Art Lesson: Contour Line Drawing Video

Here is a short contour line drawing video.

Art Lesson: Vanishing Point

Vanishing points are a form of linear perspective that is used to create foreshortening or a sense of depth to an object.   Here are a couple of examples as to how vanishing points work.  With cylindrical shape, the seemingly parallel edges of the cylinder would meet at a point in the distance.  The front of the cylinder would be a circle.  The back edge of the cylinder should arc as if the back end was a circle also.  So what in 3-dimensions is two same sized circles connected by two parallel lines becomes in a 2-dimensional drawing two different sized circles connected by two lines that eventually meet at a point. These are two very different things, but one represents what is while the latter represents what we see.

The second example is that of a cube. This gets a little trickier because there are two vanishing points -- one on both sides of the cube.  Again, the seemingly parallel sides actually meet at a point away from the cube.  The vertical lines of a cube that is sitting on a horizontal surface will always be completely vertical.  Of course, if the cube is on a slope or some non-horizontal surface, the verticals will tip one way or the other, but they will always be parallel to each other. 

That's just a little tip about linear perspective.  If you are going to use angular geometric shapes, such as buildings, boxes, fish tanks, yoga bricks, desks, dumpsters (I think you get the idea) and such, in your composition, linear perspective can be helpful.  If your objects are biomorphic or non-linear, then linear perspective is not very helpful.  There are other ways to create perspective in those situations.  But that is for another time.

Art Lesson: Graphite Pencils

Here is a little history and information I have learned about graphite pencils.

History: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil

Important things to know about pencils:

Sharpening:

You can sharpen your pencils in a few ways. The easiest and most common is with a Pencil Sharpener. Like many tools, you get what you pay for. I like a pencil sharpener with a built-in container to hold the shavings. This makes it less messy. The problem with sharpeners is that they can loosen over time and get dull, thus being less effective. Electric pencil sharpeners seem to hold up well but if you are not near an outlet they are not practical.

Often I will use a knife to sharpen my pencils, especially when I work outdoors. Knives always give you a point that is sharp. For some people it is hard to work the knife just right without cutting off too much wood or graphite. This can also be a messy way of sharpening if you need a waste basket for the shavings. To sharpen with a knife you stroke the knife away from you, like whittling a stick.

Sandpaper can also be used to do fine sharpening of the graphite. I find this a bit messy and do not use this method much. I would rather spend my money on a decent pencil sharpener.

Problem - Graphite in pencil breaks often when sharpening

If your graphite keeps breaking as you are sharpening it, this is because at some point your pencil was dropped and the graphite inside shattered. Be careful not to drop your pencils on hard floors and surfaces.

Holding:

Your pencil should be held with what is called a dynamic tripod grip. The tripod grip means that there is equal pressure on the pencil from the tips of your thumb, pointer finger and middle finger. This grip gives the most flexibility while drawing.

I hope this information was helpful.

Keep using your Artist's Brain.

Art Lesson: Thumbnails, a Form of Protection

 

Where would we be without our thumbnails?  We would be in pain and misery, that's where we would be.  Our fingers would be wrapped in band-aids and nothing would ever get done.  And that is the same place we would be without thumbnail sketches!  Okay, maybe our fingers wouldn't be covered with band-aids, but we would be in pain and misery trying to complete an interesting drawing or painting.  Thumbnail sketches are very valuable to the botanical or representational artist.  It is in the thumbnail sketch (a small simple line drawing exploring composition and shapes) that:

- helps the artist explore the most effective and interesting view of their subject

- captures the energy of the first ideas behind the final composition

- defines the proportion of the final composition, and

- informs the artist what they need to observe, research or explore more deeply before investing lots of time into a project

I always first explore my compositions with thumbnail sketches, often done during boring meetings at work, and then expand them from there.  To see an example of a book cover developed from a one inch sketch, click here.

Art Lesson: Transfering a Drawing

Here is an easy way to transfer a drawing using tracing paper. This is a video I created as part of the online drawing class I will be offering starting March 1. For more info about this class, look at my last post below.

Art Lesson: Simple Composition tools

Here is a quick video on simple tools for framing or composing the subject in front of you that you will be drawing/painting. I made this video for an online course Beginning Drawing: Botanical that I will be offering later this month.

Art Lesson: Gesture Drawings of Plants

Capturing Gesture: Gesture Drawing is meant to quickly capture the essence of the subject; its movement, shape, weight, etc. Gesture is based in the act of seeing. It is a representation of basic elements quickly witnessed. Gesture gives your drawings life – gives your subject life. Often botanical drawings can seem stiff and lack life. This is because, in the course of drawing an accurate representation, the artist has lost sight of gesture. Since drawing gesture is directly connected to what you see, it obviously is also about improving your observation skills. The following exercise will help you to develop your observation of gesture.

