Step by Step Drawing Process
How I Approach a Project
I thought I’d take you through the step by step drawing process of my last commission. I thought it might help being on the heels of the post I did recently entitled How Do You Do That. Every artist has their own particular step by step drawing process that’s unique to them. Here’s a peek into mine…
Obviously, my drawings are large enough and detailed enough that it would be impossible to do the work with the animal sitting in front of me. First of all, I don’t know of any animal that would sit still long enough unless they were under anesthesia. And that wouldn’t work since the eyes are crucial for my drawings. So the first part of my step by step drawing process is to obtain portrait quality photos from my client.
Portrait Quality Photos
By “portrait quality” I mean photos that are primarily not blurry. That seems like it would be a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at what some people give me. I also need shots which have a nice clear, close up view of the animal’s face. Again, you’d be surprised. It is supposed to be for a portrait after all! How can I draw the animal’s face if the photos don’t show it clearly? To see exactly what I’m looking for in reference photos check out my page on Planning Your Photographs.
Once I decide on a shot (or shots-sometimes I have to use a combination of two) that are usable in regards to closeness and clarity, I decide on what background elements to include, if any. For this particular commission, Socks, the cat was lounging on chicken wire. There was no way that I could complete the piece in time for the Father’s Day deadline if I included the chicken wire. Not only that, but chicken wire isn’t exactly attractive portrait material. So I opted instead for keeping the cat’s position, but putting him on a soft white blanket. Unless the client specifically requests some background item in the photo, I do exercise my artistic license to edit things out. The main reason for this being that I don’t want anything to detract from the star of the piece…the beloved pet.
Socks
Project Preparation
I prepare my paper next. After I cut the size my client requested, I’ll mask off the border with blue low-tack Scotch brand painter’s tape. This keeps the border clean and also allows me to get a nice crisp edge on the drawing. This tape is low-tack enough that it can be put on paper and removed without peeling the surface of the paper. It’s also much cheaper than the artist’s tape sold in art stores, which sometimes does peel the surface layer of paper up. Not at all what you want after hours spent on a drawing you’re doing for a client!
Next, I will decide whether I can just sketch it out freehand or if I should approach this as a grid drawing instead. The factors that go into determining this would be 1) is the animal in an odd position or 2) is there an extreme foreshortening issue. Foreshortening is an illusion based on perspective. For example, if I point my finger out to my side and you’re standing directly in front of me, my whole finger is visible to you. If I start to swing my arm around and point my finger towards you, less and less of it will be visible. This gives the illusion that my finger is shorter even though you know that it isn’t. This same illusion happens with arms, legs, etc. It makes it a challenge to draw it out without having it look awkward. In these cases, using a grid helps immensely.
Foreshortened finger appears shorter than it really is due to your perspective of it.
To Grid or Not To Grid
For Socks, I didn’t use a grid. But if I did, the grid would go over the original drawing and then drawn on my paper very lightly. At that point, I could concentrate on one square at a time. For a more detailed explanation of grid drawing, here’s an excerpt from the How Do You Do That post.
“The grid is an excellent tool for beginners in that it helps you map things out easier. And it really trains your eyes how to see. Take the image below. We have a grid over our original image of Tippy. We create another grid on a blank paper and begin drawing, square by square. First we decide to start at the beak. We find the same square space on the empty grid as in the original and start there. We can see in the original that Tippy’s beak is right on the bottom line of that square with the tip just poking beneath it. It also starts ever so slightly to the left of the center point of that line. From there it goes up pretty straight about half way up before curving towards the right. It crosses that top line just to the right of the center of that line. If you do this square by square, you’ll get a line drawing that’s pretty close to the original. With a little practice your drawings will look more and more polished.” Click here to read the entire post.
Example of grid drawing
Putting Pencil to Paper
In this case, as I said, I didn’t bother with using a grid since nothing on the photo reference seemed too difficult to draw. As you can see in the first progress photo, I always start every drawing in the upper left corner and work my way across and down to the lower right corner. This is purely because I’m right-handed and it minimizes any smearing of the graphite. Some of the pencils that I use are very soft and the graphite comes up very easily if it’s touched.
Socks – Progress shot #1
Socks – Progress shot #2
Socks – Progress shot #3
Socks – Progress shot #4
Socks – Progress shot #5
Socks – Progress shot #6
Socks – Progress shot #7
Socks – Final, unmasked and ready for delivery!
Final Touches
Once I’ve finished, I take a step back and see if there are any areas that could be a bit darker or if there are highlights that should be a bit brighter and I’ll make the necessary adjustments. When I’m satisfied, I sign it, carefully remove the tape and rub over the taped areas with a white eraser just to remove any of the tackiness left behind. And finally, I spray the whole drawing with a workable fixative. After several coats, the fixative prevents the graphite from smearing. You can draw on top of it, but you can no longer erase it. As you can see, without the blue tape, there’s a nice clean, white border there. So now, the owner can choose to add an additional mat or not. I leave that decision up to them.
And that’s about it! The only thing left to do is to safely package it for delivery to the client and then I’m on to the next project. I hope you enjoyed the step by step journey of one of my drawings. I’m trying to work on a time lapse of one of these fully rendered pieces. Stay tuned!
Comments or questions? I’d love to hear from you!
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