Here’s the second of a series of simple videos I’ve made to walk you through the steps of seeing and drawing as I outline them in the first section of my book, Art Before Breakfast. This one describes an initially tricky concept — drawing what isn’t there so you can do a better job of drawing what is. If you’re new to drawing or are struggling with the basics, I hope this series will be helpful. (Here’s the first one, in case you missed it.)
Every Friday I work through an idea from Art Before Breakfast. It would be lovely if I could imagine you out there drawing along with me. This particular exercise comes from pages 26-27. If you decide to do it too, please share with me how it turned out! (Share the results on your own blog or on Facebook and post a link in my comments section. Use #artb4bkfst on Twitter or FB).
I’ve made some simple videos to walk you through the steps of seeing and drawing as I outline them in the first section of my book, Art Before Breakfast. This first one is about why you don’t need talent to get started, just a couple of simple ideas that might jog your brain, including a demonstration of contour drawing. If you’re new to drawing or are struggling with the basics, I hope this series will be helpful.
Every Friday I work through an idea from Art Before Breakfast. It would be lovely if I could imagine you out there drawing along with me. This particular exercise comes from page 25. If you decide to do it too, please share with me how it turned out! (Share the results on your own blog or on Facebook and post a link in my comments section. Use #artb4bkfst on Twitter or FB).
My friend Koosje Koene has been staying with us this week. Koosje is a wonderful artist and teacher so we spent a lot of time talking about drawing and sharing our sketchbooks. The weather was great so I showed her around the Village and then we sat down to draw the Jefferson Market Library.
We decided to do a fun exercise— working on a single drawing together. We sat side by side with a sketchbook on our laps and worked back and forth across the spread. As you’ll hear in the video, we strategized a bit before we began, discussing how to lay out the building across both pages. Then we put our pens together and worked out from the center. Throughout, we jumped back and forth across the drawing, adding to each other’s lines, and discussing the drawing as we went.
It was a blast and the whole exercise took us less than twenty minutes. Get a friend and give it a try this weekend!
Every Friday I work through an idea from my latest book, Art Before Breakfast. It would be lovely if I could imagine you out there drawing along with me. This particular exercise comes from the Art Before Breakfast Workbook, to be published by Chronicle Books early next year. If you decide to do it too, please share with me how how it turned out! (Share the results on your own blog or on Facebook and post a link in my comments section. Use #artb4bkfst on Twitter or FB).
PS Sorry if the video is a little noisy — we shot it on a busy morning in New York City!
“I just got an update from my foreign sales guy that we now have a whopping FIVE foreign editions of Art Before Breakfast in the works! Chinese, Korean, Russian, Taiwanese, and now Spanish. This is very excellent. Woo!”
I usually listen to the radio while I potter around in the kitchen of a morning. Today I put on the TV instead and watched talkingheads discuss the last Republican debate. While they kvetched, I sketched.
I approached it like a doodly collage, capturing moments in boxes that approximate the shape of the screen without being too slavish to reality, and augmenting them with decorative bits. I kept moving around the page, adding bits to earlier parts, making the whole thing denser and more detailed. It’s a fairly mindless way of drawing, half paying attention to the screen, half to the page.
I started working in a linear way. Then I got outta the box with a blonde.
This woman had fantastic hair.
Part of a BMW commercial and Rachel Maddow’s hairdo.
A politico with a cowlick.
The obligatory suit and tie,
And some patriotic embellishments.
An AT&T commercial
The Rock! For Ford trucks.
A lady with diabetes.
The Donald.
Great glasses!
Done! Time to eat some toast.
One trade secret: the pause button on my remote control. I can freeze the action for a couple of minutes and catch a gesture. Other bits I just drew while they were happening or from memory. Or from my imagination.
Every Friday I work through an idea from my latest book, Art Before Breakfast. It would be lovely if I could imagine you out there drawing along with me. This particular exercise comes from p.51. If you decide to do it too, please share how it turned out! (Share the results on your own blog or on Facebook and post a link in my comments section. Use #artb4bkfst on Twitter or FB).
