I know that lots of artists may look down their noses at the thought of doing preliminary drawings, but those folks are either master craftsmen who have painted their subject matter hundreds of times, or they are wide-eyed novices who don’t want to ‘cripple their artistic muse’ by having a preconceived notion of what they’re trying to express.
A preliminary drawing is sort of like a road map.
You probably know how to get around your state and where the major cities lie, but you don’t know exactly how to get to each one or where to go once you’re there. That’s where a road map comes in handy to help you see what’s up ahead, the distance from one place to another and how different cities connect with each other through various routes.
Think of a preliminary drawing as a way to help you work more efficiently and more expediently throughout the creation process. By having a roadmap, you get to sit back and enjoy the ride a whole lot more and worry about how you’re going to get there a whole lot less.
1. Get Familiar With Your Subject
Most of us think we know what a tree looks like. But do you know everything about how a tree appears? We tend to have preconceived notions about what something looks like. However, you may be wrong – I know I often am.
For example, I was sketching a cat face the other day. I had no reference material or model to work from, but that’s okay – I know what a cat looks like. Nope. Did you know that a cat’s whisker follicles are set in straight rows? I didn’t, and because I assumed something, my drawing was really incorrect.
Work from reference materials or from a model. You can evaluate the need for detail, consider the how the entire shape is formed and what are the important parts you need to include for clarity.
2. Conceptualization and Composition
Your composition is so important to your painting. Setting your subject in the right arrangement, at the right angle and with the right amount of light and shadow is critical. What good are painting skills if your composition is bad? All that does is turn off your audience and makes your painting look amateurish.
Conceptualizing and composition go hand in hand. You need to get onto paper what you’re seeing in your mind. This grounds your composition and you can see where the strengths and weaknesses of your idea lie.
You may do several drawings with different arrangements and points of view to see which setup makes the best statement. This is also the time to put your personality into the concept. What your subject says and how you feel about it can start right there in the preliminary sketch.
3. Evaluating Your Values
Because a preliminary drawing is black, white and shades of gray, your thought process isn’t constrained by local color. You can play with varying levels of value to bring to forward focal points or subdue areas with too much going on.
When you add color to a concept, you begin to base decisions on color rather than the strength of the composition.
4. Details And Fine Tuning
When you’re working out how you want your audience to see your painting, you want them to look at particular focal points and to have their eyes move across the painting in a particular manner. Using a combination of hard and soft edges, tight detail and loose, airy sections are all devices to control the audience response to your painting.
Soft edges allow the eye to move across the area while hard edges are like a traffic bump – your viewer pays more attention to them and pauses to consider that portion of your painting. Details are another way to stop the viewer for a second look while loose representations tend recede and become part of the backdrop.
By planning out some or all of these decisions before beginning your painting, you liberate yourself. The tough decisions have all been taken care of, so you’re free to enjoy the colors and texture of the paint and really get in the groove without the need to stop and ponder what should go where or how something should be portrayed.
