you too can sketch

7/29/2019 You Too Can Sketch

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You Too Can Sketch

Mahesh VyomaBhat

http://kalaalog.com

Mahesh Bhat K 2007 |http://kalaalog.com| You Too Can Sketch A Guide To Sketching
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Index

Introduction

About Mahesh Bhat Secrets Artists Have Been Hiding

Drawing Basics

Form

Light

Visualize

Sketching Process

Change Something

Practice

Secrets Revealed

Final Sketch

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Introduction

You Too Can Sketch, is a guide to sketching. It is a guide to sketching approach.

If you have been frustrated earlier by attempts at sketching then this book is for

you. If you want to try out any of the visual arts like drawing or painting in any

medium, sketching is usually a prerequisite and this book would be helpful.

About Mahesh Bhat

I was born in India, and I had my education in a town Manipal. I completed

my graduation as an Electronics And Communications engineer but I have always

had interest in visual arts. My note books would be filled with sketches I made

when I should have been studying. I used to paint with water colors and poster

colors but I shifted the medium to oils when I moved to a different city. I have hadno formal education in the arts, but I keep experimenting and learning. I have tried

my hands at Computer Graphics and also post rather regularly at KalaaLog.com.

This book is an outcome of the observations and studies I have had all my life,

and aims at creating interest in people for visual arts. This book aims at helping

those people who seek fulfillment in this hobby.

All the text and illustrations in this book are copyright of Mahesh Bhat K. You may

not copy parts of this book and publish it else where with or without modifications.

However, you are encouraged to share this book with anyone. If you have any

questions, comments or suggestions, you may do so, using the contact form at:http://kmaheshbhat.com/contact.

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Secret Artists Have Been Hiding

Ever looked at the paintings of the masters and wondered what talent they have

for them to create those artworks? Ever been awed by looking through the works

they created? Even the sketch books of these artists leaves the audience amazed by

their control of the pencil or the pen over paper.

You might have even tried drawing something up and then got frustrated by

how grotesque the output was, and abandoning it all together. These artists who

create these artworks must have something in their genes that lets them draw what

they want. There is nothing that you can do to draw something of decent quality.

Or is there?

Is there some secret that these artists have been hiding and they have not

disclosed to the general public? Is there some kind of secret world wide societythat guards this secret with their life? Do they disclose this secret to only those

who join them, but only when they swear to not disclose it to anyone else?

It sounds preposterous. To imagine such a secret society exists would be

deemed as something foolish. Everyone knows there is no such secret society of

artists. But, if there were would we know? If we know, then it would not remain a

secret would it?

I consider myself an artists at the expense of sounding too jaunty. I consider

myself a self taught artist I have had no formal training in any form of visual arts.

I do not do great works of arts yet, I am still learning but I can say that with some

effort and time, if I sit down, I am able to draw or sketch almost anything that I can

imagine.

To do this, I have observed the works that others create. I studied them all the

years, and have been practicing what I learned from observations, and also what I

learned from few books that I could get in libraries, and what I learned from

reading articles, journals and blogs on the Internet. At this point in time, even

though I may not be called one of the brethren of artists, I strongly believe there is

some kind of organization that closely guards a key to successful drawing.

Continue reading this book, and learn how to create good looking drawings.

Continue reading this book if you want to be left satisfied after a session of

sketching and drawing.



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Drawing Basics

Let us look at the approach to drawing anything. By the end of this section, you

will know the preparations you need to do before sketching or drawing something.

To draw anything, you must first visualize it in your mind. You must imagine

what you want to draw, and then you can proceed to draw it. You will need to

visualize two basic things to get a decent sketch or drawing.

Form

Light

Yes, that is all you need to know regarding the subject you are drawing.

Understanding the form and light of a subject lays down the basic foundation you

require to draw.

Form

Form of any subject is the underlying shape that defines the subject. If you take

a ball the underlying shape is a sphere in the three dimensional space. For

considering the form with respect to shape you can forget that it exists in a three

dimensional space, and take the basic underlying shape as a circle. Remember the

choice of the basic shape may not be always as simple.



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What if you want to draw a tennis ball at a very high closeup level? Then the

underlying shape would be a curvy line, some basic form of the furry layer.

Yes, it does not look like much. It looks too simple to look like a close up of a

tennis ball. But that is the beauty of deciding the form based on the composition.

Do not worry about composition initially it is an advanced technique that

involves the human mind. Just choose a composition, and try to decide on what the

basic form of the subject is depending on how you want to draw it.

Almost everything has an underlying form to it. A mug of beer? It has a basic

cylindrical form. A pen? Again a cylindrical form but much thinner and elongated.

