Learning to Draw
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20.11.2018
Recently I’ve been trying to teach myself how to draw and paint. I’ve always thought that it’s something I can’t do, but I’m trying to break down some of my long-held beliefs and prove myself wrong. I have so many ideas in my head that I wish I could put to paper, and I finally got fed up with not knowing how.
My problem in the past has always been that I’ve tried to draw by eye, and my proportions always come out wrong. I remember an art class when I was about nine or ten, and being tasked with copying a photo of a blue tit perched on a beer can. I was so frustrated, because I didn’t know where to start or how to do it.
Rather than approach drawing as I’ve always approached drawing, I’ve started following the circles and lines method of drawing animals, and it seems to be helping. Here are a couple of my early sketches.
The paint set I have is made by Winsor and Newton in their Cotman range. It’s their pocketbox, and all the paint colours are vegan. The Cotman range of watercolour paints (with the exception of three colours which aren’t in the pocket box set) doesn’t include ingredients or pigments derived from animals. The brush I’m using is from the Pro Arte prolene range. It’s synthetic, and a size 6, which seems to be a good all rounder for me as a beginner. Together with the tiny retractable brush that came with my paint set, I think I should be good to go for quite some time.
