Drawn on the Way

A Guide to Capturing the Moment Through Live Sketching

Sarah Nisbett

• Publisher: Quarry Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780760370728
• eBook ISBN: 9780760370735
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art Techniques

Learn to observe the world more deeply—with curiosity, empathy, and joy—as you sketch the stories unfolding all around you.

In Drawn on the Way, Sarah Nisbett shares her techniques for creating captivating line drawings that capture the moments and moods that you encounter on the train, in a café, outdoors, anywhere: a young woman lost in thought, a pair of hands clasped on a lap, a peppy beagle, a pair of jeans-clad crossed legs. Sarah invites you to see the people, animals, places, and objects you draw with compassionate curiosity—as more than a stranger or inanimate object, but as someone or something with a story worth knowing or imagining.

Even if you are inexperienced at drawing or don’t consider yourself an artist, you can learn how to create sketches from start to finish employing techniques such as contour drawing, using line work to add texture, and adding spot color—and discover how each sketch tells a story. You’ll begin to focus on important details that reveal something about the subject you’re drawing: the graceful drape of a hand over a purse, the shy way someone tucks their feet underneath them.

As you unplug, set aside perfectionism, and explore the world through drawing, you’ll learn:

• How to translate what you see into a compelling drawing
• How to silence your inner critic and find joy in drawing what captures your interest
• Techniques for drawing figures and creating quick portraits
• How to find the emotion in objects by asking questions
• How to draw scenes and backgrounds without becoming overwhelmed
• How to quickly and expressively render the natural world, including plants and animals
• How key details can take a sketch from plain to captivating
• Ways to find the extraordinary in the everyday
• How to transform mistakes into likeable elements
• Tips for becoming a visual storyteller
• Life lessons learned from years of live drawing

We spend most of our lives on the way, rushing and running from place to place, task to task. When we have a spare minute, we usually reach for our phones and shut everything else out. The techniques, projects, and ideas in Drawn on the Way are designed to help you be more mindful about drawing, to capture the people, places, and things you encounter each day. By doing that, you’ll connect with humanity in a deeper, more meaningful way—and discover a lot about yourself.

CHAPTER 1

TOOLS AND MATERIALS

Although I believe there are very few hard-and-fast rules for creating art in your own unique style, I have found that a nonnegotiable requirement for drawing is having something to make marks with and something to make those marks on.

In this chapter, we’ll review the basic materials we need for drawing on the way. We’ll also learn about the importance of choosing the right tools based on what they can do for us—and what they can teach us.

Keeping It Simple

While there are many technical reasons to choose a particular pen or type of paper, let’s talk about the less obvious reasons why the materials you choose are important to the art you make.

For nearly a decade now, I’ve made portraits with just an ordinary office pen, and it’s been more than enough. I suggest that you keep it simple at first, and focus on using only a pen for your on-the-way drawings. Using one basic tool removes the anxiety that comes with having too much creative choice. The constraint of having one tool to generate shapes, colors, textures, and patterns will force you to be innovative and to explore.

There is another reason for using a pen: Where we’re going, you won’t need erasers. A huge part of the joy and purpose you’ll find in drawing from life is how it connects you to your creative self. An eraser interrupts that connection because it suggests that there is a right and wrong to what you are doing—and this is simply not true.

Drawing without an eraser, you’ll tap into your instincts. And I promise you that you do have creative instincts, because all humans do.

Without an eraser, each line becomes an act of bravery. You’ll see the full record of your artistic process. The lines that don’t communicate what you want will sit right next to the ones that do. Each line becomes a lesson, a teacher in its own right. Don’t allow your fear of making mistakes to rob you of this education. There will be a time for erasers, but now is not that time. Now is the time to allow yourself to exist unfiltered on the page.

LIVING YOUR LIFE IN INK

Without an eraser, there is no going back. When it comes to the work at hand, there are only three choices: Accept what you’ve made as good and move on; turn the page and start over; or work with your mistakes and turn them into something you like. These are the constraints of working in pen, but they mirror the choices we have at any given moment in life. So let’s leave our erasers behind and boldly begin.

The Basics

You don’t need fancy supplies to make great art. Use what’s on hand and try a few options. Once you find something you like, stick with it for a while and get to know it before trying something new.

PENS

Here are a few of my favorite pens, with some pros and cons for each.

Rollerball Pens

A rollerball pen has a rolling ball at the tip of the pen that is inked by a reservoir above it. This is my preferred type of pen. Every drawing in this book was made with the uni-ball Roller pen in blue with a 0.7 mm point.

WHAT’S NICE ABOUT THEM:

• - Smooth ink flow (similar to a fountain pen)
• - Vibrant color
• - Pressure sensitive; easily makes lighter or darker marks
• - The water-resistant ink means you can add watercolor over it without smudging. It’s also fadeproof (important, because, let’s assume you’re a genius who wants your work to last forever).

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR:

• - Though it’s a fast drying ink, smudges may still occasionally occur. Using a slightly textured paper can help avoid this.

Ballpoint Pens

Ballpoint pens work like rollerball pens, but a ballpoint pen has thicker, oil-based ink.

WHAT’S NICE ABOUT THEM:

• - Lasts a long time
• - Can be found at the bottom of any purse, backpack, or car seat if you dig around long enough

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR:

• - Because the ink is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Tools and Materials
• Chapter 2 Getting Started
• Chapter 3 Warm-Up Exercises
• Chapter 4 Drawing the Object
• Chapter 5 Drawing Scenes and Backgrounds
• Chapter 6 Drawing Nature and Animals
• Chapter 7 Drawing Figures
• Chapter 8 Drawing Portraits
• Chapter 9 Tying It All Together
• Final Thoughts
• Resources
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index
• Dedication
• Copyright