Visualizing, Planning, and Executing a Drawing: Some Artistic Strategies and Techniques to Consider

While reading Andrew Causey’s book, Drawn to See: Drawing as an Ethnographic Method, I was inspired to talk about some of my own experiences and approaches to drawing.

When I started drawing, I never paid attention to various artistic strategies and techniques. I mostly imitated styles and concepts from comic books.

It wasn’t until I read Stan Lee and John Buscema’s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, as well as different books on art, that I started to pay more attention to lines, shading, proportion, and depth in my drawings.

The first thing that I’m going to discuss is framing in the sense of shapes (i.e. people, animals, clouds, plants), objects (i.e. vehicles, buildings, computers, furniture), and scenes (i.e. living room, park, grocery store, forest). This involves considering angles and perspectives as well as the position of shapes and objects in relation to one another within a scene. In this sense, proportion and depth are basic in affecting the design in a drawing. What is the effect of using angles within a drawing? How will depth add to the quality of the drawing?

The framing of an idea within a drawing is another aspect to consider. Choosing a scene is as important as deciding how much space should something occupy compared to other shapes and objects within that scene. The scene can be the mechanism one uses to build an atmosphere in a drawing. How will your use of space between shapes and objects within a scene affect your intended audience’s perception of the drawing?

Part of this can be what one is trying to accomplish within a drawing either by creating a message or incorporating symbols or imagery from popular culture or counterculture, thus incorporating references to outside sources that have influenced one’s own talents and interests. When using references in a drawing at what level do you want your intended audience to recognize or understand them?

In regards to establishing a focal point within a drawing, try to visualize one prior, during, and after the drawing is drawn. Of course, what your intended audience focuses on largely depends on what catches their attention first and keeps it. How can you further embellish or decorate your intended focal point in a drawing?

While carefully determining which shapes, objects, and scenes for a drawing are important, there are other ways to have or enhance a focal point. One can also use a combination of linework, color, style, or composition to enhance the focal point in a drawing. Where do you want your intended audience’s eyes to be drawn first? Where do you want their eyes to rest upon the most? What do you want them to remember?

For instance, the edges and lines within a drawing can bring a composition together, presenting it as an artist’s signature. The depth and breadth in one’s lines and strokes create a personal signature that audiences can come to associate with a particular artist. Using softer and harder pencil leads as well as different pen types and tips when doing linework and shading can add a layer to an artist’s signature in a drawing. Also using different kinds of shading techniques, such as crosshatching, stippling, contouring, and patterning within a drawing adds a layer of distinction. What kind of line (bold, clean, rounded, sharp, deep, light, soft, sketchy, squiggly) technique do you prefer? What shading techniques?

Choosing certain shapes and objects contributes to how your intended audience perceives or interprets the meaning within a drawing or the purpose of it. This includes embedding symbols and imagery in the sense that it can make one’s intended audience think about something beyond the drawing. How can you use shapes, objects, symbols, and imagery to make your intended audience think about something beyond the drawing?

Find shapes, objects, and scenes that appeal to you. How shapes, objects, or a scene appeals to one usually depends on how it makes an individual feel. By combining or representing these elements within a drawing, one tries to convey that emotion to their intended audience through the logic of their design. What kinds of shapes, objects, and scenes do you recognize that you draw the most?

When combining shapes and objects one starts to affect how the scene is perceived. Once the visuals and imagery start to take form in a drawing, the purpose of the combination of shapes and objects portray the essence of what the drawing is supposed to represent to an intended audience. How might your drawing be interpreted or analyzed by an audience?

Take notice of things and situations around you every day. Record them mentally or write down a description of them so that you can remember them for drawings. When recreating a scene or situation, personalize it by adding layers of charm, intricacy, or simplicity through the use of space, distance, or arrangement. Build an atmosphere that tells a story in your drawing. Don’t hesitate to mix styles and genres. Combine scenes and situations into one drawing, fusing different aspects to portray a new scene or situation.

For the video on Minds.com –https://www.minds.com/media/867988551579357184 

“the shadows of branches” – http://fav.me/dcgqivw

My online art gallery on DeviantArt – https://www.deviantart.com/formor