what should I draw

#artistniralimehta

Painting a Silhouette

How to say that? It is ‘Silu -et’. That’s right! I am not talking about a soft fabric but a technique of painting. Silhouette is also a popular method in photography. It is an object or profile in dark black against a very bright source of light, usually the Sun.

To understand it better, do a small experiment. Take a camera and try clicking pictures of any object with the Sun at Sunrise and Sunset. The object will always come dark. On the other hand if you click in the other direction where the Sun illuminates the object, we get a crisp clear photo with details of the object. That is why they say don’t click against the Sun. Unless of course you want the special effect.

A example of how the photo will be – Image from WordPress Photo Library

The reason is the immense brightness creating a contrast with the object. Thus the object appears completely black or dark with only an outline or profile. A distinct shape of the object will be seen. This is called a Silhouette. Sunrise and Sunset are the perfect backgrounds.

It is a very simple method for painting and can be done by just anyone. No need to know anything about painting. One can paint with any medium of paint. In digital it is super quick to draw one. We can even paint it using markers. Relief techniques as well.

Silhouette Example
The Knight – I painted it digitally to explain Silhouette

It is 3 simple easy steps 1) Decide the placing of the objects 2) Paint the background in colours of yellow and orange 3) Draw the object and colour it in black – as simple as that. One thing to note is the position of the Sun. White followed by lemon yellow followed by orange to red, brown and black. This is the colour blending of the Golden Sky.

Silhouette Example 2
Yoga Pose – Another one that I painted digitally

Drawing the object directly seems difficult? Let’s make it even easier. Download a ‘Silhouette’ of the object, print it and cut it. Place it on your drawing and mark the outline. Now paint it black. We can use a stencil also. For a first timer it is ok to use assistance. Once we understand how to paint it we will be able to do it without any assistance.

It is like the learning side wheels in a bicycle. We can let them off once we learn to ride. It helps overcome the stigma ‘I can’t paint’. A beautiful blend of colours with a distinct object highlighted. The colour on the outside and the object in single solid colour – Silhouette. The internet has ample images for inspiration. Choose something you like.

Some classic examples from the WordPress Photo Library

I paint them digitally because it is super quick. Beach scenes or by the sea shore are best drawn using this method. One of my favourites to paint would be the Knight holding the flag and the other is a famous scene from the movie ‘The Lion King’ where Mufasa roars from the top of the cliff. A woman standing at the cliff point with open arms and breeze blowing through her hair is another one I like to paint.

Painting Silhouettes is easy and hence can also be very easily replicated and copied. Hence, I don’t sell them at my shops. Decided to do a post on them for learning and understanding. One can always paint them for their learning without any worries OR If photography is your area of interest, try clicking some pictures.

Have an Arty Weekend!

#artistniralimehta

Oops! I made a mistake .. Eraser Stories

‘Life is the Art of Drawing without an Eraser’ I am sure you have heard this one before. But the truth is most of us cannot draw that well. We all make mistakes at some point in time. Nobody is born knowing it all. What we do after that .. how we correct it .. what we learn from it .. is important. Think! What is it that we could do differently so that the mistake is not repeated? We learn by asking questions and making mistakes. We grow as we learn. It is a part of the process.

People can be a bit too hard on themselves. They discard things with the slightest flaw or even a single mistake. In Art, we can either incorporate the mistake into the design or erase it. Then it is about how big or small the mistake is. My Art teacher always said, “It is ok to make a mistake. What you should also know is how to correct it. You cannot keep throwing away everything or stop painting altogether because of them.”

Reflecting, I realised I had made mistakes on my art journey as well. Sharing them with you could help you avoid them, rectify them or at least feel that you are not the only one. Here’s a list of the ones I could recollect.

