Drawing 1: Getting Down to the Brass Tacks

Having worked out the finer composition points on the trace paper line drawing, I next cut a piece of Arches watercolour paper for the final work. I tape this down on my drawing table and lay out the piece one more time, transferring the compostion from the working draft rather than the photo. The aim is to provide a guide for the rendering of the work. The lines are made with a hard 5H pencil that holds its point and makes a light mark on the paper. These lines will be  almost completely erased and redrawn freehand as the drawing is completed.

Once I'm satisfied I have enough information on the paper to guide the work I take up the tape, roll up the trace paper draft and put it away, and layout my pencils to start the rendering process. It may surprise some folks that there is this much preliminary work before the actual "drawing" is started. It's all part of the creative process that works for me and it changes with time, so what I do today is different than how I worked 10 years ago. Hopefully I keep learning. :-)

So what's this drawing look like you ask?

Here's the first three installments:

Each photo represents a day's progress. I don't work on this fulltime, so it's whatever I was able to accomplish in the time I carved out for the work.

Being right handed, I start in the upper left corner and work across the page, finishing elements of the picture as I go. On occassion I go back and retouch something, but once I move on it's 99% done. Like most things, some parts take longer than others to complete, so there are days when I don't quite get as much done I'd hoped for. So far this piece is going very well though (knock on wood).

In my next posting I'll talk a bit about the realist style I use and how it's different than making a copy of a photo.

Catch you later!