T&T Thursday!

Sharpening the Mind's Eye

By Barbara Weeks

Photo Flip

Let’s face it almost all drawing is, in a way, memory drawing. Whether it’s a past vacation vista or the second it takes to look from your subject to your paper, it’s your mind’s eye holding the image for you to draw. 

The Trick  

Develop that eye to keep the image true while you transfer it to the paper.

The Tip

Do memory exercises – the sharpen your memory the better your drawing.

Here are a few games to get you started

1. The Photo Flip 

You can use a photograph or an image from a magazine or newspaper. Choose something in the photo that attracts you. Study and simplify your chosen image carefully but quickly, twenty seconds tops.  Now, flip the photo over and draw what you remember. Try it again with the same photo, this time study it for ten seconds. How much more did you remember?

One of my favorite books on drawing is The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study by Kimon Nicolaides (1891-1938) and one of my favorite quotes from the book is:

“Try not to remember merely the position of the model, just as when you memorize a poem you are not just trying to memorize just the shapes of the letters.”

2. Quick Sips

Go to a cafe, a sporting event, or really anywhere people gather. Choose someone to draw. Observe them carefully. You won’t be able to control the amount of time you have since they will move. You can count on that! Now draw what you remember. Wait a bit and you’ll find they’ll return to the same pose again and again. Draw them again. And again. How do your sketches compare? While you're waiting for them to return to the same pose choose another subject and use the same techniques. 

Karate Class

3. Red Light Green Light 

When you’re a passenger in a car and the car stops for a red light observe what you see out the window. When the light turns green sketch what you saw. (Sometimes as a variation I may just see how long I can hold the afterimage in my mind.)

Bison, Yellowstone National Park

4. No Erasers Allowed 

Rather than do a new sketch for each observation in these exercises try them by drawing over/correcting your original sketch.

Another quote from Nicolaides

“Memory drawing is a little like touch typing. If you try consciously to think of where the letters are you are likely to become confused, but if you rely on your sense of touch you can become very accurate.”

Powerful observational skills and a strong visual memory are a tremendous skills for an Urban Sketcher who shares a view of a fast moving world. Practicing observation and memory skills will improve your on location sketching. 

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T&T Thursday

Sketching Blindly

Through Years and Changes 

By  Alex Zonis

Some things get old - desktop computers? Some get obsolete - VCRs? Some even become a joke - telephone books lol. But some only become better with age - classical music, fine wine. Blind contour drawing belongs in this category.

Some years ago I wrote about blind contour drawing at a boring benefit as a method of saving ourselves from falling asleep. The world changed. Now we don’t have too many in person benefits to attend, but we have day-long Zoom conferences, multi-hour webcasts, online team meetings across time zones. Here is my old article is as relevant as ever!

How many times did you have to attend a boring event? Yep, me too. Often it is a fancy party or a benefit for some very noble cause you get to attend with your spouse. It is their cause, and you are just along for solidarity and support. Yawn! 

But don't fret! We got you covered! All you need is this:

A little book and a pen will fit in your evening clutch or sport coat pocket. 

• Get them out when they will begin speeches. 
• Keep your eyes on the speaker. It is too dark to see anything on your paper anyway. 
• Have the pen touch the paper and go. 
• Trace the shape of his head with your eyes and let your fingers follow with the pen. 
• Then his neck and shoulders. 
• What is he wearing? Trace those lapels. 
• Is there any hair? Add it, if applicable. 

If you want, you can glance down at your paper every so often - this is not a test.

When you have the basic outline down add some darks.

• Just scribble in any way you like to create dark masses.
• Add facial features without being too specific.
• Put in some details, if you have time: a tie, a necklace if any. 

You are done! 

Turn the page and find another victim attendee.

You may find that your heads are sometimes detached from shoulders. Facial features may land outside the heads, a tie may be pinned to a shoulder like a tail on a donkey. This all is fine and even great, you don't have to show your drawings to anyone. You will also find these sketches oddly expressive and free. And you will realize that you are no longer bored. In fact you may not even notice that they finished with speeches, and it is time for the rubber chicken. Good. You can sketch that woman sitting across from you.