  1. If one uses a very sharp pencil or a hard graphite pencil on paper, it creates a dent. The pencil graphite can be erased but the dent or mark will stay.
  2. Excessive erasing can peel off the paper. Hence it is important to select a good eraser as per our use.
  3. Erasing when the paper is slightly wet will erode the paper. Literally!! There will be a hole. This happens if we use pencils along with watercolours. It is best not to draw with a pencil before using watercolours. If at all we do use them, make sure it is very light and will get covered in paint. We won’t have a problem if we use gouache colours because they are thick and opaque.
  4. Drawing with a pencil on a canvas and erasing it is a big no-no. The graphite will mix with the paint and the colour will change to dull and dark. It is a good idea to draw with a paintbrush on a canvas. We can use a very light shade (almost white but visible to the naked eye) for drawing or making the markings. This will get covered up when we paint on it thereafter.
  5. We do get ink erasers. Pencil erasers can be used for colour pencils too. I tried erasing a little pencil mark when the paper was almost dry but not completely dry and the paper peeled. This was because of the moisture in the marker. The idea is that once we paint or colour on the paper, the pencil mark goes under it. Hence it cannot be erased even after drying. Whether we use pencils, markers or paints it is best to erase all the extra markings before painting. We can always keep the outlines that will get covered with thicker outlines or enhanced after painting.
  6. This is one of my favourites – Give a light wash in the background and then detail and then more detail. Same way in pencil shading. Do the light tone, then darker and then darker as and where necessary. Work on the whole piece simultaneously, so that the colours of the artwork mix and match well. Also, there is a complete flow in the picture. By any chance, if we make any mistake or want to make changes after doing the other portion we will be able to correct it. Once the dark or final touch is done, it becomes a lot more difficult to correct it. That is why it is always better to work in layers.
  7. Spilled a colour and ruined the spot? Lighten the colour by removing the pigment by lightly dabbing on that portion. Let it dry completely and then paint over it. That is what I meant by it can be easily corrected in the beginning. That is why nobody paints one part of the art to the finish while the other part doesn’t even have a base wash. That’s 99% a digital edit.
  8. Want to remove dried paint? Acetone works well to remove Acrylic paint on surfaces like glass or plastic. I have used it on canvas too. The cotton in the canvas will have to be treated with gesso once again before painting.
  9. The paint water glass tipped and dripped water onto the paper. This happens a lot when we work in small spaces or a hurry. Especially during art exams. For many of us, it can even be a horrifying experience. Don’t worry this can also be corrected. Take a dry cloth and lightly dab on the paper to soak up the excess water. Some paint will come onto this cloth. It will be back to the light wash stage. Let it dry and repaint only that portion.
  10. Last and very important – In the process of correcting the mistake, don’t try too hard. Sometimes people focus so much on the mistake that it ends up becoming the highlight instead of blending or fading away in the picture.

One thing I clearly understood is most of the times we are the only ones to know what the mistake is and where. The onlooker doesn’t know it unless we specifically point it out or highlight it or in any way make it very obvious. If we manage to blend it and make it flow along with the rest of the painting it can add to the beauty. Yes! Some mistakes can be beautiful. A little here or there adds to the beauty of handmade. It makes it different and unique. It makes it special.

What if none of these methods works and we have to do a re-do? Then think of what Thomas Edison said ‘I haven’t failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’ We are all human. To err is human. I like to wear my bruises as my badges of honour. So if at all we make a mistake, there is nothing to worry about. It is ok to make mistakes.

Fortunately, we have erasers for art. And there are different types of erasers too. Hehe.. Yes! There are different types of erasers. And no please don’t call it rubber. It is called an eraser. We all have this one vinyl eraser or a regular soft eraser (with a brush to clean the dust) for regular use. This can be used for Art as well. A pencil eraser for erasing precise lines (this is an eraser pencil, see the picture) and a kneaded eraser (magic eraser as I call it) that absorbs graphite and charcoal is something every artist should include in their toolbox.

Erasers
Different types of erasers that I use for my Art Projects

Having a good eraser and more so the right ones can be very helpful in drawing and painting. I don’t use erasers that are hard on the surface such as the sand eraser and the pink eraser. An eraser mounted on the pencil is a big no for me. It is not for drawing or sketching. One can use it for regular writing work. We also get changeable erasers and electric erasers in the market. These erasers are more pricey and better suited for specialists or professionals.

Do you also have eraser stories? Feel free to share them. We could all learn from them. Have an Arty Weekend!

#artistniralimehta

5 Ways to Fine Tune your Art – Drawing, Painting and Sketching

Ever looked at your finished Art and thought something is missing. Somehow I am not completely happy with it. There could be something to improve but I just don’t know what? Further sometimes we don’t even know where to look, which part of it needs to be fine tuned. If we work on one portion, something else looks out of place. I know this feeling, it happens.