Instead of hitting the POST button at 7 am as per usual, I sat down to draw my breakfast.
This particular slice comes from a loaf baked by our pal, Michael. He brought it to a wine tasting we hosted last weekend and it was so delicious I managed to stretch the loaf out all week. Today I hit the heel.
Drawing toast is an adventure. It’s an opportunity to slow way down and delve deep. I begin by slowly driving my pen around the perimeter and then, quadrant by quadrant, I work my way through every nook, crumb, divot, pit and hole. It’s not difficult work but it’s absorbing and clears the mind.
I draw the contour of the whole slice.
I begin at the top.
I add more details and some shading to the crust.
Working further down the slice.
More details, finish the crust.
Experimenting with different line qualities
Finished the inner details.
Add some thrown shadow.
A title and a little note. Done!
I have gone into this in more depth here on the blog, in Art Before Breakfast and in Seeing at SBS but all you really need is a pen, a piece of paper, some toast, and about 10 spare minutes.
Every Friday I work through an idea from my latest book, Art Before Breakfast. It would be lovely if I could imagine you out there drawing along with me. This particular exercise comes from p.38. If you decide to do it too, please share how it turned out! (Share the results on your own blog or on Facebook and post a link in my comments section. Use #artb4bkfst on Twitter or FB).
And if you’d like to draw the same bread I did, here’s Michael’s recipe:
I know I promised to eschew advertising on my blog but, come on, people, it’s in my blood! I can’t help it. So here’re a few announcements, updates and, yes, ads about things I’m doing that you might like. to know about.
The gist: Sketchbook Skoolkourses are now available on-demand rather than by semester. Sign up and plunge in any day of the year. We’re like Orange is the New Black — but with a full palette of colors.
Coming in late fall.
• Next, an exciting announcement: we have just completed the final nips and tucks to the design of Shut Your Monkey: How to control your inner critic and get more done and it heads to the printer next Tuesday! You can preorder your copy today, however.
Coming next year!
• My other new book, the Art Before Breakfast Workbook has just come back from my editor and I am ready to continue work on the design phase of the book. It looks quite gorgeous already, I must say.
• On Saturday night, I will strap myself into a Lufthansa flight to Switzerland to work with the students, teachers and parents of the International School of Basel. I have been working on lots of little films and projects to inspire them and can’t wait to see the art we make together during my artist-in-residency.
I am also excited to see Basel which I hear is brimming with dozens of amazing museums. I also plan to eat chocolate. I’ll post news of my trip here, maybe even before I get back.
A younger, beardless Jack Tea draws the Colliseum.
• Next, I will RyanAir to Rome to spend a few days with Jack who has just begun his semester abroad (he’s in Abruzzo today). He has promised he will take me to his favorite places to draw. We also plan to eat pasta.
My French, Latin, Urdu and Hebrew are rusty and dim but I kinda have an itch to learn a new language. So I downloaded a free app called Duolingo.
Each day it emails me to remind me to do my lesson. The email has a picture of a little green owl who says, “Hi Danny, keep the owl happy! Learning a language requires practice every day.”
I diligently open my app and spend a few minutes going through my lessons. I might be waiting for the kettle to boil, waiting for the F train, waiting for the elevator, and I fill the pause by repeating “naranja, naranja“. When I am done, the app goes bing-bong and rewards me with some pointless points. It’s painless and fun and soon I am sure I will be able to order a burrito from the food truck on the corner.
Now we just need a genius to come up with a drawing app that’ll do the same thing. Bing-bong! Time to draw a bagel. Ding-dong! Sketch your shoe. Ting-tong! Get out your gouache. Five or ten minutes a day of gentle prodding to keep me in tiptop drawing shape.
I just did a long and in-depth interview with Rev. Maggie Oman Shannonon her show, Creativity Spirit. It will air this Wednesday, April 22, at 2 p.m. Pacific/5 p.m. Eastern on Unity.fm; and it will be archived at http://www.unity.fm/program/CreativeSpirit and available for download on iTunes.
Danny Gregory 