In my Drawing I class, our first homework assignment is a 'Measured Contour Line' drawing. In class, we've been practicing still-lifes with what our instructors have set up full of odds and ends where we would draw the outline shapes in various thicknesses and pressures to capture the still-life. The process of this drawing is that you start with a rectangle representing your picture plane that encompasses the composition of the drawing. You use a view finder or a mental picture frame to create the range of what you will draw. Then you work with light gestures (something I am struggling with) that uses diagrammatic lines to sketch out the general placement of parts and scale relationships. Diagrammatic lines are the skeletal, gestural, lines that provide a transparent construction of what you are drawing. So, lines overlap even if they do not belong to the same object. You draw lines through objects and surfaces and think about constructing the objects and surfaces of the still life transparently. You can use the vine charcoal for this.
Once you have a light, general gesture, you refer back to your viewfinder and a sighting stick to begin correcting and refining the placement of parts and spatial relationships within the drawing. The sighting stick uses the clock tool to measure angles, as well as the Mondrian tool or the 'grid method' to better locate the placement and relationships between the parts and objects. Continue to use the vine charcoal because it's forgiving and can erase easily. After you are satisfied with placement, scale, and proportion of the drawing you can start increasing pressure and using compressed and harder charcoals, making darker and bolder marks and lines.
When you are close to making a clearer layout of your drawing, you can start refining lines and line quality. This mean being specific to the edges of the objects and modifying line treatment in the inner and outer edges of forms. I have never used so much eraser before until I got to this class. (I actually need to buy more pencil eraser refills!) Erasing through refining lines create clear contours.
Within this exercise, not only did it help us work on scale, proportion, and placement, but it encourages us not to work 'part-to-part' or working on one object to the next. By working fast and light pressure gestures you can capture a foundation then refine (another skill I'm working on). Below are photos of my homework assignment - working on the same techniques and processes, but using a still life I created at my apartment. Enjoy.
TheChristyBel
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| Looking Through the View Finder |
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| This Was My First Attempt |
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| This Was My Second Attempt (With More Cross-Hatching) |
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| The Finished Product |
In my Drawing I class, our first homework assignment is a 'Measured Contour Line' drawing. In class, we've been practicing still-lifes with what our instructors have set up full of odds and ends where we would draw the outline shapes in various thicknesses and pressures to capture the still-life. The process of this drawing is that you start with a rectangle representing your picture plane that encompasses the composition of the drawing. You use a view finder or a mental picture frame to create the range of what you will draw. Then you work with light gestures (something I am struggling with) that uses diagrammatic lines to sketch out the general placement of parts and scale relationships. Diagrammatic lines are the skeletal, gestural, lines that provide a transparent construction of what you are drawing. So, lines overlap even if they do not belong to the same object. You draw lines through objects and surfaces and think about constructing the objects and surfaces of the still life transparently. You can use the vine charcoal for this.
When you are close to making a clearer layout of your drawing, you can start refining lines and line quality. This mean being specific to the edges of the objects and modifying line treatment in the inner and outer edges of forms. I have never used so much eraser before until I got to this class. (I actually need to buy more pencil eraser refills!) Erasing through refining lines create clear contours. 
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