Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists

52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun

Carla Sonheim

• Publisher: Quarry Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781592536139
• eBook ISBN: 9781610580960
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Carla Sonheim is an artist and creativity workshop instructor known for her fun and innovative projects and techniques designed to help adult students recover a more spontaneous, playful approach to creating. Her innovative ideas are now collected and elaborated on in this unique volume. Carla offers a year's worth of assignments, projects, ideas, and techniques that will introduce more creativity and nonsense into your art and life. Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists offers readers a fun way to learn and gain expertise in drawing through experimentation and play. There is no right or wrong result, yet, the readers gain new skills and confidence, allowing them to take their work to a new level.

UNIT 1

Inspired by Animals

ANIMALS ENRICH US in so many ways . . . the facial expression of an irritated house cat or the sheer bulk of a hippo inspires and nurtures our souls. For me, creating my own menagerie of animals has a similar soul-healing effect.

In this unit you will draw from life, from photo references, and from your imagination. Drawing from life is always preferable, but many people do not have easy access to a lion or a bear. Start collecting pages of animals that interest you, torn from magazines or newspapers. It’s best to find imagery that is fairly generic—you just want to get information about the appearance of the animals at this point, rather than picking photos for their compositional values.

The more you draw from life or photos, the richer and more authentic your imaginary animals will be.

This mixed-media Rabbit-Turtle is created with gesso, watercolor, collage, and, of course, line.

LAB 1 Draw Cats in Bed

Materials

• several sheets of white card stock

• colored extra-fine-point permanent marker

“ At a very young age, I got in the habit of making things up. I have to feel that I’ve had my dose of invention for the day.”

—John Irving

DRAW ABOUT THIRTY CATS from your imagination while sitting or lying in bed. If you are unsure where to start, go ahead and copy some of the cats on these pages. Or, better, spend some time just looking at a real cat before you do this exercise.

The soft surface of the pillow or mattress will force a looser line quality.

Instructions

1. Gather your materials and get into bed . . . you can either sit up with your paper propped on a pillow, or lie on your stomach with the paper on the mattress.

2. Think about what a cat looks like: ears, face shape, body shape, tail, and just spend the next ten minutes or so drawing as many cats in as many positions as you can think of.

3. Try to keep your lines simple and expressive. If you find that you are feeling tense, switch to your nondominant hand.

4. Don’t fret if you don’t like many of your cats. It takes many, many drawings to get that “one” that you love.

Taking It Further

Pick one or two of your favorite drawings and render them again in several ways.

Example 1: Paint your cat on wood or canvas using acrylics, oils, or a mixed-media combination such as gesso and watercolor (shown).

Example 2: Redraw your cats using colored pencils (left) or ink and colored pencils (right).

Example 3: Scan your cat into the computer and add a solid color to the inside of your cat, offset slightly, (left). Or use the side only of a ½-inch (1.3 cm) piece of vine charcoal, (right).

LAB 2 Blind Contour Giraffes

Materials

• photo references of giraffes

• 5–10 sheets of white card stock

• black extra-fine-point permanent marker

“God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.”

—Pablo Picasso

BLIND CONTOUR DRAWING is a classic drawing exercise that emphasizes careful observation rather than a finished product. It is used by many artists as a way to improve hand–eye communication (and, sometimes, as a nonthreatening way to just get the pencil moving). In this exercise, you will draw a series of giraffes without looking at your paper.

By using photo references, you will be reminded of positions that you might not have thought of on your own.

Instructions

1. Find some references of giraffes, either online or at the library.

2. Pick one and fix your eyes on the outline of the giraffe, and start drawing. Do not look at your paper. Look at the giraffe 100 percent of the time.

3. Try to match the movement of your pen to that of your eyes’ running along the edge of the giraffe. Draw every curve and bump.

4. Blind contours are usually done quite slowly and in a single, continuous line; think about your speed and consciously adjust it if you think you are going too fast.

5. If you get stuck or would like to move your pen to start an internal feature, it’s fine to glance down at your paper to reset your pen to the right area, but don’t move the pen while looking at your paper (think of it as “drawing freeze tag”).

6. Continue drawing different giraffes for about ten minutes or so.

7. While doing this exercise, you will learn several things about giraffes that you might never have noticed before (such as that their horns are hairy and they have a large bump on their forehead).

Taking It Further

• Of course you can pick any subject matter you wish . . . cats, elephants, birds, horses, dogs, rats . . .

• Inanimate objects such as chairs and cars make interesting blind contours.

• Try layering three or four blind drawings on top of one another on one paper, not worrying at this stage where the drawing is going. Now see if you can pull the drawing together into a cohesive piece by adding lines and color (from your imagination).

You will get some funny-looking giraffes, but that is part of the fun!

LAB 3 My Pet Project

Materials

• 5–10 sheets of white card stock, or your sketchbook

• charcoal pencil (soft)

“ All of the animals except for...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• UNIT 1 Inspired by Animals
• UNIT 2 Inspired by People
• UNIT 3 Inspired by Famous Artists
• UNIT 4 Inspired by Children and Childhood
• UNIT 5 Inspired by Imagination
• UNIT 6 Inspired by Nature
• UNIT 7 Inspired by Books and Culture
• Contributors
• Resources
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright Page