A chair? It would have boxy shapes that are at different angles.



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You might naturally ask now, can everything be resolved into simple forms? I

mean, there are much more beautiful and intricate things that one can imagine

how can it possibly be reduced to a simple shapes and be designated as form?

What about a beauty of nature a swan or a duck swimming in the lake? What

kind of form would that have? I would say that it too would have a form, but may

be we cannot name all the shapes. The form though would be simple enough.

Examine the same sketch with the form highlighted.

You might have guessed it by now that form is nothing but simplification of

the final artwork. Why would we want to simplify anything to draw it?

The key lies in the fact that our human mind cannot visualize things as much as

we would like it to. The minds eye sees things vaguely until it actually sees it. Itwould be difficult for us to imagine something we would like to create in the future

because there is nothing in front of the physical eye and the minds eye finds it

hard to imagine it. But figuring out what the basic shape and thus the form of the

subject, you can easily conjure it up in front of your minds eye, and it will help you

in drawing.

Light

To get a decent sketch, most of the times, the basic form is more than enough.

But to add some more details and intricacies to the artwork, there is one more thing

that you would need to visualize.

Light plays a major role in giving depth to the sketch or drawing. Remember, in

the last section about visualizing the form of the subject, I mentioned that the

subject exists in three dimensions and that we are representing or projecting it to



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the two dimensions.

To add depth to the drawing that you draw in two dimensions, you need to

visualize light. You need to visualize the position of the light source with respect to

the subject. Start off with a simplest of the simple form of the subject and assume a

light source.

Once you imagine that it becomes easy to imagine where the shadows areformed. In the direction of the light, behind the subject, if there is something then a

shadow is cast. Also, the light decides which areas of the object are brighter and

which of them are dull.



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Visualizing the form helps in visualizing the light. Since the form is simplified,

the play of light is much more simple when compared to the complex interactions

in real life.

Remember there can be multiple sources of light, like in real life. The multiple

sources of light may come due to actual multiple light sources, or because light

reflects off some surface in which case that too acts as a light source.

But to begin with choose a simple form, and then choose a light source and

visualize the way the shadows are formed.

Visualize

It must be evident by now, but I would state it again. The key to good sketch is

visualization before even you draw one line on the paper. Decide on what you need

to draw and then based on how detailed you need to go decide on what the basic

forms would be. Be ready to visualize different lighting conditions and also see inthe minds eye the play of light and shadow.

You have not yet started to sketch the drawing. This process that you follow

before drawing will reduce a lot of frustration and artist's block you may face.

Because when you have the pen or pencil ready in front of you and sit in front of the

paper, the blankness wont glare back at you.

On the paper, you will see the image your mind's eye has created and drawingon it would be almost like tracing a picture.

So, is this the secret I was talking about? Is this what all the fuss was about?

Well no. And since you have patiently waited through this chapter, I promise I

will spill the beans in the next chapter.



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Sketching Process

So, you have decided on the subject and visualized the form and light. For sake

of illustration I will choose the subject as 'Aztec Pyramids'. And the basic form

would be that of a pyramid with its top chopped off. (Of course, Aztec Pyramids are

kind of stepped but since it is the form we are deciding on I simplify it). And I

will choose the light source to be the sun and it is situated behind the viewer and at

the top a little to the right.

Take a paper and a pen or pencil. Nothing fancy is required. You do not need to

spend a lot on a sketch book or art paper or anything like that. Take any blank

piece of paper and start sketching. Even the brown paper you got as a grocery bag

would do.

Do not worry if you make mistakes. Just draw the basic form you have in your

mind that you decided upon earlier. If any particular line seems to be out of place

then do not touch the eraser just draw over it. Use the wrong stroke as a guide



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and try to edge the line towards the correct one. For example, in the above sketch

I find that the right most slant is a bit too vertical. It should be more slanting.

I did not erase that wrong stroke. I kept it as a guide and then drew again. You

might not even get it right when you do this but do not erase that. Draw again,and try to get it right the next time.

Once I am satisfied, with the basic form of the subject, I proceed to draw few

more secondary things like trees in this case.

Just draw over the right set of lines again, and make them a bit darker and more

defined. This will give youpractice and that is good.

Proceed to draw the shadows and shading. Once you are done, take a step back

and what do you feel about it. It is messy of course, but now visualize how itwould look with all the details.



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Is it what you wanted?

Change Something

Yes change the form or light source or both! The form and lighting you chose

in the beginning must not be set in stone. Now, try and visualize a different setup,

looking at the rough sketch you have in front of you and draw again.

