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Sunday Spotlight: The Basic Skill Compass

Hey.
Hey pssst.
Want a solid, time-tested, surefire way to accelerate your artistic development and skip years of misery
and wasted effort? No really, it exists. And Im about to give it to you.
1. Practise every day.
2. Confront your weaknesses.
3. Try new things.
See? Now youre in the know. Step one is easy enough. Steps two and three take a little more thought,
but dont worry thats exactly why Im proud to introduce:
The Basic Skill Compass

Youve been avoiding something. Yes, you. Theres a particular thing you never practise. Maybe you hate
it, maybe you dont understand it. Or maybe youve just never heard of it until now. This is the biggest
problem with self-teaching. Without somebody looking over your shoulder, its really easy to let these
things slip by. So whenever you feel lost, undermotivated, frustrated with your progress, come back and
consult this guide. Find the thing youve been neglecting, read over the suggested exercises or come up
with your own, and strike out in that direction. Confront your weaknesses, try new things.
Part One: Mark Making

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Line
Believe it or not, there are a million and one ways to draw a line. Lines can be thick, thin, light, dark,
hairy, curvy, scratchy, or even just implied. Experimenting with different types of line and learning to
vary them appropriately can completely change the appearance of an image.
(Van Gogh)
Recommended Exercises:
Fill a page with as many types of line as you can come up with. Anything can be a line if its longer
than it is wide, just make marks and look at the different appearances they convey.
Draw an object in front of you - spend about ten minutes on it. Look at the image and pick out as
many different types of mark as you can. Then take a fresh page and draw the object again,
without using any of the line types you identified.
Draw a negative image. Take some black paper and use chalk or pastel or a gel pen to sketch the
image in front of you. If possible, reverse the image afterwards in an image editing program - see
what difference this made to your line choice.
Pattern and Texture

Edges arent the only part of an image that can be defined with marks and lines. Repeated patterns can
show the continuity of a surface, or define the places where a surface is interrupted. Texture can add
weight, depth and interest to an otherwise flat image.
(Aaron Baggio)
Make a viewfinder by cutting a small (max. 2x2") window out of the middle of a piece of paper or
card. Lay the viewfinder on a surface - any surface will do - and draw every detail of the area it
frames. Specks of dust, dents, stains, the veins on a leaf. You might be surprised how much detail
a seemingly smooth surface can hold.
Draw an object (or person or animal) in front of you, using only the textures and patterns visible
on its surface. No defining edges. I like to practise this with my cats, it can help a lot with grasping
difficult things like leaves, fur or hair.
Take two objects with different surface textures and place them under simple lighting. Draw them
in both in outline, then try to swap the textures. Draw an apple with the texture of an orange
skin, or a bottle with the texture of a wool jumper.
Implied Line or Flow
Im sure most people have seen these images before. Line of action is a concept usually discussed in
relation to comics and graphic design, but it exists in sculpture, fine art, and even abstract painting too.
The difference is that these disciplines call it 'flow. Its the implied line that draws your eye through the
image and ties the whole composition together.
(Frank Frazetta)
Put together a group of objects, or find a view that appeals to you. Draw it using one continuous
line, without lifting your pencil from the paper until youve finished.
Fill a page with gesture drawings. 'Gesture means you work quickly, and the instinctive gestures
of your hand create lines where you feel they should go. Spend a maximum of sixty seconds per
sketch, and try to focus on organic or moving objects. Pets make great subjects, as do random
passers by on the street. Classic subjects would be sports players or dancers.
Play a game of 'scribble. Scrawl an abstract line or shape on a piece of paper and then build on it
to create a picture.
Part Two: Form and Space

