Sometimes if someone asks me a question along the lines of “how should we hang these decorations,†“how do I get to such-and-such a place,†etc., I find it easier to draw what I’m trying to get across than to say it in words. And often people ask me how I can draw so quickly and freely.
    Being a “fast draw†isn’t something you’re born with. Although many people have a natural talent for drawing, to get really relaxed about drawing – so that it becomes second nature – you have to practice pretty much every day.
It doesn’t have to be formal practice, like doing the scales on a piano. I keep a sketch pad next to my sofa, and in between television programs I often do five or six small pencil sketches and value patterns in one night, strictly from imagination. I also like to sketch things I see on TV. (For instance, last night I was trying to do a quick drawing of Nancy Grace, sketching madly every time the camera focused on her.)
    Sometimes I do little drawings of patterns I see on TV. I look at things in the background – the hill at the opening of “Little House on the Prairie†is a good example – and try to divide the picture shape into interesting and varied values (lights and darks), shapes, and sizes.
Sometimes I’m lucky enough to be able to use one of these quick sketches as a basis to develop a painting. (I’ve been known to turn them upside down to stimulate my imagination and find a new picture hiding in the values.)
    Sometimes I just turn to a new sketchbook page and try something else. But any time spent drawing is excellent practice, and sometimes I look back at these sketches and come up with a new idea. One thing to remember if you do this: Keep the sketches small. If it helps, draw a little rectangle on the sketchbook page and stay within that area. Working small keeps you from getting hung up on meaningless detail. If you also paint, use these drawing exercises to keep your mind open to new ideas.
    Sometimes a good picture comes from an accident. In a watercolor workshop a few years ago, I was using a drybrush technique which required wiping excess ultramarine blue paint off my brush onto a large piece of scrap paper. At home, a day or so later, I looked at the scrap paper and noticed the markings made an interesting design with a strong pattern of light and dark. (The white paper was the light, and my “wipe-off†marks were the dark.)
There was a good variety of shapes and after looking at the paper from all sides I could imagine a barn with snow on the roof and a line of trees nearby. So I added some middle tones and used a small brush to indicate tree trunks and barn details. It looked pretty good, so I took a large sheet of watercolor and made a full color painting from my impromptu “value sketch.†The main pattern of values was already worked out for me (thanks to the happy accident of wipe-off brush patterns) and all I had to do was polish it up.
As you do things like this, don’t be trapped into just enlarging what you see. Any kind of painting or drawing is exciting, and much of your sketching will be spontaneous. You should try to keep some of that spontaneity in your paintings. Try to make the painting an individual that stands on its own, not just a copy of your small original idea. This is true whether you are working from a sketch or a reference photo.
Don’t just copy what you see; draw it out in your own way and dump details or unnecessary things (telephone poles, trees, etc.) that detract from the main design. If you wanted it to look exactly like what you’re painting or drawing, than you might as well just take a photo and enlarge it.
Art is supposed to reflect the artist’s personality. So cut loose and have fun with it!
By Kay R. Sluterbeck, AAPJ Columnist