Lee J. Ames - 11 Sept

Draw 50 Airplanes, Aircraft, and SpacecraftDraw 50 AliensDraw 50 Animal ToonsDraw 50 AnimalsDraw 50 AthletesDraw 50 Baby AnimalsDraw 50 BeastiesDraw 50 BirdsDraw 50 Boats, Ships, Trucks, and TrainsDraw 50 Buildings and Other StructuresDraw 50 Cars, Trucks, and MotorcyclesDraw 50 CatsDraw 50 Creepy CrawliesDraw 50 Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric AnimalsDraw 50 DogsDraw 50 Endangered AnimalsDraw 50 Famous CartoonsDraw 50 Flowers, Trees, and Other PlantsDraw 50 HorsesDraw 50 Magical CreaturesDraw 50 MonstersDraw 50 PeopleDraw 50 PrincessesDraw 50 Sharks, Whales, and Other Sea CreaturesDraw 50 VehiclesDraw the Draw 50 Way Copyright 1993 by Jocelyn S. Ames and Murray D. Zak All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Watson-Guptill Publications, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York, in 2012. WATSON-GUPTILL and the WG and Horse designs are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc., New York, in 1993. The Library of Congress has catalogued the Doubleday edition as follows: Ames, Lee J.
Draw 50 people/Lee J.

Ames with Creig Flessel.1st ed.
p.cm.
1. Portrait drawingTechnique. I. Flessel, Creig. II. Title.

III.
Title: Draw fifty people.
NC773.A46 1993
743.4dc20 eISBN: 978-0-8230-8597-2 v3.1

We, Creig and Lee,
raise a toast,
a Berndt Toast,
to a prince among people,
Chuck Harriton,
who will be sorely missed. I have known, respected, and admired Creig for over thirty years. In our Berndt Toast Gang, the largest branch of the National Cartoonists Society, Creig, our leader, whom we have dubbed The Infallible, and whose light, bright, and lusty drawings have enchanted us for decades, offers these thoughts Writers, critics, and artists have for aeons tried to describe and explain drawing. They have written: Hes a great draughtsman; He draws with calligraphic verve; a linear delight with a personal, exciting line. Etcetera, etcetera. What do they mean? Picasso, Ingres, and Mary Cassatt were great draughtspersons, but were all very different.

John Singer Sargents delightful calligraphic brush strokes were exciting. Picassos line was honest. The art of drawing has been analyzed, dissected, and even Freudianized through the ages by expert and dilettante critics. So lets get personal and get to the basics: What is a drawing? Our tools can be pencil, pen, charcoal, pastel, a computer, and, of course, the right side of the brain. In art school in 1932, my instructor was the legendary Harvey Dunn, a mountain of a man who used a two-inch-wide brush. He used his drawing skill by daubing the paint on his canvas in a thick impasto.

He blended his shapes and colors by twirling his brush in the heavy paint. We stood in awe and murmured, Some draughtsman! Wow! Mario Cooper, our class monitor, used colored inks, photographs, and watercolors to produce his fine slick illustrations. He later earned an outstanding reputation as one of our top magazine artists. Great draughtsman, we murmured. I soon found myself delighted with the work of giants like Noel Sickles, Al Dorne, Austin Briggs, Dik Browne, Stan Drake, Lou Fine, and Alex Kotsky All great draughtsmen. The best! Dik Brownes palette, when he was working on his comic strip Hagar the Horrible, looked like Jackson Pollocks paint rags.

His brushes were frayed. His pens were thickly caked with India ink. But what a great draughtsman, he was! In contrast, Alex Kotsky is meticulously neat when he works on his comic strip, Apartment 3G. Stan Drake, who formerly drew The Heart of Juliet Jones and is now doing Blondie, used photographs projected onto the surface of his drawing paper. Super draughtsmen? Definitely. It has taken me a lifetime to answer this question: What is a drawing? Better still, what is my drawing? Of course, I cant be objective or offer a quick, simple answer.

I know what emerges is a part of me. It is my own mark, my stamp. Ive been told, Your drawings are better than your finished paintings. How true. I try to keep the original thought and the creative excitement all the way through to my finished artwork. But sometimes the clear, spontaneous concept becomes muddled and overworked.

The real draughtsmanship is accomplished with the first marks of a pencil, pen, or brush. Many of us make renderings, renderings that are detailed delineations, shaped, shaded, and detailed to a fare-thee-well. I have rendered many turkeys! But once in a while, I make a drawing! This is indeed another Draw 50, with emphasis on basic construction of the human figure. It is my wish that it may free you to be you and to draw, not render. C REIG F LESSEL

When you start working I suggest you use clean white bond paper or drawing paper and a pencil with moderately soft lead (HB or No. 2).

Keep a kneaded eraser (available at art supply stores) handy. Choose the subject you want to draw and then, very lightly and very carefully, sketch out the first step. Also very lightly and carefully, add the second step. As you go along, study not only the lines but the spaces between the lines. Size your first steps to fill your drawing paper agreeably, not too large, not too small. Remember, the first steps must be constructed with the greatest care.

A mistake here could ruin the whole thing. As you work, its a good idea, from time to time, to hold a mirror to your sketch. The image in the mirror frequently shows distortion you might not have recognized otherwise. You will notice new step additions are printed darker. This is so they can be clearly seen. But keep your construction steps always very light.

Heres where the kneaded eraser can be useful. You can lighten a pencil stroke that is too dark by pressing on it with the eraser. When youve completed all the light steps and are sure you have everything the way you want it, finish your drawing with firm, strong penciling. If you like, you can go over this with India ink (applied with a fine brush or pen), or a permanent fine-tipped ballpoint or felt-tipped marker. When your work is thoroughly dry, you can then use the kneaded eraser to clean out all the underlying pencil marks. Remember, if your first attempts at drawing do not turn out the way youd like, its important to keep trying.

Your efforts will eventually pay off, and youll be pleased and surprised at what you can accomplish. I sincerely hope, as you follow our techniques, youll improve your own skills. Mimicking the drawings in this book can open the door to your own creativity. Now have a great time drawing us, drawing people! L EE J. A MES