What you are doing is practicing blind contour drawing.  Blind contour drawing is a method of drawing where an artist draws the contour of a subject without looking at the paper. This artistic technique was introduced by Kimon Nicolaïdes in The Natural Way to Draw, and then made popular in Betty Edwards'  The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

Nicolaïdes instructed his students to imagine that the pencil point is actually touching the contour of the subject. He suggested that the technique improves students' drawings because it causes students to use both senses of sight and touch. Blind contour drawing trains the eye and hand to work as a team, and it helps to really see all of the details of the object. 

The drawings above I sketched blindly in the dark at a benefit for Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis I attended with my husband. The speeches were coma inducing and the chicken awful… I had fun!

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T&T Thursday!

Fountain Pen Anatomy 

By Alex Zonis

Sketch by Alex Zonis

Fountain pens in Urban Sketching have become all the rage. Pen geeks huddle together at sketchmeets, show off their treasures and talk nerdy talk about “tines”, “feeds”,“converters” and other incomprehensible things that have meaning only to them. It is time to stop this and share the pen terminology with all.

Fountain pen is a complex tool with some ingenious engineering under the outer covers.

It consists of many components that come together to deliver ink to paper in a controlled fashion.

Here’s a look under the hood so to speak.

The most important part of the pen is of course the nib. The nib is world onto itself, they come in many varieties, materials, sizes and configurations, but all have common components.

Just a couple important points about the fountain pen nibs:

• There are several shapes of the tips that make significant difference in marks making. Tips can be round or flat, as in stubs and italics. Tips can also be bent, also known as Fude, for Chinese style calligraphy marks.

• Nibs come in different widths: EF, F, M, B, BB, 1.1mm, 1.5mm and others.

• They come in different softness: hard, soft or Flex.

• The most common materials for the nib are steel and gold, but other metals can be used for nibs as well.

The combinations of these characteristics can create a nib for every hand, style and technique.

The nib by itself would not be worth much if the pen didn’t have a system to deliver ink to the tipping point where the nib meets the paper. 

These are the parts of ink delivery system:

And there we have it – 

the fountain pen anatomy that makes a timeless tool for writing, drawing, sketching and admiring.

Learn Tips and Tricks here every second and third Thursday of the month!

T&T Thursday!

 

Don't Look!

By Barbara Weeks

Too Much Espresso

Well, don't look at your paper; do look intently at you subject and draw it!

Blind-Contour Drawing

By definition a blind-contour drawing is drawing the outline of your subject without looking at your paper. I'm using the term contour  loosely. In this T&T I'm suggesting you use a combination of contour and continuous-line drawing.

How?

• Choose your subject and decide where you're going to start.

• Put your pencil, pen, or marker on the paper at your starting point and begin.

• Do not look at your paper until you are finished. (I know it's hard, but don't cheat!)

• Believe your pen is touching the edge of your subject and begin to move along the form with your eye on your subject and your pen on the paper. Imagine your pen feeling the line, the curves, each noon and cranny.

• Draw without lifting your pen off the paper.

Yikes! Blind Contour Selfie!

                                            

Hints:

• Think in terms of line, shape, direction, sharp, rounded, etc. rather than objects.

• Draw at a consistent pace.

• When you reach a point where two lines intersect or two forms meet you don't have to stay on the outer edge, (think continuous line not contour) but keep your pen on the paper.

When you're back where you started take a look at your drawing. You'll probably see some distortions, way off proportions, but some areas may be remarkably accurate. You may also see energy, sensitivity, and an expressive line that aren't present in other drawings. Whatever you see, there are real benefits to blind contour exercises.

One hanger, four times

Benefits:

• Improves your eye-hand coordination.

• Encourages you to draw what you see, not what you know.

• It helps you understand your subject.

• You become more involved in the process rather than product.

• Continuous-line, blind-contour drawings are a great way to warm up for a drawing session.

• For urban sketchers it's good experience for when we're drawing in the dark, in our pockets, or under the table!

• It's fun!

Try it and post your sketches to on Facebook !  #T&T

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