Or Why a Drawing is Never Really Done
“We’re going to do a book,” my editor said. “Got anything planned for next week?”
Now, as you may have realized, my editor is someone who has a wealth of good ideas, and is ever eager to spring them on unsuspecting illustrators.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I said, as the photographer, perched precariously upon a stack of encyclopedias, phone books and old pizza cartons on a revolving chair atop a rickety ladder, lurched backward under the impetus of a resounding sneeze and came crashing down onto my carefully laid-out selection of newly sharpened pencils in a whirlwind of flailing limbs and lenses.
“God bless you,” my editor said, expertly catching his camera as it plunged earthwards and extending a toe to stabilize one of the spotlights, all the while typing with the other hand. “What was that about the importance of holding pencils properly again? Please enunciate clearly.”
Admittedly, I’ve made it sound a little more exciting and trepidacious than it really was, but we illustrators do lead dull lives, so it’s tempting to embroider. What we actually did was lock ourselves away in the studio for five days while I drew ten sketches, which the photographer, who nursed a monstrous cold with typical English phlegm (both literally and figuratively in this case) and tried not to cough too much down the back of my neck whilst perched on a chair behind me taking pictures. My editor, armed with her laptop and a good deal of patience, caught the running commentary and kept notes organized, photos regularly uploaded and coffee flowing freely.
Here is how it went:
“How about we draw the siege of Minas Tirith with the charge of the Rohirrim, seen from above, with all nine Nazgul and Barad-dûr in the background?” I said enthusiastically.
“Now John, we spoke about this last week and agreed to keep it simple, remember? Single figures.”
“No mûmakil?” I pleaded.
“No John,” she said firmly, employing that tone of voice normally reserved for the slightly hard of hearing or for small puppies. “Simple, remember? And draw slower, please.”
(Actually, I made that up too. The whole thing was impeccably planned out – my editor may have strikingly original ideas, but she is also strikingly well organized.)
And so it went for five days. It was quite exhausting, though, and quite sobering seeing those things I would normally erase being photographed close up for posterity, but we did our best to make it instructive and fun. As you may know, I really quite distrust those how-to books that reduce drawings to a series of ellipses and rectangles to begin with, so the approach may be a little hard to grasp; it’s all about setting up an environment that is conducive to creativity and acquiring a few basic reflexes so that the stumbling blocks any even modestly ambitious drawing throw in front of you are avoided. It is all about keeping an eye on everything at once, seeing the whole drawing at once, and keeping up that constant and unconscious measuring of proportion and position that is so crucial to creating an illusion of dimension. Nor do I have any real qualms about revealing “trade secrets” and like shibboleths, and do believe that not only the artwork itself should be shared, but the processes involved.
False starts and sudden changes of heart during the process are really what the process is all about. Anything to stop the exercise from turning in to a methodical and predictable sketch-by-numbers, which is anything but rewarding.
Also, these are simple sketches, intended to be “easy” to follow (not much point in putting in a how-to book sketches so complicated that they cannot be reproduced) but which hopefuly will transmit something not immediately apparent in the sketches themselves.
It’s all about lines. And speaking of which, here are a few from the book, in the guise of a postscript:
WHEN IT’S ALL SAID AND DONE
A drawing is never really done. It is simply a glimpse, at a given time, of an idea. Drawings are thoughts fixed in graphite lightly. They can be the best way to abandon an idea with no regrets, or a way to retain that fleeting something, to be revisiting months or even years later.
Now that we’ve reached the end of this book, I’d like to do it again. Better, possibly; different, certainly; because drawing is by nature a hasty exercise conducted in the court of circumstance where the muse has many suitors.
I would like to do simpler drawings, more complex drawings, the same drawings again, or a double handful of new ideas. I would like to do a book on drawing with no drawings at all. Drawings are never done, only the book that holds them.
Now that it’s said and done, I’ve finally come to realize that it never really is, that pencils provide the perfect impermanence, the ultimate lightness of seeing, the line that is always between the lines in a sort of fractal meta-physicality � no matter how closely you depict an idea, there are always dozens more hidden within. That’s what this book is hoping you will discover, that while practice makes good, perfect is always in the next sketch, that the only real line is the horizon.
It’s no coincidence that etymology provides such solace; with each drawing you draw yourself closer to two things: understanding the nature of the world around you and depicting in patient graphite the worlds you have within. Like two mirrors placed face to face, the artist is somewhere in that infinity of reflection and counter-reflection. Hopefully armed with a pencil and a sketchpad.
A drawing is never really done.
May 11, 2009
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Left: The final cover
Right: The initial layout, which I really quite liked, but which didn’t make it to the final selection.
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A selection of pages from the book.
Fantasy Drawing Workshop
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Impact (October 29, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1600617735
ISBN-13: 978-1600617737
(The UK edition appeared on October 1st.)
EOWYN & THE NAZGUL
Following the launch of the bronze version, the resin edition of Eowyn & the Nazgul is now available for pre-order.
IMAGINE FX
Issue # 49 of ImagineFX may still be in the shops and newsstands (if you hurry). It has four pages or sketches with some rather hurried, but nevertheless creative captions.
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