Sketching – a life skill
Sketching is often the first impression of whatever subject or composition we want to make. Sketching forms the fundamental building block or sometimes an entire building in itself for a drawing.
HISTORY
The history of sketching in India can be traced back to prehistoric rock art, which includes drawings and carvings on cave walls and stones so it has always existed.
How did they make the pigments?
They were usually made from minerals like ochre, charcoal, and manganese dioxide. They also used hydrated iron oxides from rocks to create shades of red and ochre. Burnt iron oxides produced colours like brown, rust orange, and yellow. Bird droppings or plant sap may have been used for whites.
Interesting how people always found their way through art to cope with their living, isn’t it?
What kind of brushes did they use?
They were usually natural materials like animal hair, plant fibres, twigs, bird feathers, or fingers.
We can truly see their way through their will.
Now let us slightly look into present day techniques we use for sketching
The techniques are innumerable and diverse , let us just look into few popular ones,
- Hatching -It is basically drawing consecutive series of lines along the first or mainline to create depth or shadow or tone difference in a drawing.
- Stipling – It is similar to hatching but with dots instead of lines to create the same.
- Gesture sketch – It essentially intends and aims to get a hold of capturing the movement of a subject.
- Contour drawing – contour is a french word for outline, so it is basically creating an outline of what we want to draw
- Chiaroscuro – It is an italian term , it is a technique which focuses on creating tnal differences and light and shadow play to create differences between light and dark lines to form 3 dimensional effect.
6.Controling the edges – creating hard and soft lines to the subject and
composition subsequently is what this technique is all about . It creates transition in drawing.
Let us now get some professional suggestions on sketching and drawing
VASUDEO KAMATH – an internationally acclaimed artist of India says
“A sketch is a quick impression of what we see and put down on paper. Begin with simple objects like cubes , boxes ,cylinders and so on.
Earthen pots , bottles , matchboxes , buckets are simple objects to start with , Vary the speed of your hands , move your wrist and fingers freely and try to draw the basic features of the objects in front , rather than trying to show details.
Do not try to make corrections at this stage and try to avoid using an eraser.
Those who have been used to copying from photographs or drawings will find direct drawing quite scary.Drawing a matchbox also becomes difficult. But do not lose heart.
This difficulty arises because we are trying to show a three-dimensional object on a two dimensional paper. For this we must try and understand the object in front of us.What form does it have?How is it proportioned?What is it’s stance?Slowly , through practice , our eyes find answers to these questions and our creativity is stimulated.
Alternate your glances at the object and on paper.You will realise that your mind retains an image of the object and helps to put this down on paper.Automatically , you will realise where you have gone wrong. For this, begin with a few rapid and faint lines and then go for bolder strokes .
To get a feel of two dimensional aspects of the object, it helps to look at it with one eye closed.Always observe how the horizontal and vertical faces of the object relate to its sides.”
“Sketching is the spring from which all drawing flows forth.If this source is not kept flowing , the artist’s creativity will dry up”
Now that is some push for us to move forward with our sketching journey.
Sketching is not just confined to subjects of art but spreads along all the areas and subjects of life we face everyday , we could simply find beauty outlines of situations through chaos an calm , shifting our perspectives , thereby shifting lifestyle.
Happy Sketching art enthusiasts!
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