The Beauty of Line
The journey of an artist's development is filled with twists and turns. We learn new techniques, abandon old ones, get enthralled by colour mixing, and focus on surface texture, sometimes forgetting the importance of a simple pencil sketch. I was guilty of this until the other day!
The Power of a Sketch
I was clearing away stuff in my studio and decided to flick through some old sketchbooks. I was stunned by what I saw. I had been grappling with ways to bring more drawn lines into my paintings, and here in front of me was the answer. Within these gestural sketches, I saw so much rich information. Using only lines they communicated a sense of energy and scale, movement and drama, whilst nailing some bold and daring compositions. These lines seemed to dance on the page and the scribbles screamed of a rawness that’s so hard to capture in paint.
Vital Lines
It made me realise as I develop as a painter, how vital these sketches are. How, if we look close enough, they can provide us with a wealth of inspiration that could directly feed into our paintings.
I remember so well the day I started to infuse my sketches with movement and emotion. I was out drawing and it was a wild, stormy day. The clouds were racing and trees were crazily rustling to the point of bending over. I wanted to capture the movement and aliveness but I only had graphite pencils. Feeling constrained by the limited materials, I abandoned attempts to draw the clouds and instead scribbled the sensation of the wind.
WOW! Suddenly my drawing came to life.
I had interpreted the FEELING, not the vision. This way of expressive mark-making has Infused my art ever since.
In the YOUTUBE clip below I talk about how I bring a sense of weather and scale into a day sketching on Dartmoor and how the sketches could inspire future paintings.
Creating Tone
Before you head out to try to work gesturally in graphite it’s worth knowing that not all pencils work! To create a range of expressive tonal marks you need a really soft pencil. Ideally one with really dark graphite. The brand ‘Koh-I-Noor’ are the blackest I’ve found. I’ve experimented with many types over the years and my feeling is 6B and above are by far the best. They are soft enough to get dark buttery marks, yet can easily be sharpened to create delicate marks too. Anything harder than 6B and it’s trickier to create tone.
I’ve also explored several sketchbook brands. Personally, I just love the small black square ones from Seawhites. They are compact and chunky, and small enough to fit in any bag. They come in a few sizes but are still small enough to carry around easily. The papers great for pencil and pastel but strong enough to hold ink too. The square shape means it can open out to a long format, which is just perfect for landscape drawing.
I think I was supposed to find these old sketches. I feel I’ve reconnected with an old close friend and now realise the value and place they have in my current daily practice as an artist. It made me SO excited to begin incorporating them into my new work that i’ve repacked my plein air kit with a couple of these sketchbooks!
Below is a list of links to all the drawing materials I’ve mentioned.
Each week I’m going to create new info to share with you via this blog. So to hear about my inspiration, new techniques, as well as new courses in the pipe line, just subscribe below!
Happy Sketching
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