Blue Jay To Sketch

Wait – don’t hit that back button yet! You don’t have to draw every single detail of this scene. Draw a study instead, and no persons or Blue Jays shall be harmed (or overdrawn) in the making of the drawing.

A study is just that. Sketch this scene with an eye to proportion, with emphasis placed on the Blue Jay, and not much else.

I used a grid to help keep the proportions right, and made one for you too.  It’s at the bottom of the post.

The trick to sketching a scene like this in a quick-ish manner is to skip lots of details. You have to learn to tune them out and see only the building blocks and how they’re put together.

Simplified Blue Jay

I’ve blurred the photo in Photoshop to give you an idea of what I mean. Imagine that you’re concentrating on the general shape of things so well that the details blur and, like in this image, you’re left with only big lovely shapes and simplified shading.

(I’ve included this photo at the end of the post too.)

Simplifying the drawing ushers us into an understanding of these drawing rules:

Drawing Rule No. 467.25 – Simple is better.

Drawing Rule No. 467.25.a – To keep it simple, leave stuff out.

Drawing Rule No. 467.25.b – Concentrate on one part of the drawing and let the rest of it follow along.

Line Drawing Of Photo

Here’s my line drawing. What I like best about this photo is the Blue Jay, so I concentrated on drawing him well, but then all those leaves got to me with their sexy negative and positive shapes. I listened to their seductive whispers and drew them too. (When will I ever learn.)

Listening To The Muse (Or Whatever)

Blue Jay Sketch

Here’s the finished drawing. As you can see, I drew very few of the leaves.

The “positive and negative shape” drama was my ego talking. My ego has no taste for hard work though, and takes a hike when it’s time to put the pencil to the paper.

My ego does this to me all the time. It whispers things to me that make my ears tingle. It tells me that if I follow it I’ll be a wonderful artist who creates divinely inspired work! And I fall for this line because I’m human and all that stuff sounds like so much fun … and easy … if only I’d just follow …

… I’d never get anything done!

I know this from lots and lots of experience. The ego’s ideas never work. They’re usually a tiny bit of an idea that’s spun into a overinflated illusion, kind of like cotton candy. (What a disappointment!)

My real Muse is practical. It gives me the information I need to get the drawing done and then it’s ready to move on to the next one. Bingo-Bango, no time to listen for the applause, keep movin’ along there Buckaroo.

Then I get to experience the incredibly good feeling of making progress in the direction I really want to go.

To re-cap:

Ego’s voice = lots of ear tingling ideas that never actually manifest because they aren’t thought out or doable.

Muse’s voice = Get this piece done, start on the next, and don’t look back.

Oh Wait, Is Something Missing?

My dear pencil sisters and brothers, you’re wondering why I veered off course with the Muse talk and where the in-between steps of this drawing are, aren’t you? But the steps are right there in the finished drawing, you big sillies. They always are.

Now I hear someone thinking, “That’s all well and good and Zen, Carol, and we sure are happy that you figured out the Muse thing, but why aren’t you really showing the steps of the drawing?”

The truth is I broke my leg in September. It was wired and bolted back together three months ago, but I can’t get to my scanner, or anywhere else, easily because I’m still wearing a huge (and by huge I mean a Frakking Ginormous, six-strapped, side fortified with aluminum bars with built in rotating knee joints) leg brace, so I told you about the steps of my inner art process instead of showing the drawing steps. I request that you use your imaginations to fill in the visual blanks of this tutorial, please.

Thank you, and keep those pencils moving no matter what big things are weighting you down, or sweet nothings you’re tempted to take a bite of.

Draw on!
Carol

Images To Download

Blue Jay Photo

Simplified Blue Jay

Grid Over Blue Jay

Grid

A Simplified Grid Drawing Plan

•On the paper, draw the same sized gird that’s drawn on the bird. (Use a window as a back-light to see the grid through the paper.)
•Start with the largest shapes, and then add smaller ones later. Use the lines as landmarks to draw them in the right positions, and at the right sizes.

Illusion No. One

Stacked star shapes.

Values drawn side by side seem to become lighter or darker at the edge that meets the next value, and that illusion helps create the look of a three dimensional form. Each step of this computer generated drawing is a single value.

Illusion No. Two

If this image just looks like flat shapes to you, try to see the “lines” that the points of the stacked stars form. Once you find the 3d image, things can get busy as your mind switches back and forth from illusion to reality. You might even be annoyed if your mind can’t settle on one or the other. To avoid this annoying  shift as you draw, concentrate on shading one step at a time.

