than my own bookshelves. I had the following books to choose from:

The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Pencil Drawing Techniques

Drawing the Head and Figure

Drawing Scenery: Landscapes and Seascapes

Keys to Drawing

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth (How to draw and paint)

I have heard nothing but good things about the Betty Edwards book, Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain. So this is the book I've chosen to start this little adventure. Over the past couple of days I've gone through the first couple of lessons and can see that I probably will need to un-learn some of the things I've taught myself over the years, but I have time. I have all the time in the world.

Let's see how this goes over the next month or so.

Keep drawing and take care.

©2008 Dave Casey
LIGHTBOX STUDY
Left - Graphite pencil on paper, 12 x 9"
Right - Charcoal on paper, 17 x 14"