Materials Needed:

• 4B pencil
• Newsprint pad
• A plant with a stem, branches and leaves
• Variety of plants - In this exercise you will need to have a few different plants available for drawing. These plants could be house plants or plants outdoors. Plants should have a variety of characteristics.

Place a plant at a comfortable distance from you in a place where there is enough light to draw and to see the plant. Gesture drawing is about capturing the energy and posture of your subject. With figure drawing, the first action is to find the spine of the model and use this as the central organizing unit for the drawing. Thankfully, when it comes to drawing the gesture of a plant there is a “spine” on most plants called a stem or trunk. This is the place to start.

Locate the stem of the plant. Quickly draw a line that captures the pose of the stem. Is it bending slightly one way or the other? Is it straight? Is it doubled over? The energy of the plant can easily be found in the manner in which it is growing, for that is how a plant’s energy is expressed. So, quickly draw an energetic line that captures the pose of the stem. From there, quickly draw lines that represent the branches coming off the stem. Be aware of the angle with which the branches come off the stem. Do the branches go up, straight out or hang down? Now, continue with the leaves, drawing lines that capture their angles and shapes. With groupings of leaves, drawing each individual leaf is not necessary. Look at the grouping of leaves as one big shape with a few edges in its interior. Continue on like this until you have completed drawing the plant.

Gesture drawings are meant to be done quickly and to have energy. If this is the first time you have ever made a gesture drawing, keep your pencil moving and try not to take it off the paper much. Try not to think much. Observe and draw. Observe and draw.


Now do this again with the same plant – but do it much faster. Then keep doing this for several more plants. Pick plants that are vertically growing, like grasses. Pick plants that branch out like geraniums or trees. Draw a plant and then turn its pot halfway around and draw it again. For gesture, feel free to draw dead plants, live plants – any plants at all. Create about 15 drawings of a variety of plants. Do them all quickly. Take no more than two minutes on any one drawing. Set an alarm clock if you have to. Fill the page of your sketch pad with each drawing. Draw big and use your whole arm to draw. Be loose!










What is the gesture of a thicket? Look for obvious stems and see the leaves as clumps or "drifts" instead of individual leaves.








Have fun making something beautiful!

Art Lesson: Details and Surface in Oil

This is an 8" x 8" oil painting of one of my friend Meghan's chickens. Meghan has eleven chickens and is my source for all things chicken. I enjoyed painting this piece quite a bit for the following reasons:
- there is a good amount of inconsistent pattern in the feathers
- there is a lot of little detail in the face area
- it is just fun to paint chickens

The feathers in particular were fun for me in that I had to create a changing pattern that was soft and feathery. I layered the black and the greys in the feathers several times to get the pattern I wanted. While building up each layer I would stroke one color into and through the other to get the feel of individual feathers laying over other feathers. Once I was happy with the pattern, I took a dry sable brush and gently stroked over the wet paint on the surface (this technique is actually called feathering) to give a soft feel to the surface. I would stroke mostly in the same direction as the wet paint strokes on the canvas, but would occasionally "feather" at angles to give a more random effect.
Before creating this odd face with skin folds, individual hairs sticking out here and there and areas where it meshes with beak and heavy feathered areas, I first created the skin surface (middle picture). In this earlier stage you can see how I developed the surface of the skin before adding the smaller detail on top of it. In this earlier stage you can also see the body feathers after only one attempt to block in the pattern.
This last image shows some of the detail in the head area. I had to use very small brushes to produce individual feathers. Stroking them on with one stroke did not look good. The feathers looked like paint strokes instead of feathers. So I went back in and painted around the feathers with the skin color. I also stroked over each individual face feather with some grey. Between these two techniques each feather began to feel part of the face instead of being a paint stroke on the face.

Art Lesson: Creating a Sense of Space

This is Flood Plain, a painting I am working on. This is an oil painting of the flood plain of the Mississippi River located in the St. Anthony Falls gorge which stretches from downtown Saint Paul to downtown Minneapolis. This specific area is on the eastern bank, just inside the Minneapolis border.

As mentioned in the last entry, I am trying to combine two techniques for painting. One technique is linear in nature and the other is more traditional in its approach to color and the representation of space. I need to beef up the more realistically painted tree (I will call him Oliver) in order to balance with the strong contrast of the drawn trees.

In the image above, I have put Oliver in place, but have not gotten into details just yet. I feel at this point that Oliver needs more contrast in order for him to stick out and have a sense of realistic space. Contrast is the key to realistic space. I have decided to paint the background darker in order to have Oliver's light-catching leaves stand out more.












In this second image you can see the trees across the river have been darkened and some details have been added to them. Their forms break down into large billowy shapes of very grey-blue green. I have also lightened the water considerably in order to make even more contrast and a sense of space behind Oliver.

