mymodernmet.com: With an array of colors to choose from in the color wheel, drawing in black and white can seem like a drag. But sketching in grayscale is a great exercise for learning how to draw. You don’t have to worry about color theory and can instead focus on the tones (lightness or darkness) of your subject to build its three-dimensionality.
7 comments:
This is a great, concise article that puts all these great short tips into one! All of these tips are ones that my art teacher has taught me over the years, but they become so ingrained in my process, that it was a helpful reminder to see them all together again in front of me in word form. I’m really glad the author broke it down into wet and dry media, because the approaches are very different. I very much agree with the introduction, that if you’re learning how to draw or paint, that it’s extremely important to establish skills by building upon them, so starting with black and white really allows one to hone in on tone and dimension in isolation. I’d argue that drawing in greyscale is almost harder than drawing in color—since we experience everyday life in color, it’s hard to flatten that into just black and white. Per the article, preserving your whites is SO IMPORTANT!!! Smudgey white isn’t cool—masking fluid is a saving grace. The one thing I don’t necessarily agree with is always working light to dark with dry media. I was taught, especially with foliage and hair, to start with a medium tones, THEN push lights and darks. It’s easier with something like pencil, because you can erase the medium tone, or even push it with a white colored pencil, charcoal, or gel pen. This article inspired me to get back to my roots and practice some drawing!!
There is a reason why art teachers always begin by teaching black and white drawing. It is easier to note highlights and shadows in grayscale. As Natalie said, this is a great and concise article that breaks tips down by medium. That effort to separate the tips into two separate lists indicates that drawing in black and white requires different techniques depending on the consistency of the medium. I love the tip that talks about squinting your eyes to get a better sense of highlights and shadows. I would have never thought that decreasing the quality of my vision would ultimately give me a more precise sense of contrast. I will definitely start doing that in my future black and white drawings. Also, I always forget that my dry medium drawings are easily prone to smudging, so this article offered a good reminder to cover my pieces with paper and plan accordingly.
These are actually really good tips. Whenever I read articles with tips, they are usually just okay, but these are good. My favorite here is the one on preserving your whites. I guess the same can be said about preserving your blacks. It is so annoying when you are working through a drawing with different shades and you've already used your white, but there is a section that you need to be even more highlighted. Or if you have already used black, but there is a darker section. This ties in with planning ahead. Look to see which area is the most highlighted and which area is the darkest and save those because they are usually very crucial to the overall look. Another tip that I tend to use that isn't mentioned here is to try and step away from thinking too hard on creating the object, but see it as a series of lines with different tones. Personally, I get caught up in the object that I'm recreating and I would have my own perception of what it looks like so I try to create that, which isn't right. When I look at things as just lines and go to recreating those lines, it tends to be a better recreation. I'm sure the same works for different tones in black and white drawings. If it's hard to do this, try drawing that object upside down, if possible.
Akin to what everyone above me has said: these are very good tips. I myself follow most, if not all of them, at all times. I was going to add a point about pushing your darkest values too, and I see that Apriah has also mentioned it. I typically have a very light hand when it comes to drawing, especially when it comes to pencil, so it is useful for me to locate the darkest of the dark and lighten up from there. Personally, I am not a huge fan of blending, at least not in my own works of art, because the texture comes out looking very different than the pencil stroke texture of the unblended parts. What I've found to work quite well is to start with the flat edge of my pencil and shade lightly with short strokes. This minimizes the differentiation in tones where the strokes overlap so the patch of color comes out pretty even. Then I layer and layer and layer the same way until I reach ideal darkness.
I like reading these kinds of things since I tend to only draw in black and white, and mostly in pen. The tips that are given in the article are actually pretty helpful, and while I knew a number of them before reading, they’re good tips for those who aren’t as familiar with it. One thing that I think is something I’ll use is the squinting thing in order to just see lights and darks. I tend to not put much contrast in my drawings so perhaps doing that will help. I also think preserving the whites is pretty important since it’s so easy to get that part of the page muddy and no longer bright. I haven’t actually used any other medium like tape (other than around borders) or masking fluid to keep it clean, since I just use an eraser and pretend like that’s good enough, but maybe trying to use some wouldn’t hurt. For inking, I always test my pens befor using them since they can go dry, or get a little bent, etc. I also always do a sketch under thee ink in pencil because I’m not decisive enough to just go in with pen. I always make a lot of adjustments and changes before I’m happy with something so I make sure what I’m doing is erasable first.
I’ve never been much of a visual artist in terms of drawing, or not a very experienced one to say the least. I’ve always been super interested, I think I was mainly lacking technique but motivation to get better at drawing. Some of these tips I’ve never even heard of before such as squinting your eyes and preserving your white spaces. Anytime I’ve attempted a charcoal drawing, it always ends up coming out too dark and messy, even if I try to go back and clean it up with an eraser. I guess I also don’t really plan ahead for whatever drawing or project I’m doing, I like to work as I go, but I think planning will definitely give me a more established result and make the process a bit less stressful than it already is for an inexperienced artist, such as myself. I will definitely try to implement some of these tips the next time I attempt to do something artist and see how it works for me.
I have always loved doing simple black and white sketches, so I found this article to be really helpful. One thing I have always found to be helpful when trying to get proportions right is looking at my drawing upside down and squinting at it. Sometimes it really helps to look at your drawing from a new perspective. Probably one of the most important tips in this whole article is planning your drawing before you put the pencil or pen to paper. I’ve never tried using masking fluid before, but it sounds interesting. I love the tip about putting a piece of paper down so you don't smear anything. This is so so helpful. I’ve smeared so many drawings because of not doing this simple step. I’ve used tortillions before and they definitely help with shading. Overall, i think this article has some pretty great tips for making a successful and clean black and white drawing.
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