How to

Draw & Observe

Like an
Artist
Created by
Phil Davies

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INTRODUCTION
By now, you've already labelled yourself as someone who can,
or someone who can't draw. And since you're reading this
there's a good chance it's the latter!
Why is it that some people are naturally gifted with a pencil and
others aren't?
And why are
those gifted few
able to turn their
hand to any
form of visual
art quickly and
effortlessly?
While no one is
born with artistic
ability, it is true
that for some
people drawing
comes naturally
and for most of
us, it doesn't.
But more
importantly, it's
is also true is
that ANYONE
can learn how to
draw.
Actually, I'll re-phrase that slightly...
Anyone can learn how to draw so long as they are willing to
learn some key principles and practice in the right way.
Practice is important part of learning any skill but practice only
makes permanent, not perfect.
So if you've spent years trying to learn how to draw to a good
standard, without success, it's only because you've been using
the wrong strategy NOT because there's something inherently
lacking in the way your brain, eyes and hands work.

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YOURE DRAWING BLIND

If I asked you to draw an object without looking at your paper
(an exercise called 'blind drawing') you'd expect the resulting
image to be pretty poor.
It's obvious why...
without being able
to see your hand on
the page, all you
can do is make a
guess as to the
shape, size and
position of the
pencil marks you
make.
Yet when you allow
yourself to look at
your drawing hand
and paper, it's not
that much easier
and the results are
only marginally
better!
That's because
you're still
essentially just
making guesses.
You're still drawing
'blind'.
You look at the object in front of you, pick out a line, look back at
your paper and think "that line is about this long and at this
angle and curves about this much".
And more often than not your judgement will be off, sometimes
by quite a lot.
The marks you make, the shapes you draw and the size and
position you draw them won't be what you're actually seeing.
Why is this?
You don't intentionally make inaccurate marks, so what's
stopping you from seeing things how they really are?
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LEARN TO OBSERVE LIKE AN ARTIST

At every moment in time, we are bombarded with sensory
information - external sights, sounds, smells and physical
sensations, as well as internal thought processes.
Most of that sensory
information is filtered out of
your conscious awareness.
You can only focus on a
small amount of it at any
one time.
Try this quick test as an
example:
OBSERVATIONAL TEST
Look around the room for
10 seconds and notice
everything that is red.
Make a mental note of the
red objects.

Study of Two Feet by Albrecht Drer. Circa 1508

Do not read ahead! This

test will become pointless
otherwise. Stop reading
now and look for red stuff.

Now close your eyes and

mentally list all of the green objects in the room.
Keep your eyes closed until you can't list any more green
objects
With your eyes now open, look around and notice how many
green objects you missed from your mental list.
You probably missed a lot of green objects. The point is, you
saw them the first time but your brain filtered them out.
When you begin to draw something, you are trying to reduce
that 3-dimensional object to a series of simple lines and shapes.

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Those lines and shapes are there but to the untrained eye (or
brain), they are really hard to decipher. You're looking at red
when you need to look for green.
And then of course your brain realises your struggling and tries
to help you out:
"I know what this object you're drawing is, it's a face and a face
has 2 eyes which are oval, a nose with dark holes for nostrils,
and a mouth which is kind of banana shaped. It should look like
this".
It fills in the blank lines that you are unable to observe correctly.
Unfortunately, your brain is making it up based on a best guess
from memory.
To help you decipher and observe what is really there, you need
the help of some visual aides. At least at first.

Study of Human Portrait by Phil Davies. Circa 2015

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WHAT ARE VISUAL AIDES?

The simplest form of visual aide is tracing.
When you trace the outline of a photograph, you can often be
surprised at the lines and shapes you're left with.
For example, if you think about a human leg,
you know the lower leg below the knee, is
about the same length as the upper leg or
thigh. So your brain will want to resist drawing
one dramatically shorter than the other - even
when that's how it appears in reality (see the
image to the left).
Many beginners would fail to 'see' how short
the lower legs are when drawing this image.
This illusion is called foreshortening.
While tracing isn't cheating, it teaches you
very little observational awareness.
Other visual aides, used in the right context,
are more useful for training your brain and
learning how to draw a variety of subject
matter. Examples include:

Grid lines
Using basic shapes
Measuring
Construction and contour lines
Negative space
Value scale
Some of these will seem quite mechanical to
use and like tracing, you might even feel like
you're somehow fudging the system.
But they are serving a purpose and that's to
expose visual information that, right now, you're
struggling to see clearly. It won't take too long before you no
longer need to rely on them.