Peeking Under The Curtain

Flat to 3d and back again visual-flips can happen when you’re drawing anything. Although they can be distracting, these shifts are good because you are creating the illusion of three dimensional form on a flat surface after all. When you see both the illusion and the truth, you’ve peeked under the curtain and seen how the trick is done. Don’t worry though, the innocent magic of drawing will come back to you again and you’ll flip back into illusion mode automatically.

Drop That Protractor!

This isn’t an architectural drawing that has to be perfect. This is a shell. It’s organic and Mother Earth will love you no matter how crooked it looks. Your hand drawn shell will be much nicer than the computer made illustration above. That one has no character. To make sure your shell does have character, don’t trace the outline. Draw the entire thing by hand.

The shading process will be different for everyone depending on the paper, the pencil brand, and how heavily or lightly you make hatching, but here are some general rules for making very dark and/or evenly toned values.

No. 1 – Use sharp points.
No. 2 – Use the writing grip.
No. 3 – Hatch area with soft lead.
No. 4 – Hatch same area with lead 2 steps harder than soft lead.

a. The harder lead darkens the soft lead by pushing it into the grain of the paper.
b. The harder lead also evens out the soft lead’s hatching and makes it look consistent and smooth.

Here’s my shell and how I shaded it.

My shell.

The top step is left untouched.

I shaded the darkest step first.

Then I added second step from the top using a 4H pencil with a very light touch.

After I had those two values added, I could judge what value to make the two in-between steps.

(Hint: Try a 2B over a 4B pencil for the darkest value first, and then move to softer leads if that’s not dark enough.)

Enjoy!

Carol

This three dimensional shading exercise is much easier than it looks because it’s created with the same style of gradation around each “petal” of the form. I’ve inserted the Don’t Panic button though, just in case you think you might need it but, honestly, you won’t. :)

Eight Section 3D Shape

Mental Health Note: There’s no need to finish this drawing in one sitting, and drawings never really have to be perfect, so stay mellow my fellow pencil sisters and brothers. Like nearly everything else in life, drawing is more fun when you’re relaxed.

Supplies: You’ll need an HB pencil, a sharpener, smooth or medium drawing paper, a kneaded eraser, a battery powered eraser if you draw your own design, and there’s a template to download at the bottom of the post.

Line Drawing Creation

If you want to draw this eight section design yourself, you can see how I did it in this image.

I got lucky and picked the right sized large and small circle templates on the first try, but the trick is that the small circles need to be about the width of one section to fit side by side in larger circle. For the most shapely petals though, make the small circles large enough to overlap each other a bit.

To finish the design, I drew an arc from each small circle to the center of the large one.

Extra Lines Erased

Here’s the design with the extra marks erased.

I used a kneaded eraser to lighten the lines as much as I could first, and then used a battery powered eraser to remove the rest of them. I used the kneaded eraser first as a precaution because sometimes battery powered erasers smear heavily applied graphite with such force that it leaves an embedded smudge that’s nearly impossible to remove.

Flat Pencil Tip

I used an HB pencil for the entire drawing and a flattened pencil point for the hatching. I wanted to preserve the hatching’s texture so I didn’t use any blending tools. (Blending tools smear hatching.)

Brief Flat Pencil Point How-To

Create a flat pencil point by running it back and forth over scrap paper and use it by bringing the flat point directly over to the drawing without shifting your grip on the pencil.

1. Outlined petal.

A three step process to shade each petal.

1. Draw a dark line around the edge. (I wouldn’t normally start a drawing this way, but in this case I wanted the edge around each shape to be the deepest part, and deepest equals darkest in this situation.)

In the simple lighting used for this shape:
Light = Up
Dark = Down

2. Gradated edge.

2. Shade around the inner edge with a short gradation that lightens to the middle of the petal.

3. Filled with hatching.

3. Fill in the rest of the shape with a light hatch.

Finish with highlights.

A Graceful Ending

To finish, shape a kneaded eraser into a medium round tip and use a tapping motion to lighten the center of each petal. So that the petals all match, save this step for last so you can work on all of them at the same time.

Kneaded Eraser Tip Shapes

The tapping motion lifts and lightens the graphite and leaves the texture alone.

To smooth any unevenness or get rid of distracting dark spots, gently tap those areas with a small round or pointed tip.

Tidy Line Drawing

Here’s a tidy line drawing to download if you want to trace the design. This a large version that you can reduce to the size you prefer.

Line Drawing PDF

Draw, relax, and have fun everyone,
c