About Drawing

As I've said before, the way I approach graphite drawing would make even a middle school art teacher cringe - I certainly don't teach drawing this way.  But it works and I like doing it, which are the only reasons I need.

There are a few precepts of contemporary academic art I ignore:  

I rarely resolve composition prior to the final drawing.  In fact, I would say I scarcely think about it, I only have a vague mental picture of it.  As I draw, directions start to present themselves through my source material, my medium, or something that pops into my head, and I flow with it.  Do some images turn out weak?  Absolutely.  But I have found the ratio of good to bad comps is equal, if not better, than if design was worked out before hand.   I used to fully resolve composition in several thumbnails, but found it too rigid an approach.  I'm certainly not against thumbnails, and I do it myself with other work, but with this type of drawing, my method yields more fulfillment.  

I don't work from general to specific.  Starting from a vague mental picture as mentioned above, I quickly throw down very few lines and 1 or 2 values.  I then start from the very left, and fully resolve the drawing, inch by inch, towards the right until I reach the edge.  After that, I may move around the rest of the drawing for a few tweaks.  Sometimes this process varies a little, but for the most part it works like an ink jet printer.  I use a piece of waxed palette paper to rest my hand on, as to not smudge or smear oils into the paper.

To some of you, the above two processes may sound contradictory.  How can I be open to different directions when the image is being fully drawn left to right?  Well, I probably don't have a satisfactory answer:  It's that movement across the page that sparks what will happen next.

I also do a few other things that, while they may not be no-no's, are certainly unpopular in the contemporary art world.  I work small, realistically and fairly detailed, much of it from photographs.  Mostly my subject matter is chosen for its coolness factor, not for any deeper meaning.  I'm also myopic in my observation, and enjoy surface details.  Usually, if I am drawing from life, it's no more than a foot or two in front of my face.  I've rigged a small shelf right to my desk to set small still lifes up on, directly above where I draw:

Lastly, there is something nostalgically comfortable about graphite on white paper.  As with many kids, I spent much of my homework time drawing dragons, swords, and robots with my #2 writing pencil; I feel that this way of drawing is in part a return to that.