Drawing
I sometimes get people coming to me who say’ I want to paint but I don’t want to draw ‘or’ I’m no good at drawing but I’d like to paint’.
Despite popular belief to the contrary, even artists who work in degrees and styles of abstraction can and do practise drawing, and so should anyone who is serious about learning to paint. And what’s the problem? Drawing is fun, drawing is challenging and relaxing at the same time, drawing can be done while you are sitting in a plane, talking on the phone, in a spare hour or two. You can do it in a range of very inexpensive materials and it will only make you a better artist. Everyone, everyone can be taught to draw – how well they draw will depend on their application and their raw ability but everyone can achieve an improved level through practice.
Watercolour is a transparent medium in which very little can be hidden or altered, sound drawing skills are essential. Acrylic, Oils and Pastel will all allow you to make extensive revision and alterations - but accurate underdrawing will save you time and materials.
We sharpen our appreciation of the tonal values of a subject through drawing. Small tonal sketches of your subjects will help you to understand better how to paint them before you even put brush to precious paper.
Tonal Values
A thorough understanding of Tonal values is essential to produce scenes and objects that look ‘real’. Without tone, there is no perception of form. Tonal values, lights and darks, are what make a scene or an object look ‘real’. Without an appreciation of how tone shapes objects we cannot begin to perceive how tone affects colour value.
. If you are using digital photos and a computer you can check the tonal values of your subject very quickly by using simple editing programs which will convert the scene to black and white. If you are working from another type of image, get a photocopy made of it and study the tonal ranges in the scene. Try and reproduce some of the shades of greys and blacks using 2B, 4B and 6B pencils.
In watercolour the highest key or tone is the watercolour paper itself. The whitest areas are always the paper or ‘ground’ showing through. Working from the lightest areas of the subject to the darkest areas requires a bit of planning. Losing the ‘lights’ in watercolour is often a major problem for beginners, but the opposite problem is not going dark enough. Believing that watercolour is supposed to be ‘transparent’ often leads to a neglect of dark tonal values in the scene resulting in an unexciting result. Clear, transparent darks are just as exciting in watercolour as luminous lights. Always observe and record tonal values in your subject.
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