How to Draw in 5 Steps

Every drawing starts out well, and then goes through a bad phase. I call this The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Valley stage is when we notice our drawing does not look right, and we try to fix it, but it only gets worse and worse.

Pulling the drawing out of the Valley, and learning how to do this over and over, is the key to drawing well.

Whenever we get frustrated or discouraged, I have found it helpful to have a few mantras and a list of STEPS to follow to re-focus the mind and get the drawing back on track.

These steps help me, and I have found they help my students as well:

1. Breathe. You can’t draw if your brain thinks you are dying.
2. Look. Drawings fail when we forget to look at the subject.
3. Mark. Make ONE mark. Stop your hand. Put your pencil down if you need to.
4. Check. Look at the subject again, look at your mark again, and correct it.
5. Repeat. Do this 10 times. Then do it 10 more times. 

If you lose count, start again and try to do it 10 times. And then 10 more times. In fact, this is really the way to draw ALL the time.

P.S. It works for painting, too!

WORKSHOP: Drawing the Figure in Chalk and Charcoal on Toned Paper: January 2013, San Francisco

Monochromatic Plein Air Painting in Lake County, California

My husband Nowell and I spent this week at a country retreat a couple hours north of San Francisco, in Lake County. We rent a little house there that is on 80 fences acres, with private hiking trains and gorgeous views to rival the Hudson River Valley… although quite a bit drier and hotter this time of year.

I LOVE working with my Open Box M palette, Manfrotto tripod, and Manfrotto arm with the Julian Umbrella. 

I looked at my old post about this and realized a lot of the links are broken, so here it is updated:

• Open Box M pochade box 10x12 
  (no need to buy the whol boxy kit, just get the panel holder)
• Julienne painter’s umbrella (they now show a horrible red/white/blue version… just get WHITE).
• Manfrotto tripod and joystick head
• Manfrotto jointed arm is THE BEST way to attach your umbrella. I use it to attach the umbrella to the tripod right beneath the pochade box. 
• Clamps: The arm above does NOT come with the CLAMPS which are very important. You will need 2.
• Seal-able solvent can
• Viewfinder

Extra tip: Carry most the items to your painting site in a backpack. Then, when you are set up and the backpack is empty, fill it with a couple hefty ROCKS and hang it from a clamp on the tripod. It makes your whole setup very stable even in a swift breeze.

 I decided ahead of time to try for some discipline on my plein air studies by focusing on value, and painting with only monochromatic colors. So I did not even pack any colored paint, and tried to see how much I could get out of just Transparent Oxide Brown, Ultramarine Blue, and Titanium white.

My first painting was supposed to be a “simple” tree study. Of course, trees are very, very hard to capture the drawing issues of gesture and structure, much like painting the human figure. I spent so much time trying to draw the sahpes of the branches that I had a hard time trying to get the feeling of the filtered backlit sunlight through the leaves.

Having a dog for company is the best way to paint outdoors! Ripley is used to hanging out with me at the studio, and so she was happy to settle down to hang out with me. It was hot though, and even in the shade she panted and could not get comfortable. So one day I decided to leave her back at the house… but Nowell said she cried and whined at the door while I was gone. So from now on she gets to come along no matter the weather.

For my second painting I decided to stand further back and try to capture the overall shape of a different tree and its environment and lighting.

The midafternoon sun was hidden by hazey clouds by the time I took a ohoto of the scene, but I was done with the sketch.

I felt like that painting got too opaque, so for my 3rd painting I painted with very thin, dry, brown paint, and used white only minimally.

I thought that would be my last painting of the trip, but at the end of the day I was inspired to try a quick sketch of a little grove of trees lit from the front by the late afternoon sun.

The previous paintings took 2-3 hours each, but in this scene the shadows shifted quickly and I only had about 30 minutes before the effect was lost completely, but it was fun to try to capture the feeling of the late-day summer light.

My setup on the last day of our trip. I’m looking forward to coming back with colors on another trip!