Kateri Ewing - Look Closer, Draw Better: Expert Techniques for Realistic Drawing

Found Leaves, graphite

I like to imagine that each person who reads this book is sitting across the studio table from me, eager to draw, to learn, and to share ideas. After we settle in and begin to get some marks down on paper, Ill ask you, How did you come to drawing? Why are you here and what is it you hope to learn? Throughout our time together in this book, well explore those two most important elements of drawing: the how and the why.

Youll learn the howthe mark making techniques using graphite, charcoal, pen and ink, and watercolor. Through them, I hope you will discover a series of different languages that you can use to portray, on paper, your own unique way of seeingthe how of learning to see your subjects when drawing in a realistic style.

And youll discover the why. The why is what allows each of us to imagine things in our minds eye differently: No two human beings see, imagine, or process the world around them in the same way. It is also true that we come to our art with very personal reasons for why we want to create in the first place. An emotional response is necessary in our work, as well as our connection to the reasons that we choose our subjects. Why do we choose specific subjects for our drawings? What is it about them that makes our heart sing? This is the why that makes art.

Over the years, I have taught many people the how. I teach them all the same information, the same approach, the same mark making techniques, and the very same brushstrokes, but when I give a group of five students the same subject to draw, every single one of them is vastly different. This is something to celebrate! In this book, you will not find techniques requiring measuring or even perspective. Instead, you will learn how to see your subjects form in shape, light, and shadow and how to capture the things you notice about what makes it unique. You will learn how to bring detail and quiet presence to your realistic drawings in a way that makes the ordinary extraordinary. Yes, I will teach you how to use the medium of your choice to mark down what you see, but mostly, I will teach you how to see through your own artists eyes.

My hope is that you leave our time together with skills that you can practice and refine, but also with the desire to nurture your why and begin to really see your subjects and what makes them special to you. My job is to teach you how to capture, on paper, your own unique way of seeing the subjects that you find meaningful.

There isnt a moment I spend drawing or painting when I am not immensely grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the world around me and then to create something lasting and beautiful from it. With each drawing or painting, I hope to discover, and then reveal, the intricate cycles of nature, the luminous particulars that I have come to notice in natural objects, be it the spark in a birds eye, a decaying leaf, a broken acorn, or the wash of light and shadow as they play over a meadow, pond, or stand of trees. It is the desire to urge myself and others to pause and to look a bit more closely, to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary, that stokes my creative fire each and every day. I wish the same for you.

Privet, graphite

LEARNING TO SEE

As artists desiring to draw our subjects in a realistic way, our eyes are our most valuable tool. It might sound strange, but when we are drawing, our brains are always trying to trick us. What our brains know and what our eyes truly see are quite different. Our aim should be to rely more on our eyes and learn to see the world around us in a different way; we want to train our eyes to see like an artist. Drawing in a realistic style is slow work. It requires that we take pause and truly notice things like shadow and light, the subtle turns and transitions between them, and the relationship of our subject to the environment that surrounds it.

Lets try a little experiment. Close your eyes and imagine that you are looking at a coffee mug sitting on your kitchen table. Take a few moments to really see it in your minds eye. Pick up a pencil and a sheet of paper and draw a line to depict the flat surface of the table. Then, draw a simple outline sketch of your imaginary mug resting on that surface. Dont fret over details, just a quick drawing that shows your mug positioned on the surface of your table.

If you were to draw that mug without looking it at, you might draw a straight line depicting where the bottom of the mug rests on the flat surface of the table. Eight out of ten people will draw the bottom of their mug with a straight line. Our brains are clever and know that the table is flat, that the bottom of the mug is flat, but drawing that straight line is not going to produce the illusion of roundness that we need to realistically portray a 3-D object, like a mug, on paper.