Large Drawing of Choice

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

Have the freedom to create drawings of subjects you choose with the tools and techniques your have learned throughout the book.

For this chapter you will be free to choose what you want to draw. This may seem liberating, if you already have some ideas in mind, or daunting, if you unsure and cannot narrow down the millions of options out there. Regardless of if you have something in mind or not, make sure the subject is complex enough to fill the time requirements. The drawing will use a full sheet of paper and take four hours to draw. You do not have to complete it in one sitting. Even a simple subject can take a long time to develop if many intricate details and shading are incorporated. Remember the simple glass bowl and all its subtle shading you did for exercise 6.4? On the other hand, a very complex subject, if not fully developed, may look simple and not appear to have taken long to draw. When choosing your subject or subjects, make sure there is enough complexity that will allow you to develop the drawing for the full amount of time.

Things to consider when choosing your subject:

• It is important to make sure the subject is interesting enough to you that you will want to work on its development for a long period of time. If a subject has no meaning to you or you just pick something random, then you may lose interest and it will be harder to maintain attention.
• If you have problems coming up with a subject, a good way to start is to ask yourself what are your favorite hobbies, people, places, or things of interest.
• If you plan on drawing a real life area or subject over an extended period of time, you will want to find a comfortable place to sit. Also, it is a good idea to not do the entire drawing in one sitting. If you plan on developing your drawing over many days, make sure objects within the picture plane will not move on you. Also, over time, lighting may change throughout the day, which may affect how shading is applied.
• Watch out for subjects that may appear simple, but are rather complex. You may decide to draw a landscape with trees, bushes, a lake, mountains, and clouds. Alternately, you may choose a subject, such as an animal with a lot of fur or a bird with many feathers. If you zoom in close to areas within these subjects, you may notice how abstract things look. How will you draw a clump of leaves, hair, or feathers? What about all the intricate ripples on water or the cracks and crevasses of the mountain? For abstract or cluttered areas such as these, it may help to generalize these areas in a way that you are not drawing each hair or each leaf. To do this you will need to minimize the number of details and still represent the subject well enough.