Volume
This is what many people think of when they think of formal art study. Lots and lots of spheres, cubes,
cylinders and cones. Well, theres a good reason for that. Physical objects occupy space, whether youre
drawing from life or airbrushing a rad dragon onto your brother-in-laws van. Learning to portray
volume is a major step in learning to portray believable objects.
(Pixar)
SPHERES AND SPHEROIDS. Eggs, apples, rubber balls, or really any kind of round 3D shape against
a plain coloured surface make excellent subjects for sketching with attention to volume. Focus on
the way that light and shadow describe the form of the object without the need for heavy
outlines.
Draw a view or still life by breaking the objects down into geometric forms. That mug is now a
cylinder with a smaller, flatter cylinder stuck to one side. That TV remote is now a cuboid. That
plant pot is a cone with the point cut off. This exercise and perspective drawing go hand in hand
spend time on both and practising one will really help the other.
Draw by touch. Take a small object and hold it in your non-dominant hand while you sketch with
the other. Try to draw the object as accurately as you can without looking at it, just feeling the
form with your fingers.
Perspective
Invisible when its good, catastrophic when its bad. Perspective is one of the most powerful tools at your
disposal for implying space and distance, and comes with the neat bonus of sweeping lines and forms
that can seriously kick a composition up a notch. It can seem discouragingly technical at first, but start
slow and work from observation and it will soon begin to fall into place. Nobody ever learned to cook by
reading a recipe book cover-to-cover.
(Moebius)
Perspective drawing is really something for which you will want to look at example pictures and get to
grips with basic concepts, so I would suggest starting here for a (very) basic grounding before looking
for further exercises:
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=181436
Draw buildings, from the inside or from the outside. Architecture is full of regular geometric
shapes, and long roads and tall buildings will give you much more interesting extremes of
distance and angle than you could hope to set up at home.
Fold some cubes out of paper and set them up at various heights and angles to draw. Try drawing
crosses from corner to corner of each of the cubes faces and see if you can accurately reproduce
the centre point in your drawings. If you feel really adventurous, find a compass and draw a circle
onto each face using the centre point of the cross, then try to reproduce that.
Contour
Light and perspective are not the only ways to get across the volume of an object. While these methods
focus on mass, contour drawing is a way to define planes and faces in relation to one another. Its often
simplified to 'outline drawing but can also encompass 'cross contour or planar drawing. It works very
well as a complement to other approaches to volume, and can be a striking visual effect when used
alone. Its also the foundation of what we usually call hatched and cross-hatched shading.
(Durer)
This page contains a nice simple description with examples, and a great assignment:
http://www.utdallas.edu/~melacy/pages/Drawing/AS11_CrossContour/as12_CrossContour.html
Recommended exercises:
Put together a group of objects, or find a view that appeals to you. Draw it using one continuous
line, without lifting your pencil or looking at the paper until youve finished.
Do a large scale contour drawing of an object smaller than your paper (ideally A3 or bigger). This
is particularly good for breaking planes down into bold shapes and loosening up your arm.
Negative Space
As well as looking at form and mass directly, we can describe objects by defining the space around
them. East Asian art is particularly known for traditions which pay attention to the depiction of air,
space and emptiness in contrast to areas of concentrated detail. Working with negative space is an
excellent way to decompress and clarify a composition, or equally to play with the viewers perception.
(Magritte)
Place an object on a patterned background and draw it, defining only the light, shade and shapes
visible behind it. This is a useful guide.

Do a collage. No, really. Cut up some coloured paper/card and use it to build up the shapes of the
negative spaces you see in an object or set of objects in front of you. Here are some nice
examples from a HS art syllabus.
Part Three: Colour

Hue, Value and Saturation
Hue, value and saturation are the most basic components of colour theory, and understanding the way
they interact can make an astounding difference to the way you see and use them in composition. Very
simply put, 'hue refers to the type of pure colour being used (red, yellow, orange, green etc.) while
'value describes the placement of that colour on a scale from white to black. 'Saturation is how much or
little of the pure colour is balanced with that black, white or grey.
e.g:
Learning to work with these dimensions gives a huge amount of control over colour, and striking images
can be made from very limited palettes just by paying attention to the balancing of hue, value and
saturation.
Make a value chart by mixing each of the primary colours in increments towards white and black.
Getting the proportions right takes practise, but it will very quickly improve your ability to judge
value by eye.
Make a Hue chart. For some reason I cant find any apt reference images for this, but essentially
the leftmost column of this example. Focusing on the primary colours, lay down two basic colours
at either end and mix them with one another in an incremental scale. It helps to start by setting
down a 50/50 mixture of both in the middle, as a reference point.

Create a composition or draw from life using only one of these three dimensions of colour. This
will require a bit of thought about materials - opaque media like markers, gouache or craft paper
are ideal for working with hue. To focus on saturation, you may want to work in single colour of a
translucent medium like watercolour, pencil or chalk pastel. Value is the easiest - any graded
black and white medium will do (charcoal, graphite, pencils, chalk, ink wash). You might want to
work on a neutral, mid-tone paper if you can get hold of it, particularly for practise drawing value.
Create an image using pointillism. No lines, no block shadows, no mixing colours, just building up
appropriate hues from pure colour.
Palettes
Colour isnt just about knowing the difference between, bright, light, dark and dull. Its also about being
selective. To see why this is so important, just load up DeviantArt and refresh the front page a few
times. No really, I dare you. Throwing dozens of colours down on a page without thought creates visual
cacophony, just like scribbling wildly over the lines of a drawing. In the hands of a practised artist even
contrast and clashes have method behind them, and that method is rooted in colour theory.
This is where colour gets kind of magical. See, the groups of colours which work well together are very
predictable. Fire up this site and play around for a while and youll begin to get the picture. By selecting
a limited palette based on contrasts and complements, that visual cacophony can be transformed into
something very harmonic.
(Justin Wisniewski)
Draw a scene or object from life using one colour and its complement.
Get hold of some coloured paper, or paint a coloured wash to draw over. Layer complementary or
contrasting colours over it to create an image.
Draw an image using an analogic colour scheme (one colour, plus the two colours on either side
of it in the colour wheel). Once its finished, use a complementary accent (directly opposite the
'middle colour of your scheme) to pick out one element of the image.
Mood
Colour can bring all kinds of intangible qualities to an image and impart moods that completely change
the way its received by a viewer.
(Picasso)
Thinking about how and why these atmospheres are created by particular colour schemes is a very
effective way of controlling the message of an image. Do you want the viewer to feel unsettled?
Amused? Curious? Experiment with emotive colour schemes, and look into the psychological cues
behind them.
(article)
Draw a picture from life / a good reference of a hot object (a fire, a volcano, a cooking pot,
whatever) using only cool colours, or vice versa.
Do a portrait of a person or animal using colours that match their temperament.
Find a photograph, painting or some other image of a very atmospheric environment (clubbers
under a blacklight, a hunk at the beach, a rainy autumn woodland, whatever) and use the colours
you see in it to make an image of a different setting. See how much or how little of the original
atmosphere carries over.
Part Four: Where Ideas Come From

