The Drawing Blog

I finally found the password to this dear old dinosaur!

Giving drawing lessons online is definitely something I would like to have more time to do, but for now, God has given some other priorities to attend to. Maybe sometime I’ll take the time to to make this site more navigable and instructive. If you would like a to browse through a few reads that helped me in my journey of drawing, scroll to the bottom of this page on my regular blog.

I posted about my library trials a while back, but never got around to showing you what the finished painting looks like!

Once I got the thumbnail I wanted, I set to work on enlarging it to fill an 8"x10" space. The process of drawing it just the way I could see it in my head took some extra time, but it was well worth the effort.

Here’s the real drawing on the real watercolor paper! ::insert feelings of excitement and tension:: Holding my breath!

As I began painting, I realized that I was following the fatal trap I previously walked into. While painting, I had stopped using tasteful brushstrokes, and simply started to color in the lines – again! Whew! What gets into me? Here I must say that it was only by God’s grace that I remembered Beatrix Potter. So I grabbed a few of her books and looked with all my eyeballs’ strength!

~"Waterlilies" by Beatrix Potter~

I had to hold in my mind how I thought she would have painted. In "chunks" of color and little lively brushstrokes, she adds so much movement. In every piece of her work we see colors that ebb and flow, never sitting still without meaning. So I embraced a new technique that I’d never thought to use before, and jumped back in. Full steam ahead!

~Here I go!~

One of my favorite things! Bobbles of wet watercolor! Isn’t that gorgeous! Ahhhh…

The painting process was even longer than I thought it would be. For a while I really struggled with the woodwork, trying to keep it light and fresh, as opposed to the dark wood I tried earlier. When it came to his clothing, I stalled, not knowing which way to turn  – more warm colors? cool colors? stripes? a collar? etc. For some reason I ended up using a nice blue shirt, and weirdish-green pants, which ended up not looking too bad. The books on the shelves helped with that.

Here I am transferring graphite lines (via rice paper) for accurate window panes.

I was so sure I’d mess up and feel I had wasted all my time. So I worked on it for days, feeling this was taking me longer than any other I had done before. This particular painting taught me a lot about myself, as well as watercolor. I know when people say things like that it sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Patience, consistency, perseverance….

But as I worked over the last portions, looking over the half-finished details, and touched up a few places with a light outlining, I took a reluctant breath and then let it out. I was done!

And with that, I signed my name.

I am now officially selling 8"x10" prints of "The Library". If you would like a copy, visit my Etsy shop. Each one costs only $15.00 plus shipping. They are easy to frame and make great Christmas gifts!

I received a comment the other day and thought it would make a great post:

"…I have a 4 year old boy who has shown great interest in drawing and painting. Several people have suggested we pursue his love of art. This may be a question for your mom but I figured I would start at the source. Can you recommend some starting points for us. I am creative but I can’t draw. I want to develop this talent but would love suggestions. I will be homeschooling him so I have time to pour into this skill….Thank you. -Amy"

Dear Amy,

It is so encouraging to find families who want to develop the gifts God has given them! The Creator of the universe made us in His image, and through our lives of creativity and honoring Him we glorify Him.

There isn’t any one formula that works for everyone, but there are some ideas that my parents implemented in my childhood that really made an impact. Looking back, I am very thankful for their gracious approach to letting us discover and create a lot on our own. Here’s a peek into what my childhood looked like:

I spent a short amount of time in a public school (kindergarten and half of first grade) and my teachers’ main concerns were that I drew on my assignment papers! They made sure mom knew about this "problem". I even got in trouble once for not drawing braids on my Thanksgiving Indian like everyone else.

Once we were homeschooling we had all the time in the world to be curious, adventurous and creative. Emily and I spent much of our time reading (or looking at) books, playing, and (mostly me) drawing pictures. Our parents knew the value of keeping our young minds busy and learning through creative outlets, so plenty of crafting materials were always on hand. Mom and Dad gave us a few rules:

• 1) Whenever we were watching a movie or Mom was reading to us, we had to keep our hands busy
• 2) Whenever we had free time to play, it had to be "constructive free time", not mindless video games or senseless movies, and…
• 3) We always had to clean up our mess after we were done creating.

By the time I was 9, and Emily 7, Mom had introduced us to basic sewing, embroidery, and crocheting, as well as watercolors and colored pencils. She had us keep each of our supplies in shoe boxes; one for embroidery, one for crochet…(Click here for a great post on art boxes!). When Mom would read aloud to us, or Dad was leading family devotions, we would pull out our little crochet projects or paper and pencils.

Our encouraging parents made sure we had a few art supplies always within reach. It was a good combination of encouragement and creative support. The force that pulled all of these resources together was being inspired. One of my largest sources of inspiration has always come from books.

From the time when we were wee little girls, we have been going to the library. We would come home loaded with books on our favorite animals, crafts, countries we wanted to travel to, fairy tales, art, and especially children’s books with illustrations we couldn’t resist. The best thing of all, we were encouraged to spend lots of "quiet time" with books.

Being allowed to sit and look at books for hours nurtured my love for reading, learning and art. Through this appreciation I was able to learn a bit more on my own. Once Mom got a DickBlick catalog for me, I discovered a whole new host of art books. I wrote down a handful of titles and authors I wanted to check out at the library or find through interlibrary loan.

In the world of books I can pursue and learn about my interests, whether they be acrylics, wood burning, cake decorating, caring for animals, sewing historical costumes, oil painting or watercolors.

This is where my greatest developments have sprung from; knowing what inspires me, and knowing how to learn. Mom and Dad gave me these resources by wisely teaching, guiding and protecting me wherever we were.

This is where I’d encourage parents: a healthy dose of fresh air, books, crafting materials, "constructive free time", and encouragement, all within a guided and structured schedule.

God bless you on your journey!

So I’ve shown you how to shade a cylinder, but you may be wondering about other shapes.

1) I’ll use a cube for now. (This is a cube made from my kneaded eraser!) From my lamp I have a strong light source, creating some dramatic shading and shadow:

2) I roughly sketched the outlines:

3) Here I began loosely throwing out some lines:

4) Started to add the darkest parts:

5) Added the texture and more shading by throwing out a mish-mash of hatching (notice the hatching comes in "chunks" or "sets" of lines headed in similar directions):

6) Filled in more shading, via hatching:

7) The shadow starts to appear as well:

Finishing up; shading, shadow details:

I have some other pictures here that should give you an idea about how to handle other shapes as well.

a. good hatching
b. layering your hatching
c. not good hatching – you usually don’t want to see where you pencil turned around and made a curve. It just looks sloppy.
d. you can be rough and sketchy! be creative, let loose, and have fun!

Shading an object with 90º angles can make it look flat and dull (a & b). This can usually be cured by adding diagonal lines.

I hope this helped explain cross-hatching more in-depth.
God bless you as you practice!