Drawing, for business and for fun.

Drawing - Ballpoint sketch on a Tiger Airways Airbus 320, "follow your instinct, arrive richer", I did too..

If you dig into some of the more technical pages on this site, you will see that I am fairly well up with modern trends, I have been CAD drafting for nearly 25 years, which is just  one of the latest of that oldest of forms of human communication and expression: drawing.

Apart from school, I was first introduced to sketching as a means on communication by the tradesmen I worked with.  The foreman would say "do it like this", then take a pencil from behind his ear and sketch out what he meant on a piece of scrap.

Later we  got around to drawing complicated sections of doors and windows, on what we called setting out rods.

I have ever since those early days, always sketched things out, many times to scale. 

A simple drawing of a right angle triangle to scale would give a practical quick answer to roofing or stairs problems, without using anything more complicated than a pencil and square.  The alternative to a five minute sketch, was, in my early days a set of log tables and a knowledge of trigonometry that for me was a bit shaky to say the least.

I took to pocket calculators when they came out, and then computers, but for speed and ease of use I still draw things out on a sheet of ply or such.

A steel square can be used for roof and stair calculations, but you have to invest some time and effort into learning how to use it.  I say spend that same time and effort in learning the basics and then you can do far more than the steel square.  All these so called easy ways have limitations.  Plus they cost.  A pencil is cheap.

Another aspect of drawing that has been working for me for many years, (I just didn't know it until I started sketching for fun), is the fact that if you spend time looking at something, puzzling it out and then drawing it, whatever you have done stays in your memory a lot longer and a lot clearer.  

If you rely on some gizmo or some computer program, to do it for you, you won't remember anything, and it (the gizmo) may just be wrong, but you won't have the ability to check it any more, that ability has been taken away from you by the easy fix.

Drawing - Pen and ink wash, sketch of the Mekong river at Xuai Zhai Northern Laos.

The sketch took about half an hour to do.  It has no aspirations to be anything but a memory jogger for me, personally.

• I looked at the scene for a while and decided what I wanted to get on paper, to eliminate detail that's not important.
• The process of drawing was very intense, look, draw, check and do it again and again.
• The end result is that it took me far longer to try to capture that scene on paper than the quick fix. A camera.
• The good thing about the sketch is that I can, for a start remember where it was.  (how many holiday shots have you got  that you can't even remember where they were taken ?).
• I can remember heaps of things about the whole place that are not on the paper at all.  Memories that are fixed  and they come back when I see the sketch.

Detailed charcoal and white chalk drawing of an aboriginal man from Pepperminati, in the Daly river region. From a photo I took at the local arts festival.  More..... A  sketch from a photo I took of the underside of a pew seat, a misericord, in a small parish church in Cumbria.  Done by the master woodcarver, Grinling Gibbons.  He makes it look so easy.  More..... Another supreme artist, Kathe Kollwitz.  My poor attempt in conte crayon after one of her charcoal drawings in a book.   More..... If you are into movies with great drama and visual imagery, Akira Kurasawa is your man.  From his movie Rashomon. Conte crayon.  more... Notting Hill shouldn't be on the same page as Kurosawa, but somehow it slipped into the same sketchbook when I was doing Conte crayon.  more... A watercolour that is far better than the oil painting I did later for the dogs owner, a client and friend. more... A good draftsman always lays it out first, and gets the proportions right. But hey, I was rushing, it was getting dark and they wanted to kick me out.  I ran out of time, and I ran out of page.  The Khmer  temple at Phimai, Isaan Thailand.  More..... I have got to be fairly relaxed to draw, and that's why a lot of my sketches feature bottles of beer on the tables in the foreground.  Khao San Rd  Bangkok.  Singha beer at $5.50 a big bottle.  More..... Tha Tien river boat stop, Bangkok. They pulled a bamboo blind down half way through this sketch, so I finished it through the gaps more... Raffles Hotel  Singapore.  A magnificent restoration of a colonial building.  I should have done more detail of the stairs, but I was thinking more about the $60.00 for two small glasses of beer. I sort of lost my rhythm.  More..... Rice fields lying fallow in the shadow of the Karst (limestone) outcrops.  Vang Vieng, slap bang on the backpacker trail, Northern Laos.  More..... A Hindu temple in Little India, Singapore.  These things used to drive me mad, just too much detail to absorb, then this particular morning I just squiggled about, not a recognizable figure anywhere.  More..... I have heaps of photographs of Saigon, but none of them seem to capture the incredible chaotic nature of the joint.  For me (and only me I guess) some of my sketches help me to recall it. More..... A trip back in time to the early days of the industrial revolution. More.....

Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger version.  (not necessarily better :-). Also there is a small amount of rambling text. (I am allowed to stray off topic on my own site:-)

After I had been using my CAD program for a couple years I got thinking that it would be nice to do sketches of people in some of my drafting jobs.  Make them look a bit more professional.

I soon found out that if you can't draw with a pencil, you have no chance with a mouse.  No computer aids were going to change that fact.

I picked up a book from the library, "Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain".  Within a few pages I was hooked.  In a few hours I was making progress.  I loved it.

One of the things that the author Betty Edwards says is that when the right side of the brain cuts in, you start working on auto pilot.  (my words, not hers, she's a lot more technical than that).

She is right there, many times I have looked down at a stone cold cup of coffee that I had completely forgotten about.  

