Drawing From Photos And Proud Of It

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Larry Marshall

I just read a great post by Tina Koyama titled Practicing People of the 21st Century. She presents some great drawing exercises to improve the ability to capture people in motion. She also begins her discussion with the notion that “it wouldn’t be so bad…” if she drew from photos.

In my mind, this is THE biggest problem with the urban sketching movement. While we’re ready and willing to tell everyone that drawing from life, on location, is very valuable as a learning tool, we’ve nearly turned our backs completely on all the OTHER ways we can benefit our personal learning curves or are at least apologetic if we do anything that’s not on location. Copying master drawings, doing drawing skill exercises, visual memory exercises, AND DRAWING FROM TV, MOVIES, AND PHOTOS are all important to the development of an artist.

Truth is, you don’t learn much by going out and using your existing skills to draw something for the group throw down at the end of the day for the simple reason that you’re “using your existing skills to draw something.” Just as a baseball player doesn’t learn to hit home runs by playing baseball games, sketchers need activities separate from “creating art to show others” if they are to improve.

I happen to know that Tina, who draws all the time on location, also attends classes at places like the Gage Institute, Daniel Smith store, etc. She need not (should not) excuse herself for drawing from photos, regardless of her goal. I’m sure that she, like everyone else who wants to improve their art, could benefit from trying to make a hyper-realistic drawing from a photo, and there’s no need to be apologetic about it at all.

Just to put a bit of drawing where my mouth is, here is a page from my own practice book. That book holds pages of nothing more than me trying to draw straight lines in parallel or between two dots. There are pages of ellipses, all poorly drawn in evidence of my need for such practice. But since the topic here is drawing from photos, here’s a page of four 10-12 minute (sometimes I cheated on my 10-min limitation) faces. The source for them was Mr. Google. Are they perfect? No, but I’m practicing stuff I’m not good at – if they were perfect there would be no point.

This stuff is practice and neither Tina or I would post any of it except to talk about practicing, and maybe that’s the problem. People wanting to be urban sketchers only see the stuff we’ve done on the streets, sitting on our tripod stools. But, to improve, you need to be doing a lot of this other stuff and to feel proud, not guilty for doing it.

Channeling Pete Scully While Doodling

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I watch TV. I grudgingly admit it, but I have a hard time just watching TV. Typically I’m banging away on my laptop, checking Instagram on my cell phone, or sketching in a cheap sketchbook I keep in the living room.

This behavior becomes extreme during the holiday season because my wife and daughter get into Christmas movie mode and my eyes cross trying to watch them for the umpty-tendy-teenth time. Most were bad enough the first time around.

So, while Grinch was ruining Christmas, I started doodling, using some Prismacolor Col-Erase pencils. I’m not a pencil guy but I like to try to improve my pencil shading skills every once in a while as I’m 1) really bad at it and 2) I find it very meditative.

I was just shading irregular shapes when I noticed my Pete Scully cup. Pete had a Society6 cup made with some of his fire hydrant sketches printed on it and, of course, I had to have one. It holds some drawing tools for desperate times, like when activities unfold in Whoville.

Prismacolor Col-Erase pencils

I didn’t match Pete’s hydrants line for line but the resemblance is there. It was fun. As for the Grinch movie; the book was better.

I Don’t Do Portraits

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Oops…I guess I do.

One thing the art world has taught me is that I don’t have the “people are interesting to look at” gene. While everyone else attends life drawing classes and draws portrait after portrait, I prefer to draw fire hydrants, buildings and telephone poles. I don’t know why but if I were to rank sketching subjects, people would be at the bottom of my list.

BUT, sketching a person walking by a fire hydrant, that’s an interesting idea and so I spend a fair amount of time doing quick, loose sketches of people.

Yet another BUT is that I’ve come to realize that being able to draw a likeness can get you into places. My buddy, Yvan, is always drawing people and because of it people in groups immediately understand him and what he does. It’s harder to comprehend a fire hydrant sketcher.

Also, to me, there are several “core” skills that make up drawing. These are 1) the ability to measure/estimate angles and proportions, 2) achieve accuracy of line and form, and 3) mastery over whatever materials you’re using. I’ve spent the last 3 1/2 years, starting out trying to draw cubes, with a rather myopic “gotta learn those things” approach. I’m getting so that my ability to assess angles and proportions is becoming a feature, not a liability in my sketching, and I’m ok with pushing my fountain pen around (watercolor is another matter).

Canson Mi-Teintes (5x7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black - This is tough with pen but I barely know which end of a pencil to put to paper.

Canson Mi-Teintes (5×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black – This is tough with pen but I barely know which end of a pencil to put to paper.

It seems, however, that fire hydrant drawing can only take you so far when trying to learn form and accuracy and so I’ve spent a lot of time in museums, drawing all sorts of stuff that I would never “choose” to draw, all in the name of improving my accuracy, ability to see half-tones, and the rest. I figure I only have another 40-50 years of doing it and I’ll have it figured out. By the age of 115, I might be able to call myself “artist.”

All of that is to say that I’m even drawing portraits… kinda. I head to a local park every Thursday night, where a small group sits on the porch of a small chapel and we sketch one another, during 20-minute poses. I’ve never mentioned it before because… well, I’m pretty bad at it. I thought, however, I would share a couple of the sketches I’ve done recently, just to change things up here just a bit. It’s ok to laugh.

Canson Mi-Teintes (5x7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black - I'm really lost when it comes to hatching really light shades that are the form of the face.

Canson Mi-Teintes (5×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black – I’m really lost when it comes to hatching really light shades that are the form of the face.