I will now let this backdrop dry before I tackle painting Oliver again.

Art Lesson: Shading

This is an art lesson on how to shade with a pencil. This lesson only focuses on the act of using a pencil to shade an area of a drawing. How to use shading to accurately represent an object in a drawing will be in a later lesson.

When drawing with a pencil, one only has three elements to work with: line, shape and value. Shading and hatching are ways to make value. Shading is the act of creating an accurate range of values with smooth transitions. Whereas, hatching is the means of creating values with a series of lines. With hatching, one's lines show and can produce a sense of energy or roughness. Shading is about a more accurate sense of how light might fall on an object. For an art lesson on hatching, click here. Shading is much like hatching in that the more lines or marks drawn in an area the darker it will appear. But the techniques of shading differ from hatching in two common ways:

- applying more or less pressure to the pencil makes values darker or lighter

- one can use a variety of pencils to produce a variety of values

Also, like hatching, shading works best when there is an organized manner in which marks are drawn on the paper. Stroking marks in one direction will help to create a uniform surface to your shading. If your strokes are very visible, it helps to shade across your first layer with a second layer of strokes in a different direction. Try not to stroke at a true 90 degree angle to your first layer. This can make your shading look like a screen or grid instead of the surface of the object you are drawing.

Edges are important with shading. To create a strong edge, the strokes should not go beyond the shape. In order to have a crisp clean edge, stroke away from the edge of the shape and then clean up by stroking carefully along the edge of the shape.

Sometimes ridges of darker value appear within your shading. Some areas of value are too big to shade in one quick row of hatch strokes. In these areas you need to work your way across the shape with a series of strokes. The dark edges I mentioned are caused by overlapping strokes as you work your way across an area. There are a few ways to avoid this. If the dark ridges are not highly noticeable, sometimes it is enough to add another layer of hatch strokes in a different direction. Another solution is to stagger your hatch strokes so that there is not an edge to overlap (see example). Then stagger your next series of hatch strokes into the previous series(example has darkened strokes to show technique. Second series of strokes should be same value as first series). The final solution for ridges is when you come to the end of your strokes, lighten up the pressure on the pencil to lighten the lines. This way, when you draw your next series of strokes the lines will be lighter where they overlap. With practice, the value of the overlapping ends will match the value in the middle of the stroke. I generally use a combination of all three of these techniques.

Shading Exercise 1: Practice shading by making shading boxes (like below). Boxes should be 1.5" x 3". Practice shading by making one box of solid value, one box that transitions from dark to light, one box that transitions from light to dark and back to light again and finally, a box with a line through it with both shapes going from dark to light.

Shading Exercise 2: Make a shading box that transitions from dark to light for each of the following pencils: 4H, 2H, HB, 2B, 4B. Then make one larger box (3" x 6") using all five of the pencils to transition the box from dark to light. Use the 4B for the darkest area and transition all the way to the 4H for the lightest areas.

What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.markgranlund.com/

Art Lesson: Hatching

There are only a few elements one can use to make a successful pencil or ink drawing. These are line, shape and value. They way in which you make value is with hatching or shading. The act of hatching is drawing lines or patterns of distinct density to show value. The more hatch marks in a small area, the darker the value. This is especially true with pen and ink where you cannot soften the line by applying less pressure, as you can with a pencil. For an art lesson on shading, click here. There are several types of hatching one can use to create a drawing. (Click on the images below to see larger versions and more detail of the hatching techniques)

The first is straight hatching. In this manner, hatch marks are all drawn in the same direction across the paper. Consistency is important so that any change in value represent a change on the object.


A second is cross hatching. In this instance, hatch marks are made in two different directions. One set of marks goes in one direction and then another layer of marks is drawn over the first in a different direction. By adding the second layer, one can more quickly darken an area then with straight hatching. One thing to be careful of is drawing your lines perpendicular to each other. When perpendicular, the lines begin to look like a grid, or screen, and flattens the image instead of creating volume and form, which is the general purpose of value.

The third type of hatching is contour hatching. Contour hatching is the act of drawn hatch marks in a manner that mimics the surface of the object. On a spherical surface the marks will curve around the object. On a smooth surface the hatch marks will be straight. On an undulating object the marks will undulate. It can sometimes be confusing to figure out which direction to draw your hatch marks. It takes some experimenting.

The final technique discussed here is stippling. This is the act of drawing with small dots. The more dots in an area, the darker the value. Stippling takes much longer than the other forms of hatching, but can have a very stunning effect. Expert stipplers create small round dots. If you zoom in on my dots you will see that many are not perfectly round, but have a tail or are small marks. Using a technical pen can help in making round dots.

Play around with hatching to figure how to add value and beauty to your drawings.

What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.markgranlund.com/

Art Lesson: Painting Detailed Watercolors

People ask me how do I paint such small detail in my watercolors. The images on my website, although accurate, do not represent all the detail of the originals.