Concepts
People dont really talk about arty farty bollocks like 'concept in the real world. In fact, if your
neighbourhood is anything like mine, most people are actively embarrassed by the very thought that
pictures have ideas behind them. That can make it hard to know where to begin when (if) the day
comes that you want to start doing something with more substance than furry warcraft mechasoldier
pin-up girls. Theres a sense that Serious Art belongs to Serious Artists with Serious Messages, and that
if you dont have something Serious to say its not worth embarrassing yourself.
Well, maybe thats true, but at no point in the history of the world has it ever stopped people from
ruminating on pop culture, sexy prostitutes, celebrities, zoofights, more zoofights, or (speculatively)
secret mistresses. The trick isnt coming up with one perfect, important, worthwhile idea - its working
out why you want to draw the things you draw, and then finding a way to explore that, or communicate
your perspective to others. Maybe youre attracted to the idea of furry warcraft mechasoldier pin-up
girls because youre intrigued by the sexual charge of natural bodies intersected with machines unpack that idea and explore it, and you may find that youre onto something.
(H.R. Giger)
Take inspiration from things youre interested in but might not immediately connect to art. Think
about how you might build a theme around places you like to visit, people you like to talk to, or
topics you deal with at work.
Get yourself a notebook. Periodically find time to stop and write down whatever thoughts or
themes come to mind. Include anything that pops into your head, do little doodles if you want to,
and let the thoughts build on each other over time.
If youre really stuck, pick a generic theme and think of some way to reimagine it. Zodiac signs,
seasons, historical characters and mythical beasts all make good starting points for coming up
with a set of linked images to explore.

Developing Ideas
Sometimes you pick up your brush and the planets are in alignment and pure gold inexplicably pours
out and you do the best work youve ever done with little to no preparation. That does happen. Like,
once, maybe twice a year if youre lucky. The rest of the time its necessary to wrestle with an idea for a
while before it starts to fall into place. It doesnt mean youre bad or that the idea is bad - just that the
more familiar you are with your subject, the easier it is to pick out the best bits.
(Valve - TF2 Scout development)

Find an image you like and take components of it out of context to mess with. Do large scale
studies of textures or take one repeated shape and build a composition out of it. Exaggerate and
remix the elements you like, and use them to create something of your own.
Experiment with materials, particularly materials youre unfamiliar with. Try out unconventional
ways of using them, or mixing and matching them to find new effects.
Do research. Find as many things as you can in real life that you can relate to your subject, and
study them. Make drawings, note down observations and take pictures. Supplement this with
secondary research on the internet or in the library to build up a bank of details and references
to draw from.
Improvisation and Loosening Up
Relying on formulas and precise structure may make for consistent work, but it also makes for boring,
predictable pictures. Having the ability (and confidence) to improvise helps to keep your process from
getting stale, and often leads to the kind of happy accidents that open up whole new avenues of
inspiration.
(Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro and Max Morise)

Get together with a friend and have a drawing jam session. Share a piece of paper if you feel
brave enough. Have a game of Exquisite Corpse.
Draw in pen or another permanent medium, with no preparation, and aim to finish your piece.
This is a really, really good exercise for building confidence and breaking reliance on erasers (or
ctrl-z, for digital artists).
Tape a brush or piece of charcoal to the end of a long stick - a ruler will do - and use it to do a
large-scale (A3+) drawing, from life or from your imagination.
(this weeks advice is taken from an old post I made on another forum years ago it still holds true to me, so I
hope it does for all of you too! - Rosa)
#SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT
JUL 2015
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#ART ADVICE
484 NOTES
#ART RESOURCES
#ART TIPS
#ART TUTORIAL
19TH JUL 2015
484 NOTES
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Basic Skill Components

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ABOUT US

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Sunday Spotlight: The Basic Skill Compass

The Basic Skill Compass

Part One: Mark Making

Pattern and Texture

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

Part Two: Form and Space

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

visible behind it. This is a useful guide.

Part Three: Colour

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down a 50/50 mixture of both in the middle, as a reference point.

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

Part Four: Where Ideas Come From

with a set of linked images to explore.

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

(Valve - TF2 Scout development)

(Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro and Max Morise)

19TH JUL 2015

kyousouhisoka liked this

leaveitbee liked this

Show more notes

20142016 - Countershot Press!

PDFmyURL - online url to pdf conversion

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