A Feeble Gradation

I’m sure you’ve made scribbled ribbons before. You draw them with the side of the pencil lead and they have a 3D look. While drawing a few of them myself, I realized that these loops and curves bubble over with drawing goodness.

Solid Form In Space!

If you’ve never had the idle time it takes to learn this doodle technique, you poor thing, it’s really simple. Just lay the pencil low on the paper, and put a bit more weight on the lead tip as you draw. That pressure creates automatic shading, but don’t get too excited about the “automatic” thing, because it’s a feeble effect at best. The real fun comes when you make that fuzzy ribbon shape into a solid form in space. And what’s not to love about form in space!

::: And now, here’s a word from my easily distracted mind. :::

My Unified Theory Of Form In Space

If there was only one form floating in space, and the form got lonely and looked deeply into space to find another, the form would see that space encloses it marking the boundary between where space isn’t and form is. Form and Space can’t exist without each other, so neither one of them is ever alone, and form can be happy once again. And space probably feels a lot better about things too.

::: Back To Our Drawing! :::

Have you noticed that when you draw with the side of the pencil in an overhand grip that your elbow swings freely? (Non-Subtle Hint: If it doesn’t. Try again.) Really get into that elbow freedom and see how much more zingy and wild the ribbons look. Now try to tame some of that wildness, because its awesome to be able to draw freely and with some control. It gives your visual language more range.

Practice for a while. Pretend that a real ribbon is flowing out of the pencil tip and you’re a sculptor who can swoop it around wherever you want.

Power-Up

Now select a nice looking ribbon and draw it into the next level of ribbon-hood.

Scribble Light Source

But, two things before you begin:

• Lighting
• Where is it coming from? (It’s to the right side and slightly behind the ribbons I drew. Yours will probably be the same, but you should check.
  Keep the lighting consistent across the entire ribbon.
• Detail
• If this is a real ribbon seen from the side, then one edge must be in front of the other.
  Figuring this out is trickier than it sounds, especially if the ribbon has lots of loop and twists. It’s a visual puzzle and, believe me, you run into visual puzzles all the time when you draw.

Your challenge is to make the ribbon’s gradation firm (solid, not spotty, smooth) and the edges sharp (not fuzzy), because these are the characteristics of a real ribbon. Switch to a normal writing grip to do these things.

Sharp Edges and Cross-Overs

The front edge of the ribbon probably looks about right, so just run a sharp pencil point over it to tidy-up that edge. The back edge is the end of a gradation that has no firm stopping point, so it’ll need more focused attention. A sharp pencil tip will do the trick here too, but keep it very light because that’s the brightest part of the ribbon. If you need to backtrack and lighten it up, tap it with a kneaded eraser.

Now tackle the cross-overs and cast shadows. If you need some help, arrange a light source in about the same position, hold a strip of paper near it, bend and loop it, and take mental notes. You’re shading doesn’t have to be perfect to suggest realism, but a model helps you keep it in the same ballpark, and that helps a lot.

Scribbled Ribbon Goodness

For more challenging form building delight, try to make the ribbon look rolled, folded, twirled, crinkled, or take it wherever your ribbon drawing instincts tell you to go. This is mine.

One thing leads to another.

Scribbled Ribbon Fantasy

Art making is all about following leads or prompts. One shape might need another for balance, a half-wild pencil stroke might remind you of something else, the overall design might cry out for something more, and many times the request will require you to stretch past your comfort zone. Follow these instructions and grow. Don’t follow them and enter stasis.

Here’s a glimpse into the prompts I followed when I drew this strange bird-plant-thing.

I left the original ribbon on the left side so you could see it’s swirling fun-ness.

—>The loops on the right side reminded me of coiled fern leaves, so I added details to suggest something similar. —>The coiled leaves made me think of flowers and buds and such, so I drew a seed pod. —>The seed pod was shaped a little like a bird’s head, so I added a beak and a closed eye. —> Since it’s a plant, or something close to one, I added roots.

Words on curvy lines.

But words in straight lines can’t capture how that felt, so here are words on curvy lines that come closer.

PencilandPaper App With Grid On

I was looking at iPod apps the other day when I came across a neat one called PencilandPaper. It puts a grid over a photo so you can draw it, and it has a few other helpful tricks too. (There are more screen captures with comments at the end of the post.)

Square-ish Enough Grid (Not)

Of course I wanted to share this wonderful find with my fellow pencil enthusiasts (aka “you guys”) right away, so I drew a hasty grid (that I thought looked square-ish enough), plotted out this line drawing from a photo of my cat, added clever and subtle shading, and smiled (smugly) to myself as I thought what an easy blog post this would be. Ha! Wrong again!!

My Cat Looking Distorted

When the drawing of my cat started to look distorted, I naturally blamed the app for making me draw the width and height incorrectly because my motto is, “It’s not my fault!”