I never did do any figures in my drafting drawings.  Boring.....

I used to think that copying a photograph in great detail was great, and I enjoyed it while it lasted.

A lot more instructive was copying a famous artist's work.  Most of the hard work has been done, the subject has been framed, the lighting sorted out, no extraneous details, etc. Yet the actual fact of looking at a great work of art in the concentrated way that you need to draw it, is a great way to learn.

I have to admit that in my charcoal and pencil days I have been know to make a few corrections.  Since I discovered Conte Crayon it's been different though.  What goes down stays down.  Warts an all.  The rich black or brown colour is great, but a trifle hard to keep clean.  I have never gone back to correcting things, I like the mistakes as much as the rest. Otherwise I might as well use a camera.

My current passion is pen and ink, but I am always trying new gear so who knows what will grab me next.

I read in a book somewhere that a good drawing exercise was to draw thumbnail sketches of the newsreaders on TV.  I tried it, but I wasn't good enough.  What I did instead was to run the pause our old video player during a favourite movie.

The pause cut out after 5 minutes, and I did a couple of drawings in that time that I am happy with but most of them I had to rewind and search for the frame again.  I have a peculiar memories of repeatedly searching for certain scenes.  "The next time you pull a gun on me, you'd better pull the trigger......."   A scruffy Marlon Brando in "The Appaloosa".

Looking at these single frame grabs it brought home to me the difference between great directors and the rest.  With stuff that I used to take for granted I started to see how the scenes were meticulously built up.  I firmly believe that that some, (only some) movie directors are up there with the great artists.

I did a spell at painting, but I never seemed to have the time.  I also did a lot of screen printing.  Serigraphs.  Brightly coloured scenes of local places etc.  I even sold out a couple of editions.

What I seem to do now is just travel sketching. I find that when working and getting on with life in general it is hard to switch off and get into a good state of mind to draw.  

But when I am on holiday and start relaxing I find it easy to start drawing again.  I usually need a few days to get into the swing of it and and I can do a few pages a day.

My travel sketchbooks are also part diary and part scrapbook.  No organization, bits everywhere.  I have pasted in boat tickets, currency calculators, entrance tickets to any number of historic monuments, and even the tag off a Lipton tea bag, to remember the day when I bought a small electric jug, and was finally able to have a cup of tea, while doing my pre breakfast planning.

These sketches here were done during an 8 week holiday backpacking around SE Asia in early 2006.  I was on my own, so I found it was a great way to keep me occupied.  

I also found that the drawing was a very easy way to get to know the locals.  Instead of signing the visitors book in a Chinese bar in Malacca I did a sketch of the joint, to wide acclaim.  Now I'll tell you, I have definitely done better drawings, (I was very... relaxed at the time).  Who knows I might have started a trend and that visitor's book is filling up with pictures of Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Statue of Liberty by now.

The people I met in the cafes and sidewalk food stalls were very curious as to what I was doing.  This lead to many good chats (and more than a few extra  lunchtime beers).  My books are  littered with peoples signatures.  The Vang Vieng sketch has the signatures of three  10 year old boys on it, and one little lad who was so shy and wouldn't put his name down, that I guessed he couldn't write, so I got him to put his thumbprint on instead.

One morning Bankok I was having a breather in a small cafe (opposite the back of my favouite spot, Wat Po) that was in an old Chinese shop house.  There are still plenty of these about, but they are slowly disapearing.  I started sketching details of the old timber framed front entrance, with a carved lintel, and with some curious mortices cut into the sill and head.  The owner was hovering about tying to see what I was doing, but too polite to say anything.

I asked her what the cut outs in the frame were for, and took me into the back and showed me the intricate system of posts and rails that was used to lock up the front of the shop, which she still used.  All her neighbours use ugly steel grilles or roller shutters.

We had a good chat, I got a couple of free coffees and she got the page out of my sketchbook which she later framed and hung inside.

I just about always use a cheap fountain pen that I bought in Thailand, and I found this marvelous brown ink, that was very water soluble. So with only a small brush and a bit of water I could wash into the inky bits and create an ink wash without any extra gear.    

One trick that used to go down well with a local audience and create smiles all round was that instead of using water, I would pour a bit of beer, or coffee etc. into a bottle cap and use that for the wash part.  

I can firmly state after much testing in the field, that artistically speaking, Beer Lao gives a much greater tonal range than our pale Aussie beers.  (can't wait to get back).

I would recommend sketching to anybody.  It is so much fun.

The hardest part to crack for me was the onlookers, and what they might think.  For a long while it was hard, then all of a sudden I didn't give a stuff anymore.  Then the onlookers became the best part.  

Betty Edwards says that you should keep your old sketches, not to throw them away, as they are a good reminder of where you started from,

Well I still have some of my early stuff but I am not game to show any of it here.  This lot's bad enough.

I had a hugely rewarding but financialy disastrous 9 months or so, when I quit my day job and took up printmaking about 5 years ago.  I did  a couple of courses at our local uni, where they taught me etching.  I took to it like a duck to water.

Sooner or later I will do a page with some of my screenprints and etchings on it.  In the meantime here is a link to site in tropical North Queensland that is just starting out and has some top artists work for you to see.
A friend of mine in Darwin creates some beautiful wildlife artwork, well worth a look.
Kerry has a site for beginner pencil artists

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