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LEARN TO DRAW A STILL LIFE

I've created a drawing exercise that will give your first hand experience of using different
visual aides and how your brain tries to trick you.
You're going to draw an outline picture of this simple still life arrangement:

You can download a larger version of this image here

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WHAT YOU'LL NEED

A pencil
2 pieces of paper (A4
/ US Letter size)
Eraser (yes, it's okay
to make mistakes)
A print out of the
reference photo.

We're going to cover measuring, basic shapes, construction

lines and negative space.
Give it a go. You need nothing more than pencil, eraser and
paper and a spare half hour!

DRAWING #1
When you download and print the photo, it won't fill your paper.
That's how it's supposed to be so don't resize it.
Create an outline drawing on one of your blank sheets of paper
by copying the photograph. However, make your drawing bigger
than the photo. Try to fill as much of your paper as possible.
Don't add any shading. Just draw the major lines that define the
crate, bottle, glass and grapes. Spend 10-20 minutes on your
drawing.
Don't concern yourself with whether your drawing is any good or
not. Just do the best you can.

DRAWING #2
PART 1 - EXAMPLE OF MEASURING
On your other sheet of blank
paper, you're going to have
a second go.
This time, look at the crate
and gauge roughly how
wide the side in shadow is
in comparison to the photo
as a whole. Would you say
it's half the width of the
photo? More like a third?
To help you see this more
clearly, screw your eyes up
so your squinting quite hard.
This takes a lot of the detail
away and helps you see
major shapes and their
sizes.
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The shadow side of the box is about one third the width of the
photo as a whole
On your blank paper, make a small mark along the bottom
edge, about a third the way along.
Now compare the width of the left side of the crate (with the
grapes hanging over) to the shadow side of the crate. You can
use a ruler if you want but you don't need to be that accurate.
You can use your finger and thumb like this:

At first glance, you might think this side is going to be shorter

because your brain is telling you it's the shorter side of what
looks like a long, rectangular crate. But when you measure
you'll see the lengths are actually very similar, and in fact the left
side is a bit longer in this photo.
On your paper, make another mark that's about distance away
as the first mark you made.
You can now draw in the 2 verticals of the crate from the 2
marks you've made. Draw them lightly and extend them higher
than you think. Make sure these lines are vertical by checking
they are parallel to the edges of you paper but try to draw them
freehand rather than using a ruler.
Take your pencil and lay it along the top-left edge of the crate
(just underneath the wine bottle). Notice the angle of your
pencil?

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Carefully pick up your pencil and use

it as gauge before drawing the top
edge on your paper.
The quickest way to do this is to lightly
draw a line at the angle you think, and
then check with your pencil by
comparing it to the photo. You can
erase if you need to.
Repeat this for the other top edge so
that you end up with the 2 sides of the
crate.

PART 2 - EXAMPLE OF CONSTRUCTION LINES

(SIMPLE GRID)
You're now going to add in the wine bottle. Nothing kills a still
life more than a lob-sided bottle and you'll see a lot of them on
your way!
Start by making an horizontal line to
mark the top of the wine bottle, and then
one for the bottom of the wine bottle.
Now make 2 vertical lines to represent
the width of the bottle. How do you
know where to place the first vertical? If
you're asking that question, you're
starting to think more carefully about
what's in front of you, which is great!
Find a reference point... how about the
left side of the bottle and how it lines up
with the corner of the box?
To gauge the width, gauge how many
wine bottles would fit into the left side of
the crate (the shadow side). It's about 3.
Make your second vertical mark and see if the width of your
bottle would fit about 3 times into the shadow side.

