Saturday, October 5, 2024

The Importance of Playing with Your Supplies

Don't you love discovering new artist authors and delving into their work?

Jill Bays is my recent discovery.  I admire her bold, confident lines. In this drawing workbook, she leads you through ten basic lessons to improve your sketching skills.  Since drawing is the foundation of painting and other art forms, it's a valuable pursuit!
Here are some of my sketchbook pages from the first chapters.
I really enjoyed the process of simply testing out various drawing supplies to discern their properties and answer questions like:
What medium gives me the darkest values?
Can I smudge this material to make softer textures?
Can I erase out parts of a scene, using the eraser to "draw" images?
When you explore materials and experiment, there's no pressure to make "good art."  You're just playing with your supplies.

And having an experienced artist lead you through activities to build your skills takes away the common fear of the blank page.
Your world is full of objects to draw and explore.  What would you like to sketch or experiment with?

Happy Creating!

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