So do you know how to get it right? That is the question I am going to try and answer in this post. In this article when I say Artwork: it means Drawing, Painting and Sketching. And when I say object- it refers to whatever we are drawing, painting or sketching. I don’t have a checklist of any kind but I can definitely tell you the five ways to fine tune your Artwork in order to improve and make it better based on my learnings and experience.

These are also the observations we need to make when doing Art. If you observe these and are able to check them right, not only would you be good at Art but also find it easy to understand and learn different Art styles. This is more or less an exhaustive list. It does have sub topics or points. In a way it is also 5 mistakes to avoid while making Art.

It is like a grade meter, how much fine tuning is required for each of the parameters will have to be determined by you. That is because it is to your taste. Over a period of time with observation and experience you will be able to decide your own parameters for each of these. Perfection isn’t when all of it is present, it is when all of it is in the right quantities. So let’s begin listing them.

1. Shapes and Patterns

Everything has a main outer shape and maybe more smaller shapes. It is important to observe this. First we draw this main shape and then do the details. Consider it as rough work to your final answer. This also helps decide the placement for various objects in the Picture. You can also take them as a marking of the space each object can take on the canvas. It is important to place things evenly or rather correctly space them out on the canvas. Most people make the mistake of skipping this step and begin to draw directly.

Let’s consider drawing something like ‘My House’. If you are drawing this landscape, make the large main shapes of the tree, the fence, the house, the sun or sky, the human with his pet, the ground and so on. Then add the details. Erase the rough work. It is the correct method to draw.

Some videos on the Internet will show super awesome Artists who complete one particular corner of the art with full finished details while the rest of the canvas is blank. Wow! They are super humans but we are normal humans and this is how we draw. It is mostly a digitally edited video, very rarely can anyone draw like that. They need to get into the book of records for such exemplary skill if they really can. For the rest of the normal people this is the first step for drawing anything.

Everything in nature has a pattern. So for example when you draw a flower. Look for this main shape of a circle or an ellipse. See the pattern of the petals are they – above or below, in odd numbers or even. See the shape of the petals – pointed or round, long or circular. Further see the centre of the flower and look for a shape there. The pollens will have a pattern – are all of them in the same direction, how many turn right or left. These things we need to observe and then when we draw, we match it with our reference.

2. Proportions and Scale

Many people confuse these terms. So in another words it is the size and ratio of the objects drawn. So in your landscape a bird cannot look bigger than the tree, that is scale. Now how much space of the tree is the branches and how much the leaves – that is proportion. That is what we need to observe. How the object looks in context with the other objects in the picture and what are the proportions of its own parts. When drawing a human face you would note the proportion of the eyes to the eyebrows, the nose and lips. The scale would be the size of the actual face. They are connected and not used in isolation.

3. Perspectives and Backgrounds

Which angle or point are you looking at it from? Top or bottom, right or extreme right. The distance- up close or far away. The objects which are closer are detailed, while the objects farther away at a distance in the background may not have all the details. If you draw details of all the objects in a picture, it is like keeping everyone in the front row. It will look like everyone is shouting for attention. The focus is always on some objects in the front and less on those in the background. Artworks with backgrounds look complete.

Perspective adds depth. The third dimension or 3D. This makes the object look natural as against flat image. 3D means 3 axis – X axis, Y axis and Z axis. Length, width and depth or thickness. The most common example is if you draw a rectangle. Now try imagining this as a box, as that of the wall of a house or this wall Humpty is sitting on.

Your position while looking at the object determines how it is visible to you. For example four different people looking at a car from four different spots – the top, from the right, the left and the bottom will all draw it differently based on what they see. Correct? What your view is, is your perspective. This brings about a balance in the picture.

4. Light, Shadows and Highlights

In one picture there can be one source or two sources of light. Two when there is one natural source like the Sun and two when there is a light fitted or the created source. The light coming from any point does not fall equally on all the objects. The rays fall in a straight line and not in curves. So the whole picture has be in sync with it. The Shadow of an object is determined by the direction of the light and also falls straight. Depending on the position, the size of the shadow will change. There could be a situation where the shadow of one object also falls on another.