Please side step into this thought bubble with me for a moment. I searched around for other grid apps and there are quite a few of them. Was I the only one who didn’t know that? Yes! I suspect I was, because I’m totally clueless most of the time. If you come across a neat-o drawing tool, just assume I don’t know about it and give me a heads-up, willya? I’ll gleefully accept any help offered. :)

Molly The Cat - Fixed

Okey Dokey, back to the present. After I got over blaming the app for my cockeyed drawing, I took a look at the grid I drew and it was in no way “square-ish enough.” It wobbled and slanted and no two sections measured the same. So, I decided to try and fix the drawing and to show you the entire mess because, well I’m not sure why, but I didn’t let that stop me!

Questions And Answers!

Here are some questions that might be going through your mind about the drawing method I used here. I’ll do my best to answer them!

• Why did you choose such a dark photo?
  Next question please.
• What paper and pencils did you use?
  Very soft pencils (6B & 7B wooden Derwents) and the paper in my Moleskine journal.
  
• That paper isn’t really meant for drawing is it?
  No, it’s not.
  
• Well, why did you use it then?
  Because it feels velvety and it’s in an awfully cute notebook.
  
• Do you often make decisions based on touch and level of cuteness.
  Yes. For example, that’s how I chose my husband.
  
• All in all Carol, do you regret choosing such a low quality photo and drawing it on such poor quality drawing paper?
  No.
  
• Do you think you’ll make this series of bad choices, or similar bad choices, again?
  Yes! I absolutely will.
  
• Aren’t you a little embarrassed about that?
  Not at all. I understand that mistakes are great teachers who test and strengthen me. Sometimes, as I watch a series of bad decisions unfold, I create an even more productive strength training session by pondering questions such as; How long will this go on? Where will it end? Will I ever recover? Where can I bury the body?

PencilandPaper iPod App

PencilandPaper App With Grid On

Here’s the pencilandpaper app, which is simple and intuitive to use. The grid toggles off and on, which is handy. The app toggles color photos to black and white too.

Contrast Slider

It has an awesome contrast slider too, that helps you see the outlines more clearly.

Close-up With Grid

And it has a great zoom. Here it is with the grid on.

Close-Up With Grid Off

And here’s the zoom with grid off, and this is what made me so excited. This is a screen capture from my ipod and, considering how small and how dark the photo is, that’s pretty darned good detail on her face!

With this kind of detail I can draw from any photo right from my iPod, which has become the other half of my brain and never leaves my side, so now I’m a walkin’ talkin’ drawing machine.

If you already have a grid app on your computer or other device, one of the most exciting ways to find your next drawing is to hunt for it in photos. Use the grid as a frame to isolate parts of the photo for super close-up work, or find nicely composed abstract elements with it.

Happy drawing everyone!
Carol

Olives From Outer Space (Unstuffed)

Push It Down and Pull It Up

One of my readers asked what “push down” and “pull up” mean when I talk about shading. To explain, think of a real ball. The top of the ball is nearest you, and the sides curve away. Without trying to explain how it works technically, because that makes my head hurt, when you draw using this simple lighting scheme, dark shadow means that part is farther away or is pushed down into the paper. Highlighting means it’s coming closer, or is pulled up to the top of the paper surface. If you’re really good, you can make that part of the drawing pop out of the paper.

(Warning: I’m speaking visually here. If you drew so well as to make the drawing actually break through the surface plane of the paper, you might tear a hole in reality and collapse the universe in on itself. For this reason, please consult Peter Hawking before attempting.)

Anyway, not all lighting is this simple, but that’s why this is my default doodle lighting, despite the danger of universal collapse.

Fortune Cookie Art Wisdom: Dreams drawn on frail paper will not last.

Because the paper I used has a very thin tooth, I used extremely soft leads – 7B, 8B, & 9B. Thin or smooth grained paper doesn’t take dark values well because the tooth, or grain, can’t hold much graphite. The shading literally fell off this drawing, despite using those super soft leads.

Spaces between inked-in.

In other words, this poor doodle was wimpy to the max. So I used a black (Pitt) pen to “punch down” the darkest areas for dramatic contrast. Not that I expected to create drama in a doodle of unstuffed olives, but what the heck. If you try this too, be aware that you’re always one cat head bump away from a permanent blotch where you don’t want one.

Here’s how I shaded these things.

Single value flat shading.

1. I shaded them all with a single value hatch. I also call this kind of shading “flat” because it looks flat.

First sphere form shading around outer edge.

2. To make the spheres look round, I added a darker ring  of hatching around the circles edges.

Second sphere form shading around outer edge.

3. Then I added even more dark hatching. Notice that the circle turned into a sphere here.

Smoothed sphere shading.

4. I “smoothed” the hatching by going over it in different directions.

An omnidirectional shading over any other shading usually blends them together and makes them look smoother.

Rim around lip of sphere.

5. Finally, I added a rim around the holes to make the walls of the spheres look “olive-like.”

Floating spheres.

You can see an exaggerated version of our lighting scheme in this image. The lightest sphere seems to be floating above the darker ones.

.

.

The Memory Of Light And A Fashion Tip

We don’t really draw things, you know, we draw the way light looks on things. When you doodle from your imagination, you’re drawing the memory of light, and that’s so mind-bending-ly awesome that knowing it gives you that mysterious and far-away look that goes so well with your artist’s attire.

Doodle-On Everyone!

c