The year 2022 is coming to an end. The last few months I’ve found myself drawing and even painting a little more again. I registered for two evening classes at my local adult education facility (Volkshochschule). I went to watercolour classes Monday evenings. Thursday evenings I sat together with all types of budding artists, and while they were introduced to a different media every other week, I’d draw black and white figures from reference photos.

This year, I eventually managed to unblock my mental constraint for just drawing something without references in my sketchbook. I’m still not good at it, but … once a week I’ll fill a page or four in my book with silly figures.

Urban sketching is plodding along, I get out every Wednesday and draw and chat with others. I’m not always happy about the venues, but I generally manage to get up and go to them. This year, I also started moving into a more colourful approach to urban sketching, starting with 3 felt tip pens, then introducing more colours and eventually even moving out with a whole mat of coloured pencils. I’m now reducing that multitude of colours back a little, because there’s so much I don’t understand about colours and it confuses and frustrates me.

Charcoal is also back on the menu. I’m making A2-sized drawings of figures on newsprint, learning about gesture, shape, proportion and next up is form. The goal is eventually to draw better imaginary figures in my sketchbooks. Which I believe was the reason for me starting to draw.

The past 9 months have taught me once more, how important it is to be working with tools that make you happy. The paper needs to be what you love (in my case that’s smooth, thick and it needs to lie flat), the pen needs to be fit for the purpose, react to your every whim and behave consistently and predictably (I have quite a few of them. Unfortunately, fountain pens have not fulfilled the requirements, so it’s back to Tombows and Faber Castell pens. Which I’m ok with.). I spent a lot of time just playing around, doing quick, daily, pose sketches. But that got boring and wasn’t really worth sharing with anyone, so going back to urban sketching and a few portraits was quite joyful. Here are a selection of some of my latest and greatest.

I chose to join another online drawing class, I don’t know why I can’t just stick to the stuff I’ve already bought (or perhaps I do … new and shiny captures my attention … but I’m going to return to the schoolism classes before my year runs out).

Anyhow, I’m getting carried away.

So, there’s this new class I started … on June 1st, and it was supposed to be a 10 day class, one lesson per day for 10 days … but I chose to take my time and did the assignments like once a week. I’ve just watched the last day’s video and will … possibly … attempt the assignment tomorrow … unless I end up satisfying my basic needs with crisps, beer and TV, while lounging on the sofa (it happens … quite often lately, actually).

The teachers of this new class expected you to use different mediums (pencils, graphite powder, ink, watercolour, etc.) everyday. But I was having none of that. I just wanted to draw with a pencil on xerox paper, but I had a weak moment and bought my first pad of Bristol paper (a pretty cheap brand, though) half way through the class.

Each day’s video basically had motivational character for me. There wasn’t much new stuff, but that’s good too. If you watch some really good hobby artists, professional illustrators and art teachers drawing and telling you stuff you already know, it just means all there’s left to do is practice, practice, practice (and have fun, at least most of the time).

These are most of the drawings I made since June 1st for this class, I’ve also been urban sketching and may write a blog on that too … soon.

I started this project of drawing from reference photos in Scott Schuman’s book “The Satorialist – Closer”. I managed a few figures a week in the beginning, now the speed and drive is petering out. And I’m wondering why? It is hard work, drawing those figures, so I’m not going to be too hard on myself, if I only get one done once every 10 days, I’m still going to be ok. I do notice however that I’m being overly critical with myself during the drawing phase. Which makes no sense, especially as it’s all just for fun. I’ve now filled half the sketchbook and believe I can get the rest done by Christmas. If I stop being so overly critical, I could get it done in 3.

They sometimes look a bit distorted, but who cares, it’s just a drawing in a sketchbook, just doing something, just spending some time not looking at screens. Just playing around.

I got myself a year’s subscription at schoolism.com, an online platform that offers me a year of watching recorded classes, workshops and former students’ critiqued homework.

I’ve been through a workshop with Ian McCaig (a concept artist with decades of experience). And I’ve done a whole class with Thomas Fluharty (a draughtsman and oil painter with decades of experience).

Currently, I’m in the fourth week of a class on the Essentials Of Realism with Jonathan Hardesty (a chap who only decided to go into art in his early twenties and then ended up making the decision to join an atelier with 3 other students and be taught classically by 2 classically trained artists for three years, he also seems to be a great teacher).

I am learning what compressing the darks means and why that is so important. It seems we (as observers) don’t gain much information from the parts of the object which are in shadow. And when we draw (or paint) we don’t have the range of values that real life offers. So, if we use up too much of the reduced range in the shadow areas, we are left with much less range to work with in the light areas. It may also be that we intentionally reduce our value range even more, before even starting the drawing, just to achieve a specific mood or capture a certain ambient light effect. The more range we have left to work with in the lights, the more we can achieve when modelling the form.

The transition values in the light area play an important role when it comes to form. The more room you have in your light value range, the easier it will be to create that transition.

It is about now that I’m starting to understand why Jonathan Hardesty teaches us to begin a drawing by blocking in the lights and darks. We have mainly been drawing portraits (which is good for me, I enjoy portraits) but we are not focusing on anatomy, instead we are “just” learning to identify the shapes that outline the shadows, highlights and transition areas of the model. This is the stage that feels like copying, but as soon as we start putting down the values and have to activate our critical vision and make sensible choices, it starts to become a very creative process. It is challenging and fulfilling at the same time.

The two homeworks I have made for his class are not exceptional but I think I have already learnt a lot (the portraits don’t really look like the originals much, but they look pretty realistic to me and I’m fine with that). They basically grew out of blocks of light and dark, and it was fun to see the face appear once I started adding the values.

Finally, the sketchbook we started on January 30th, 2020 in the (probably very cold) academic art museum (filled with plaster casts of Roman sculptures) is full.

The last 6 months or longer, I’ve been keeping to a theme, and it’s been interesting seeing my skill progressing. Lately, it had however become quite tedious and I’m looking forward to starting a new sketchbook with a different subject and toolset.

The theme and tool set I’d been keeping to was blue and orange (ink and coloured pencil) drawings of scenes at home.

It may be time for portraits again, as you know, I’m currently drawing fully dressed figures on a 4 drawings per week basis and I’m enjoying the monochromatic approach.

Whatever 2021 may bring, I’ve decided to keep a regular, healthy drawing habit going. These long weeks of being “locked away” have not been pleasant for me I’ve been self reflecting, trying to find the common denominator in the drawings I make and being honest to myself about my likes and dislikes.

Just before 2020 ended I decided to start a project of copying photo references into a small Moleskine sketchbook. This was to cover as many of my preferences as possible, each time I’d sit down to draw. During this project, I get to draw full figures (as opposed to only portraits), do gestural work (the lightest change in the gesture can make or break the drawing), concentrate on studying values, use black/grey ink only (I enjoy working with the brush end of the dual Tombow pens) and only need a small toolset for it (just a handful of pens and pencils that I can put back in the bookshelf when not in use).

Four or five of these get drawn by me each week. I spend up to 3 hours on each and sometimes start one day and finish the next (something pretty new to me, as I’m always rushing on to the next drawing normally). This’ll keep me occupied for a few more months.