Take a fresh piece of paper, and start sketching again.

I felt that having the perspective from above the pyramids, would not make it

look grand and I wanted that feel I wanted to make it look grand. So, I changed

the perspective (keeping the light source same). What I got was close to what I

wanted.



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Since you have not spent much effort on detailing the previous sketch, since it is

just a rough sketch you are not emotionally attached to complete it. You can

ruthlessly discard it if you want to, and work on another rough sketch albeit a

better one. But do keep the older one at hand use that as a guide to the next

sketch. Draw the basic form, and then shade it with light source in mind.

If you are not satisfied with it, then stop working on it. Change the form or thelight source and draw a new rough sketch.

This cycle of drawing rough sketches again and again adjusting one aspect or

another, one after another is one of the secrets to the success of a great artworks.

Unless there is no proper composition of form and lighting, no matter how great

you put the detail into the final sketch it will look crappy.

So, is that all there is to the secrets of great artwork?

There is one more thing.

Practice

Yes, once you get a rough artwork with the proper setup of form and light, you

repeat doing rough sketch with the same setup again and again. It gives confidence



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to your strokes. You start to do small experiments to see if there is something that

would add to the aesthetic quality of the drawing.

You should draw the same subject in the same finalized setting again and again.Every time you draw the rough sketch, you should add a bit more detail. You can

experiment on few minor things, trying out minor variations and comparing it with

the previous version of the rough sketch.

It is this practice that makes these artists what they are. If you ask them, is

there any secret to their skills they would say that you need to practice. They may

unintentionally not reveal the fact that they would have spent a lot of time

practicing the same aspect or a same subject again and again.

The practice of the same aspect lets you apply the previous secret variation orchange. This grows your innate knowledge of sketching the form and light effects

on the subject.

Secrets Revealed

Variation

Repetition

I know, for those hoping for something spectacular, for those hoping for a holy

grail of creativity this might turn out as a disappointment. But these secrets arenothing but uncommon common sense.

Change or variations is the key basic key to move towards perfection. Every

time you draw a line wrongly, it would be that one string of knowledge of how not

to draw. The next line you draw would be close to the proper way.



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Repetition, or practicing the same subject again and again, helps you grow

confident in the skill you learn. It is not by fluke that you get some drawing look

good. You know, as you draw again and again, what makes a particular drawing of a

particular subject look good. Because every time you repeat and draw again, you

will be using your earlier drawing as a reference subconsciously. You would know

what things you had drawn wrong and you would draw them better this time. Youmight even miss what you have drawn right, and draw it wrongly now but even

that will educate you.

We will round up this chapter with the following note. The secret to a good

drawing is practice of the same subject with the application of variation and

repetition. Vary something that you think is wrong. Repeat something that you

think is right. Either of your judgment, if you happen to err in it you will know.

Correct it and draw again.

Remember, we have not yet started on the final artwork. What you have done

until now, was just a study just a practice.



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Final Sketch

Take a clean sheet of paper and sharpen your pencils. This time around, take a

good paper you will be sketching the final artwork now.

You have two options here.

Sketch by reference

Sketch by trace

Have your latest versions of rough sketch handy and then refer to it and start

drawing. You may also draw faint grid lines on the blank paper and the rough

sketches and start drawing grid-box by grid box. As you draw, attempt on clean

lines and erase any unwanted lines. This will be your final artwork and you do not

need unwanted lines like in your rough sketches.You may also place the rough sketches under you paper and start drawing with

the faint rough sketch as your reference. You would not be able to do this if you had

been drawing your sketches in a smaller scale.

But in any case, this time around, you do not have the fear of going wrong.

Because you have drawn the wrong lines a number of times in your rough sketches

and you have over come them. Even if you draw a wrong line, you know what the

correct line is you can erase and redraw. This time around you will not be feeling



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around in the dark, but you will be drawing with confident strokes.

Draw the basic outline and draw all the details. Detail it to your hearts content.

You do not need to fear of going out of proportions. Your basic outlines would form

a boundary and keeping everything in proportion.

One you are done with the outlines and hard shadows, proceed to work on the

shading with finer strokes.

Since you have practiced the lighting in your rough sketches, you know which

areas you need to leave untouched and which areas you need to darken by drawing

criss crossed fine lines. If you want a particular area to be dark, just draw more

criss crossed lines.

When you are done, stand back and look at your work. You will be a lot more

satisfied with it than if you had right away drawn it.

As they say,practice makes perfect. Take a break, go sip a cup of coffee (or tea ifyou are a tea drinker), and then show it to all your friends and family.


you too can sketch

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