Drawing and Painting - just do it!

Cromer Fisherment, Norfolk

I recently happened upon an article with Ten Tips for Drawing Figures and, guess what! – I disagreed with every single one of those tips.  

That doesn’t mean that there was anything wrong with these tips and some people would probably find them helpful but to me they seriously over-complicated the process of drawing. It’s my belief that if you simply draw what you see, you can’t go far wrong!

And if your fine motor skills are sufficient for writing your name, and you are able to set aside any inhibitions about what you can or cannot draw, there’s no reason why you can’t draw anything you like, including the human figure! There really is no difference between drawing a person and drawing a landscape; both are simply made up of a juxtaposition of shapes, colours and textures!

Shire Horse at Rally,

I’ve heard people say that they ‘can’t do people’ - or animals or boats or that they are no good at landscapes. But as long as you are drawing from a reference, a photo, a sketch or a model, it really shouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference what you are drawing. Everything is made up of a collections of shapes which come together to produce a landscape, a life painting, a creature, a building or whatsoever takes your fancy! 


I was fortunate to discover this even before I came across this fabulous quote from Monet:

‘Try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. 

Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact colour and shape.’ Monet

Monet goes further and includes colour and I’ve found that the same thing applies to painting.

Forget all about those ‘arty’ terms  - perspective, tone value, colour theory, negative space, composition etc. They really do become redundant when you take the simple approach and just draw and paint what you see!

Cows coming home

Of course if you deliberately try to forget something, the chances are that you won’t be able to stop thinking about it! That’s the way our minds seem to work. But when you just focus on simply faithfully ‘recording’ what you see before you, you’ll get into ‘flow’ and all that unnecessary mind work will soon melt away.

Why is it ‘safe’ to let go of all those technicalities that people make such a fuss about? Well, in fact, you won’t actually be ignoring them. They will probably have been part of the process of choosing your subject, maybe unconsciously.

People have commented on the ‘dappled light’ in my paintings, the ‘sunlight and shadows across paths’ and the way that my paintings often seem to ‘lead the eye off into the distance’.  All I can say is that this is news to me; I was totally unaware of these things, and others that have been commented on, until they were pointed out to me. But these features must have been what attracted me in the first place, what ‘asked me’ to paint this particularly picture! So that takes good care of perspective, composition and tone value without giving those things a moment’s conscious thought!

I’m sure this is the way that many artists work, but if it’s not your way, perhaps it would be worth giving it a try! It might be the solution to drawing or painting those things that you think are ‘difficult’- and you might have a lot of fun along the way too!

Path from Abergavenny Castle down to the Meadows

 Just draw or paint exactly what you see!

Of course, drawing and painting from the imagination is another matter and would need a blog post all to itself!