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📝
“Do not worry about whether the picture is pretty. Worry about whether it is effective.”
- Molly Bang
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🏁 Prep Checklist
- [ ] Got Snacks 🍪
- [ ] Got Water 🥤
- [ ] Got your Note 🗒️
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Start! 🏁
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Contents
PART I
PART II
PART III
SUPPLEMENTARY
Related Books
Untitled
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🧠 Favorite Tips
- Iterative Drawing (intentional, repetitive practice) after learning is an excellent way to consolidate what you have learned.
- Set a daily, weekly, etc. goal for your iterative practice. E.g. take an art prompt and create 10 thumbnail sketches, improving with each iteration. The goal is not to get it right. It’s to build muscle memory so you can’t get it wrong.
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PART I
Before we begin - Iterative Drawing - Fastest Way to Improve 🔄
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✍🏾 Bits to Recall
- Analyzing the same drawing with multiple variations helps you get better at identifying what works and why. Literally note down (on your canvas, beside that drawing) what you did well, what went wrong, areas for improvement.
- If you are using a reference, don’t copy it or immediately try to stylize it. Pause, understand it and draw what you see. Analyze and iterate, ideas for stylizing it will flow as you iterate on it.
- Drawing different subjects without analysis means good work is accidental and difficult to replicate.
- Immediately implement these insights in your next iteration. This process builds muscle memory, intuition, and experience, allowing you to quickly analyze and correct your works as you create.
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https://youtu.be/k0ufz75UvHs?si=Qv1hO-gXEpI-_I4l
https://www.youtube.com/embed/egCx3dgGYDI?si=v8KNxcSoEZ_unntp
https://youtu.be/uShhRyGK7rc?si=Hi3MZB7-wxjPLTzU
PART II
Into the thick of it - What is Composition? Why is it so important? How do I use it? 🤷🏾
Composition - is about arranging elements in a scene in a pleasing and easily readable way. Done well, it guides the viewer's eyes and results in an aesthetically pleasing and engaging piece. At it’s core good composition forces us to prioritize the following questions in our creative process.
- What are we trying to say in our narration as a whole?
- What mood do we want our audience to be in throughout the story and at any given time within a specific sequence or shot?
- What is the function of this moment within the story?
- How are we going to take our audience there?
- What in our drawing is contributing to the general statement?
- What can we leave out without changing what we are trying to say? Let's show what we need to show, how we need to show it, and, as much as we can, and remove the rest.
This is not to say we ought to paint the whole picture for our viewers or answer all the questions. As much as possible, let them wonder, create their own meanings & translation in their minds - that's the engaging part. It’s a game of seduction ( pg. 15; Marcos Mateu-Mestre).
Toolbox for Effective Compositions 🧰
Let’s establish that our aim is not photorealistic results. That’s not my goal. However, chances are, we are surely going to draw from references. How then will we transfer information from the reference to our canvas without copying exactly what we see?
- Studying reality as it appears in front of us and changing the elements above to reshape the story - In order words, staging your paintings/story to find the best way to tell it - Thumbnailing: Creating new stories by rearranging Atmosphere, lines, lighting, etc. A mental image of the results you are aiming for is half the work. Arranging the objects as effectively as you can is the next step.
In your sketches, you want to simplify your subjects, & reduce them to their simplest shapes, ignore the details and concentrate on the big forms alone. Try them out in different arrangements to find the one that reads best (pg. 5; famous Artists School).
- Atmosphere: What’s the most prominent expression, element you find in your reference? If you blur out the image/squint our eyes till it’s barely visible, what stands out?
- Picture Dimensions & Arrangement: Different objects are best expressed by different picture shapes. It works great to use the shape of your subject, the story you want to tell to determine your picture’s proportions. E.g. a long, vertical picture works great for the Eiffel tower, a long horizontal picture will capture the expanse of the Pyramids of Gaza, a long or wide shot can be used to establish a general sense for the scene and show the character within their surrounding/circumstances, a close-up or extreme close up of the character/subject gives the viewer a detailed view of their features, expression as opposed to their environment… you get the idea?!
In addition to this, carefully consider where you place your objects within your picture and the size you make them. Your choice of size should communicate the object’s importance, in relation to the subject matter and the effect. The size we give to things and where we place them control their importance in the picture (pg. 9-10; famous Artists School).
Don’t split the picture in half! i.e. don’t crowd all you objects into a corner, the top, bottom or center everything. This creates imbalance or a pretty monotonous/uninteresting image. Use the whole picture area.
- Space, Depth and Perspective: This is where you create the illusion of distance, 3D space on paper. This can be done by overlapping objects, creating an uneven balance of shapes and their sizes in your illustration to makes the image deeper, communicate scale, distance from the viewer, etc. Like lines this can be leveraged to communicate who/what the center of your story is (i.e. Bigger shapes carry more visual weight and captures the viewers eyes). Don’t line things up! Overlap an frame effectively to create an aesthetically pleasing result.
- Lines, shapes and form: Lines can serve as a way is to catch and direct the eye of the viewer to the subject/character, create design, arrangement or character. Curved shapes always appear to be more subtle and peaceful, diagonals are more dynamic and aggressive. Straight lines represent assertiveness, boundaries, while curves are kinder on the eye (pg. 26; famous Artists School)
- Types of lines
- Gesture Lines - Planning lines to help you set the foundation for fluidity and dynamism in your characters. - See Gestures & Figures
- Construction Lines - Foundation lines to help you plan and visualize. - See Constructional Drawing - Perspective & Construction in 3D Space
- Contour Lines - Define objects in space.
- Shading/Hatching Lines - To define form, depth and shadows
- Implied Lines - They are invisible lines created by the arrangement of objects in space. Excellent in composition for directing the viewers eye in the story. E.g. the direction of a characters gaze.
- Movement: Our life on earth and experience with gravity affects our response to horizontal, vertical and diagonal figures.
- Horizontal, flat surfaces give a sense of balance, and stability. It feels reliable.
- Vertical shapes feel active, energetic, as we associate them with elements (i.e. trees, etc.) rising against gravity.
- Diagonals imply dynamism, motion. We consider diagonal (leaning) figures to be in a state of falling or just about to, creating a sense of tension in the viewer; worse if it’s leaning towards you. Diagonals forces the eye to moved along it’s silhouette. (pg.41; Molly Bang).
- Light & Value: Sets the tone, mood of the image. It communicates the emotion of the subject in the painting
- Contrasts: This is not limited to color and value alone. It involves all the elements listed above. Contrasting shapes, forms, colors, allows the viewer to see, understand the image better.
- Lenses: While this is extremely important to understand for photography, it is also essential for artists as it gives us a better understanding of how we and our viewers see things on screen.