Beginning a Drawing

When you begin a drawing it's important to have a few things in mind.  Don't start drawing immediately, spend some time looking and thinking about these things.  Maybe make a few sketches on scrap paper.

How will your subject sit on the paper?
This sounds so simple, like you don't even really need to think about it.  But, it can actually become very complex.  A 2D Composition class can be though of as almost an entire semester about situating subjects.

One approach is to simply put the subject in the center, like this Dutch School drawing of a Dodo:

http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d52241/d5224172l.jpg

  But, if you consider the relationship between the image and the paper there are a couple of awkward things about it.  The main one being that the drawing is really too big for the paper.  The dodo's toes are almost touching the bottom of the page and the beak is almost touching the side.  The bird is hemmed in by the edges of the paper, there's not really any space around the subject which makes the picture feel claustrophobic.  Compare that with the following drawing by Raphael.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/892408/thumbs/o-RAPHAEL-DRAWING-RECORD-SALE-SOTHEBYS-570.jpg?3

Raphael's drawing sits much more neatly on the page.  The spaces between the drawing and the sides of the paper and the bottom of the paper are about equal.  Even though the drawing is fairly large on the paper, that equal spacing helps take away the claustrophobic feeling.  The space above the man's head is a little larger and that feels right too because, if you think about it, there is open space above things most of the time.  Our experience is that things sit on the ground with open sky above them.  So the placement of the drawing on the page is just more comfortable.

In the above examples it seems perfectly natural to draw with your paper in a vertical orientation,  called portrait orientation, with the longest sides running top to bottom.  Often we'll just start working in that orientation because that's how we see paper the majority of the time, most things that we read are oriented that way, most posters are that way, etc.  But that's not always the best orientation.  There's landscape, horizontal, as well.  (And artists occasionally orientate their substrates in any number of off kilter ways.)  Sticking with portrait and landscape orientations, you'll have to decide between the two.  You may feel pretty sure that you can tell whether your subject is wider or taller but there are students every semester who get pretty far into their drawings before realizing that they were wrong.  Your vision isn't as reliable as you might think.  So you'll need to do some sighting to help decide which orientation would be best.

Sighting is what artists are doing when they hold up a brush or a pencil at arm's length and squint at it.  To sight a subject extend your arm completely and hold your pencil (brush, pen, or whatever you're working with) either vertically or horizontally.  If you are left handed close your right eye and vice-versa for right handed people.  Always extend your arm the same way and always close the same eye.  If you bend your arm or switch eyes your sighting will be off.

Look beyond your pencil to the subject.  Line up one end of the pencil with one end of the subject and move your thumb down the pencil until it lines up with the other end of the object.  Do this both horizontally and vertically.  Which dimension is longer?  If the vertical is longer use a portrait orientation, use landscape orientation if the horizontal measure is longer.

Working on standard notebook size paper is easy enough.  Most likely none of your sighted measurements are going to run off of the paper.  If your subject measures no more than the length of the pencil in any direction you can simply put it on the paper.  But, if you're working on bigger paper, say 22"x30" you're going to have to multiply.

How are you going to keep this drawing in proportion?
You can use the sighting method to make all sorts of measurements and comparisons as you work out the placement of your subject and its parts.




Which drawing material should you start with?