Tonight I finished my drawing for my friend's son, Kaleb. It is a wonderful birthday present for him and I hope he'll like it. As I said in my last post, I will be describing how I make my art. In tonight's session I'm going to explain when you should outline a drawing and when to leave it alone!
In art school- my teachers ALWAYS told us not to outline. "This is not a coloring book!" is the phrase I heard over and over again. It was eventually engrained into me and I never outlined again... until now. It IS ok to outline certain drawings. Outlining something makes it stand out from the rest of page. Outlining has a lot of down sides too though-
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
Just in case I didn't make myself quite plain here lol. But if you are drawing cartoon characters or characitures (a cartoon of a person that emphasizes ONE facial feature), then outlining is great!
If you want to make a drawing look more realistic (and - in essence- like a photograph) then outlining is not the way to go. In this case the same type of effect can be acheived by using a darker color next to a lighter color or using shadows and highlights. Whenever I'm making a photo-realistic COLORED drawing, I almost never use black. It's unnecessary- seriously. Instead, try using a darker purple, blue, red, green or any combination. It's actually overkill if you use black.
Another thing I always do is make sure I tape down my paper before I begin. I pretty much always work in either charcoal or colored pastels and they leave a chalky residue behind that can get everywhere! When you tape down your paper, not only will you avoid your paper moving on you unexpectedly, but there will be a clean, sharp line framing your artwork and it makes it look more professional. Sometimes I'll even use a larger piece of paper to do a drawing and then cut out only the portion on the drawing I was to use and recycle the rest. If you want to do that too, then don't worry about where you place your tape.
The "Toy Story" drawing I did tonight, I used a tinted piece of paper (which I LOVE!) and colored pastels. I have pastel pencils as well and I use them for finishing touches as they are able to do details better than pastel sticks. The drawing itself didn't take me long, but I am a major perfectionist when it comes to color. I don't think I've ever made someone pay for one of my drawings unless I felt like there was nothing more i could do to make it better. So that took awhile. When I finished, I sprayed it down with hair spray- which sounds odd I know- but it acts a fixative so that the chalk from the pastels would stay in place and not get all over your hands OR WORSE on your glass in the picture frame (it ruins the picture should it ever move bc the glass acts as a chalk magnet and lifts it up from the picture). So it's really important to make sure you "FIX" your pastel or charcoal picture before you frame it. I used to spend insane amount on actual Fixative at Michael's but then i got smart and switched to hair spray which is 100xs cheaper! Just remember to spray your piece while it's still taped down and leave it alone until the spray dries--- otherwise it'll roll up a lot more than necessary. Lastly, spray your piece in long strokes about 6 inches above your work--- any closer and you'll leave spray marks, but too far and you won't get any fixative on your work! Hope this helps anyone who wanted to know about pastels!
No comments:
Post a Comment