One of my New Year's resolutions has been to hone my drawing skills. I have learned that no matter how "loose", or even abstract, a painting may be, drawing has to happen in order to make it a success! So what am I doing about my resolution? One thing I'm doing is committing myself to do some drawing exercises every day.
My favorite exercise so far is focused on "negative space". That's the space between objects. So rather than draw objects, you draw the gaps between them. And voila--the objects magically appear! For example, in the top image, I didn't paint the legs and braces of the easel. Instead, I ppainted the spaces between them. Granted, it emerged a bit lopsided, but I like the loose, unstudied effect. And besides, the point is not to produce a work of art, but rather to enjoy drawing and teaching your eye to see.
This exercise will help my brain to focus on shapes, rather than "things". Seeing the negative shapes inside a chair back, rather than the pieces of the chair itself, is part of the that process. There are other exercises that cultivate different aspects of drawing. The goal is to practice each of these exercises until they become second nature. By incorporating all of these tools into your artistic DNA, you are able to bring any or all of them into play when you approach a drawing.
FYI, the works pictured in this post are made with gouache on Canson Mixed Media paper. As the days go by, I am rapidly filling the notebook. It will be interesting to look back and see what happens over the course of time...we shall see!
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