THE IMPORTANCE OF ACCURATE DRAWING...

To communicate effectively with our drawings - and make them appeal to our audience - they must be a good likeness of our subject matter. Whether you are drawing to create a finished drawing or drawing as the foundation for an oil, acrylic, water-colour or pastel work, your drawing needs to be accurate. It’s one thing creating a finished drawing that isn’t right and having to abandon it but imagine the wasted time and effort on discovering your beautiful water-colour or oil painting isn’t right as a result of poor initial drawing?

If you are drawing as preliminary work for a painting, or drawing guidelines prior to creating a finished work in pencil or pen, then treat that drawing as you would the foundation for a house you were about to build. No matter how beautiful the finished house might look, if the foundation is poorly built...well, you know what I’m getting at...

LEARNING TO DRAW IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK...

We all know that there are a few people to whom drawing comes naturally but for the majority of us, we need to learn how to do it. Drawing, like so many things in life, can be learned easily and (almost) painlessly when it is taken in simple steps. Anyone can pick up a pencil and try to draw something and sometimes it will work and other times it won’t. It is often at that point, when it doesn’t work, that most people will abandon the idea of ever being able to draw. None of us would visit a foreign country and expect to communicate properly with the native people without learning their language. Drawing is also a form of communication and we need to be able to convince people that we know what we are doing when they look at our work.

It always intrigues me how someone who knows absolutely nothing about *perspective can look at, for example, a badly drawn building and know right away that it hasn’t been drawn correctly. How does he or she know that it’s not right when they don’t know about perspective to begin with? To know what isn’t right, they must know somewhere in their mind what is right and therefore with a bit of guidance they should be able to draw that same building correctly.

*Do not be scared of the word perspective. I am introducing it slowly as I know that it scares a lot of people and I want you to become used to it. It is so important to draw things in perspective and, by taking it one step at a time, you will master it quicker than you think!

THE BEGINNING...

Ever since prehistoric man rummaged in the dying embers of a fire, picked up a *burnt stick and drew on cave walls,
drawing has held a fascination for us. There is something almost magical about being able to take a pencil and create a three-dimensional image on the flat surface of a piece of paper. It can be practised almost anywhere and, with the basic requirements being only a pencil or pen and a sketch book, it needn’t cost the earth...it's easy to see why it is such a popular pastime.

Although drawing will bring you immense pleasure when everything is going well, those of you who are already drawing will know only too well the frustration that can be felt when you just can’t quite get something right. How many of us have torn up drawings or vowed never to draw again when we are struggling to draw a smooth curve or have a problem with (that dreaded word) perspective? How many of you are convinced you can’t draw and are reluctant to start because your first attempts may receive harsh judgement from others?

Up until we were about six or seven years old it never bothered us to show our drawings to others. Then, round about that age, we seemed to become conscious of comments on our efforts and sadly, such criticism caused a number of people to give up at that point. I am hoping that by reading this, it will encourage those of you who always wanted to draw - but who haven't picked up a pencil since your childhood - to make a start now. I am also hoping that those of you who are drawing and painting will learn a thing or two along the way to help and motivate you...and remember, if anyone ever criticises your work, ask them to show you their drawings!

*Interesting fact...although we have moved on a little from cave walls, believe it or not, we are still drawing with burnt sticks. Modern charcoal is simply charred twigs, usually from the willow tree!

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William