There is something called highlight – when a significant portion of the light falls at a spot and it almost looks white. We colour or shade from light to dark or dark to light and then add the shadows and highlights. This adds depth to the painting. Also observe how an object reflects the light. The texture and surface of the object determines that.

It really looks funny when all objects have different sources of light and random shadows. There has to be a flow in the picture.

5. Colours, Shades and Tones

Tones is Dark, medium and light. This is determined by the source of light in your picture. When you do an artwork in black and white it will still have these. The gradient is smooth and blending it is important. Where we want to show it as blocks, we make sure the edges are crisp. When we colour the objects, we can try as much as possible to match the exact colour to the real object. Mixing of colours to make various tints, tones and shades can be understood with the help of the colour wheel.

There should be a contrast between the dark, medium and light tones otherwise the image will look flat. Meaning how dark the colour looks against the medium tone colour. Whether the difference is significant or very little. Sometimes all you need to do is make the dark shade a bit darker. A pro tip here is not all colours can be made lighter by adding white or darker by adding black. When you observe an object see the dark colour, does it have traces of other shades. For example the dark colour could be brown with little of green and not always necessarily black.

These topics need to be studied in detail. The only way to understand these is to observe and try it out practically. Now that you have basic information about these, the next time you are drawing, sketching or painting look and observe these things in your Artwork. Whatever you are drawing – be it a portrait, a landscape, an object, nature or design. Check for these and mark the difference with your Art as against your reference. Your artwork will show significant improvements.

If possible, take an object like a flower or a vase or a pen or a bottle or a landscape picture, keep in it front of you and then read this article once again while observing these and mentally making a marking of each. Then begin to draw. It isn’t a one time exercise, you keep going back and forth. I am sure you will be pleased with the outcome. There is a possibility that after years of practice some artists can do a mental calculation of these. After all Art is about being able to imagine that object on your canvas, so that you can draw and paint it.

Have an Arty Week!

#artistniralimehta

What should I draw?

Very often people ask me this question “What should I draw?” Let’s solve this puzzle together today. Art is an expression, so when this question comes to your mind, it means you are thinking of how to express your thoughts. Look around you, look at your world. Your environment including the objects around you, the places you see, the people you meet and the feelings you experience – all of them can be your inspiration. I think God must have been an artist to have created such a beautiful world. Nature inspires me the most. I like drawing birds and flowers a lot.

‘ I recently visited a Park and I was amazed by the show put up by the elephants in the evening. We could play with them and even ride on them. It was a memorable evening. Do you want to capture that memory on paper?’ Just as people express themselves by sharing a talk or an essay, in the same way we artists express ourselves using pencils and paint. So a drawing is essentially what I saw and felt, making it my version of the experience – my essay. Now that I have my muse! Great! That is what I shall draw.

The process is simple. Go with the flow. Keep a diary to note pointers or rough marker sketches when an idea hits you. Over a few days short list and pick the idea you wish to take forward. Convert it to your final work. Not all ideas will get cleared. It is ok to leave a drawing incomplete, come back to it later or not pursue it further at all. It happens all the time. If you feel you don’t have an idea to pursue, it means you need to take a break and unwind. You need collect some new experiences to continue your journey. After the unwinding, when you are back to your desk you will be refreshed and ready to pick up your brushes and complete your Artwork to your satisfaction.

The biggest mistake we can make is to look for inspiration online. It is ok to look for reference on the Internet but don’t look for inspiration. Copying a drawing someone else made will mean the end of your Art Journey. It is like selecting from an already filtered bunch. Most people hit a roadblock doing this as it limits one’s scope to grow as an artist. May be you saw something which the other person did not see. Everyone reads the book but they all understand it differently. We want to see it from your eyes! A good Artist is someone who can express his or her message clearly through the artwork.

What all do people usually draw and paint? Here is a broad spectrum of possible things to draw and paint.

All you can draw

Let’s try and list some specific topics to draw. This should get the ball rolling.

10 Topics to Draw

This is not an exhaustive list. The purpose of this article was to share with you the process so you can do it easily all by yourself. The list is never exhaustive, it keeps changing. So keep your eyes open, look and observe! Anything could be your next inspiration, you never know!