Life Drawing from Home: Drawing on Marked Paper (Patreon)

This post is about considering your paper surface before beginning to draw. Drawing on a pristine white surface can sometimes be a bit intimidating as it can often feel like it is calling out for a perfect work of art. If our surface has been softened with marks or stains, it can help us with a starting point and there is less pressure to make something perfect. There are a variety of materials and prepared surfaces we can draw on, so we will take a look at some discarded materials and some that we prepare ourselves.

Aims and objectives:

• To consider alternative surfaces to white paper to draw on and reuse unwanted, discarded materials.
• To encourage you to explore and play with alternative surfaces as a way to begin your drawing and incorporate found ready-made marks as part of the drawing.
• To explore making your own abstract marks and incorporating them into your observational drawing.

Materials

You will need:

• Cardboard packets or envelopes from letters that have been sent to you, brown envelopes are better than white. Cardboard boxes will do but sometimes they can have a slightly shiny surface which makes them a bit difficult to draw on. And/or old newspapers or anything you may have that has been branded or marked in anyway.
• Conté crayon, and/or charcoal pencil, coloured pastels, white chalk/light pastel
• Eraser putty or plastic
• Plain brown and/or sugar paper/coloured paper 5 – 10 sheets

Reference photos

Start by selecting an image. Either work from one of the online classes that you may have started to work from or use the reference material from our Patreon and download an image, either full figure or portrait. There is no need to set the timer for the first exercise.

Exercise 1: Using found material

Step 1. Choose a marked surface to draw on, such as an envelope or packet that has been sent through the post. Study the image you have selected and look at the direction of the light and how it falls on the figure or face. 

From this image I can see that the light is coming from my right and the darker area is to the left.  Roughly mark out the darker areas with your crayon/charcoal/dark pastel.

Step 2. Add some contour lines, I find it helpful to draw with a fairly blunt crayon and with blind contour as described in the Conté crayon post. You can take an occasional look to make sure you are going in roughly the right direction. 

Step 3. Keep working with a blunt crayon so you don’t get bogged down with too many details and make adjustments to your drawing where needed. Here I’ve extended some of the shadows down and across the head to get a feel of the proportions. When you are happy things are in the right place, start deepening the some of the lines and darks. You can use a rubber to adjust any darker areas that are in the wrong place and also to soften some of the edges. 

Step 3. Finally, you can sharpen up some of the lines with a charcoal pencil or sharp Conté crayon and add some highlights with your chalk or pastel. Look for the lightest parts and keep them general. If you want to change or adjust any of the marks, try lifting them off with a rubber. 

Exercise 2: Making your own marks

Reference photos

You will need 5 reference images to do 5 x 3 minute drawings. Download the images, open them up as a slide show so you can quickly toggle between poses and time yourself for each drawing before moving on to the next pose.

Step 1. You are going to prepare some paper with your own marks, so take about 10 sheets of brown, sugar or coloured paper and start to make some random marks on the paper with some coloured pastel. Three colours should be enough to begin with. I find it really helpful to play some music for this step, choose something that moves you so you are distracted by the sound instead of your thoughts. Essentially, you need to try and not think about the marks you are about to make and let yourself be guided by the music. There is no right or wrong and you need to let yourself go without thinking about it too much. It can feel a little strange at first as you have no particular starting point or finishing point so just give it a go and see what happens.

Step 2. Change the colours as you go, limiting yourself to only three colours per sheet can help reduce confusion and if you are unhappy with your colour combination then change the colours. This step can be really fun especially after you have done a few as you should start to relax a little. I usually do this for about 20 minutes and then I feel like I am just going round in circles so I stop. Stop once you feel you’ve done enough but you will need at least 5 sheets of marked paper to work on.

Step 2. Now you are going to draw on top of the paper you have marked, so select an image that you think will fit well with your marked paper. If you are unsure, just pick any one. Do a quick sketch or a blind contour drawing (check the post on Conté Crayon for instructions) with your Conté crayon or charcoal pencil over the top of your marked paper. Time yourself up to 3 minutes. 

Continue... Repeat at least 5 times and when you have finished, darken and sharpen any lines if they are too faint so they stand out against your pastel marks.

Summary

I find that drawing on discarded material can often reduce any anxiety about the act of drawing as you are using something that would only otherwise go to waste. Found or made marks can often help as a starting point and can add interest and atmosphere to an otherwise stark piece of paper. Using blunt crayons and pastels can help you to avoid getting stuck on the details too soon and also help you to keep your eye on the whole. Save any finer points until you get towards the end of your drawing.

Moving forward

There are many ways to make marks on paper, you could try pasting some torn up pieces of white paper on brown or vice versa. Try experimenting with the materials you have and create some soft texture and light stains with charcoal or blobs of watercolour unrelated to your drawing as a base to work on. There are no rules and it is fun to play. Instead of putting your discarded drawings in the recycle, try working over them with gesso and a rough brush like the charcoal and gesso post and use this as a surface for your drawings. Look up Guy Denning for uses with newspaper and cardboard and a search on Pinterest for mixed media will throw up plenty of ideas to get you going.

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This is the sixth of our weekly 'Life Drawing From Home' blog posts, commissioned using money raised on the Draw Patreon. Please do share your drawings with us, as we would love to see what everyone is up! Just tag us with @Draw_Brighton on social media or use the #LifeDrawingFromHome and #DrawBrighton hashtags. this article was written by Shelley Morrow - you can follow her on Instagram at @shelleymorrow1 and you can see more of her work on her website www.shelleymorrow.com.

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