Lee J. Ames - Draw 50 Sea Creatures

This book will show you a way to draw sea creatures. You need not start with the first illustration. Choose whichever you wish. When you have decided, follow the step-by-step method shown. Very lightly and carefully, sketch out the first step. However, this step, which is the easiest, should be done most carefully. The next step is added right to the first one, also lightly and also very carefully. The thrid step is sketched right over numbers one and two. Continue this way to the last step.

It may seem strange to ask you to be extra careful when you are drawing what seem to be the easiest first steps, but these are the most important, for a careless mistake at the beginning may spoil the whole picture at the end. As you sketch out each step, watch the spaces between the lines, as well as the lines, and see that they are accurate. After each step, you may want to lighten previous steps by pressing it with a kneaded eraser (available at art supply stores).

When you have finished, you may want to redo the final step in India ink with a fine brush or pen. When the ink is dry, use the kneaded eraser to clean off the pencil lines. The eraser will not affect the India ink.

Here are some suggestions: In the first few steps, even when all seems quite correct, you might do well to hold your work up to a mirror. Sometimes the mirror shows that youve twisted the drawing off to one side without being aware of it. At first you may find it difficult to draw the egg shapes, or ball shapes, or sausage shapes, or to just make the pencil go where you wish. Dont be discouraged. The more you practice, the more control you will develop.

The only equipment youll need will be a medium or soft pencil, paper, a kneaded eraser, and, if you wish, a pen or brush and ink.

The first steps in this book are shown darker than necessary so that they can be clearly seen. (Keep your work very light.)

Remember there are many other ways and methods to make drawings. This book shows just one method. Why dont you seek out other ways from teachers, from libraries, andmost importantfrom inside yourself?

Lee J. Ames

TO THE PARENT OR TEACHER

David can draw a jet plane better than anybody else! Such peer acclaim and encouragement generate incentive. Contemporary methods of art instruction (freedom of expression, experimentation, self-evaluation of competence and growth) provide a vigorous, fresh-air approach for which we must all be grateful.

New ideas need not, however, totally exclude the old. One such is the follow me, step by step approach. In my young learning days, this method was so common, and frequently so exclusive, that the student became nothing more than a pantographic extension of the teacher. In those days it was excessively overworked.

This does not mean that the young hand is never to be guided. Rather, specific guiding is fundamental. Step-by-step guiding that produces satisfactory results is valuable even when the means of accomplishment are not fully understood by the student.

The novice with a musical instrument is frequently taught to play simple melodies as quickly as possible, well before he learns the most elemental scratchings at the surface of music theory. The resultant self-satisfaction and pride in accomplishment can be a significant means of providing motivation. And all from mimicking an instructors Do as I do

Mimicry is a prerequisite for developing creativity. We learn the use of our tools by mimicry. Then we can use those tools for creativity. To this end I would offer the budding artist the opportunity to memorize or mimic (rotelike, if you wish) the making of pictures. Pictures he or she has been anxious to draw.

The use of this book should in no way be compulsory. Rather it should be available to anyone who wants to try another way of flapping his wings. Perhaps he will then get off the ground when his friend says, David can draw a jet plane better than anybody else!

Lee J. Ames

SEA FAN

BURROWING TUBE ANEMONE