If painting small detail in watercolor, here are a few things to do to be successful.

Paper
When I know I am going to be painting in great detail I always paint on a good quality hot press watercolor paper. Hot press papers have a smooth surface, whereas cold press papers have a textured surface. When painting details, the texture of the paper can get in the way. The hot press process uses hot paper pulp and then, as it cools into a sheet form, it shrinks and becomes smooth. Arches and Fabriano are my favorite brands of hot press paper for watercolor painting.

Brushes
To paint small, you need small brushes, or at least a small point on your brush. The smallest brush I use is smaller than "000". But the brush I use most often is a "4" that had been worn down over the years to a very fine point. When I need a lot of control to make the detail, I use a small brush. When the detail can be freer, like hairs or some leaf veins, I use the bigger brush with the fine point.

Visual Aids
The number one necessity for painting details is to be able to see them. If you don't see it you can't paint it! This will mean having the object in front of you in a manner that allows you to investigate it. If you can do this with your eyes alone, great. I still can, but I also see the day for reading glasses is not far off. Sometimes I will use a magnifying glass to see the object better and also to look at my painting while I am making detailed strokes. Using a camera to capture detail and shape is helpful, too. Using an extreme closeup photograph of an object "freezes" the details for you to see.



Technique
Using the right tools is necessary for creating detail, but using certain techniques when painting is also improtant.
- Sketching: When needing to create small detail it is helpful to draw the image accurately first. This allows you to know exactly where the detail is, what it will look like and how to portray it in two-dimensions. With watercolor, if you start by painting a detail in the wrong place, even a sixteenth of an inch, your detail can be ruined. Because of the transparent quality of watercolor, most everything you paint will show through in the end. If your detailed edge needs to be crisp and you have started it in the wrong place, it will not be as crisp as starting in the right place. So, get in the habit of making studies and sketches to know exactly where your details are going.
- Layering: Layering is a tricky technique for beginners to understand. One can create detail by creating different aspects of the detail in different layers of paint. In this cabbage detail, I first painted the values of the leaf, then I painted the color in the veins, then I painted the bluish color on the surface of the leaves and in the shadows, and finally I added more veins on the topmost layer. It is hard at first to understand how to paint different aspects of detail using different layers, but if you can break it down into two or three easy steps it is easier than trying to do it all in one layer. With the layering and transparency of watercolor it is often more visually pleasing to create details with layers.

What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.markgranlund.com/

Art Lesson: Improving Composition

The Set Up
When drawing a flower, or some other subject, you might feel you captured what was in front of you well enough but something just doesn't seem satisfying about the drawing. Your composition might be part of the problem. Below is a line drawing of some daylily blossoms growing in my front yard. I wanted to focus on the blooms, I love their color, and wanted to create this drawing as a sketch for a painting I would do later. When I was finished drawing the sketch I felt I captured what was in front of me rather accurately.

Unfortunatley, upon further review, my drawing felt cluttered to me while at the same time seemed to have too much space in it. The overall effect was not pleasing. Often when you are unsure about your artwork you might have conflicting opinions about the same drawing.

Despite what is in front of you, sometimes you have to rearrange your composition to make your drawing stronger and more interesting. Mother nature does not always face the best composed view of her beauties towards us. Now, moving things slightly to create a stronger composition is different than lying. I do not condone making things up, but I do encourage students to find the composition that best reflects their subject. What changes would you make?


What changes did I make?
Change 1: The buds located behind the lower bloom were partially hidden from view. The stem for the buds also lined-up awkwardly with the edge of the petal in front of it. I decided to bring these buds up above the bloom petals so the viewer could see them. I often represent a plant in different stages of development. This was an opportunity for that.

Change 2: In front of the lower bloom is a spent bloom that has curled up and will fall off the plant soon. This was blocking the open bloom. I pivoted the spent bloom on the stem so that it was no longer blocking the open bloom. I placed its stem parallel to the edge of the open bloom petal for a strong sense of space between them. The spent bloom is now horizontal to the bottom of the composition which gives the drawing added strength and a base on which to build.

Change 3: I removed some of the extra buds and branches in the background. These created too much clutter. In botanical art, it is common to cut out parts of a plant in order to better express the plant. But, the fact that something has been removed is expressed by truncating the stem not simply by removing it as if it never existed.

Change 4: The composition was still a bit leggy, I felt that there was too much space between the two blooms. I compacted the composition by moving the entire back bloom section down closer to the front bloom. Day lilies bloom in clusters, and this change provided that feeling, as well as creating a more compact and powerful composition. The final composition is square with a strong horizontal element at the bottom; very strong.

Below is the final drawing of the composition. I was quite happy with it. To see the finished painting click here and then on the Gallery link.


















What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.markgranlund.com/