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Now draw a rectangle using your

markers. You can do this with a ruler
but try and do it freehand (the lines will
have more character). Don't worry
about getting super straight lines, but
your verticals should be vertical, not
sloping to one side. Again, compare
that they are parallel to the edges of
your paper.
Lightly draw a line across your
rectangle to represent where the neck
of the bottle meets the shoulders. How
high up should you make this line?
Well, compare the size of the neck on
the photo to the size of the bottle
overall. Use that as your gauge.
Do the same for the bottom of the shoulders.
You can now add a thinner rectangle to represent the bottle
neck. And you can add 2 diagonal lines for the shoulders. Don't
draw curved lines yet - you're looking for symmetry and it's
easier to see that with straight lines first.
Look at the negative and
positive space made by
each diagonal line. I've
hatched this in on the
image below. Those 2
shaded triangles should
be mirror images of each
other.
If they're not, adjust your
diagonals so they are.
This will probably mean
adjusting your bottle
neck slight as well, left of
right.

The shaded areas on the left are not symmetrical to each other. They're
better on the right

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Now let's add some refinements. You might want to erase your
lines slightly (but not completely) or you can just draw more
heavily over them.
Start by adding curves lightly over
the diagonals. Keep looking at the
negative space and if it helps draw
(or scratch) in some lines on your
photo so you have a direct
comparison.
Add some detailing to the bottle top
without any further measuring.
Should find that you're starting to
observe more keenly now and can
add those details with more
confidence.
On to the label. This is a great
example of how lazy observation
and leaving it up to your brain gets
your drawing in trouble. I think it's
fair to say that most people would draw the top and bottom of
the label as curved edges. It makes sense because the bottle is
curved. But hold your pencil over those edges and you'll see
the label edges are almost completely straight lines!
To prove this to yourself, grab a
pen or marker and draw over
your photograph.
The illusion of the curve is
actually created by the context
(it's on a bottle!) and some
shadow on the right edge of the
label.
Draw in your label with straight
lines first. Check they are parallel
to the bottom of the paper and
when you're happy add the
slightest of curves to them.
Quickly check the curves on the bottle top and make sure your
lines are only slightly curved upwards too.

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PART 3 - EXAMPLE OF BASIC SHAPES

You should now have part of your box drawn in and a solidlooking bottle. Stand back from your paper and double check
you are happy with the shape and symmetry of the bottle neck.
To the grapes. Here, I want you to draw a light oval to represent
the overhanging grapes. If it helps, draw and oval over your
photo first, but only if you need to.
Think about the approximate size of your oval in comparison to
the crate.
Now draw an rectangle to represent the grapes on the top of the
crate.

What this gives me is a boundary within which to work so that

the overall bunch of grapes is going to be in proportion to the
bottle.
I then pick one grape to draw. Any will do but I choose the one
closest to the wine bottle so I could compare the size more
easily. When I'm happy with the size of this first grape, drawing
the rest is easy because I have a measure of scale.

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It took me literally 2 minutes to draw

every grape.
The placements, shapes and sizes
aren't exact but for a still life sketch it
doesn't matter.
PART 4 - COMPLETE THE DRAWING
There are lots of lines going on within
the create. It's easy to get confused
and this is where an understanding of
perspective and geometry in drawing
helps.
When you can draw geometric shapes
it really helps you look past the detail
and see the underlying structure. You draw that in fist and then
add the detail.
We'll look at drawing geometric shapes and perspective in
another lesson, but for now see if you can use careful
observation to add the crate detail.
Make a small mark for the top and bottom of the glass and for
the to of the stem. With just those marks try to draw the glass
freehand by looking at the shapes enclosed against the side of
the bottle.
TIPS:

Make reference marks on

your paper before adding
lines. This will help you get
the widths of the wooden
structures correct before you
start making heavier marks.
Use your pencil to
measure angles.
Don't add detail (like rough
edges, bolts and screws)
until you're completely
happy with basic structure.
Take your time and don't
be afraid to erase marks and
lines you're not happy with.
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ADDING FORM WITH SHADING

This exercise will help you achieve a sold line or contour drawing. Creating form (making the
image look 3-dimensional) with shading, is the next part that we'll cover in separate lessons.
This is not an easy piece to shade if you're a beginner. The bottle and glass are especially
tricky. But if you want to have a go at shading now, by all means do so and some fun!
Just remember that creating form with shading comes back to careful observation. Look for
shapes in the bottle reflections. Squint your eyes to see areas of dark and light more easily.
And take your time!
The drawing below took me an hour to shade and that was rushed! The more time you spend
observing your subject matter before you make a mark, the more satisfied you'll be with the
final result!

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