How to Paint Without Knowing How to Draw a Straight Line©
Posted: Monday, November 21, 2005
by Arlene Wright-Correll
http://www.learn-america.com
If I have heard this once, I have heard this a thousand times, "I can't even draw a straight line". I hear it every time someone looks at one of my paintings.
I basically feel one can paint or create art in any painting or drawing medium without knowing how to draw a straight line.
I can draw things if I work hard at it. Sometimes they look like they are supposed to and sometimes they don't! Being over 70 years old has made my drawing hand shaky more times than not.
At that time I found myself with more time to devote to this past time that I truly enjoyed. I started with oils again. Once into it, I found I could try other things I liked such as pen and ink sketches.
My philosophy in life has always been to stretch and grow. It was no different in this area. I started to try all things I had never done before, such oil pastels, soft pastels, hydro watercolors, watercolors, gouache watercolors.
I fell in love with watercolors. They were a fast and easy medium to learn. The paintings were done quickly or at least the paint dried faster than oils or acrylics.
I knew hardly anything about the medium, but I bought some books and within a year I was selling just about everything I painted.
I learned to paint what I know. Place I had been to, things around my home, painting things I liked to see. I painted for myself! I stretched to portraits and animals and frankly some of them were terrible, but eventually they started to look like they were supposed to look. At this point you are thinking, "yeah, but you can draw a straight line!"
Let me introduce you to some trade secrets of today's artists.
I like to use the Graphic tracing paper method.
If one has a computer and scanner, one can scan the scene, picture or photo of what they want to paint. One can then enlarge it on a program such as Adobe Photoshop and print it down to the size they want. My printer lets me print as large as a tabloid size which is 13 x 17".
Then I get the paper or canvas I want to use and lay out a piece of graphite tracing paper. I put the printed image on top of it and using a stylus or a pencil I outline the areas I want to paint. I do not put in details. When I am done, I may work on the painting in any medium I want from oils to watercolors to pastels. I may put in different colors, or if I am doing something that I want to be the same as the photo I will use the printed image as a guide.
Many artists use a light box such as the ones I describe below. I have yet to use one.
Good looking light boxes with an inclined working surface and special slot for holding drawing pens or pencils. Made of space age high impact plastic they are both portable and practical. Some come with a 10 x 12" viewing area and 8-watt daylight fluorescent bulb and run anywhere in price from $24.95 to $29.95. A nice one is Lightracer II with 12 x 18" viewing area illuminated by an 18", 15 watt daylight fluorescent bulb and runs about $89.00, but is often on sale in places like Jerry's Artarama for about $54.00. We have a large one of these in our stained glass studio and use it for patterns. One of these days I am going to try it. Whichever one you buy or make you must have it so it can show though up to 300 pound art paper. The one in the studio looks like this. 
Here is a light box that an artist made. It contains six 24-inch 20-watt fluorescent bulbs with a -inch sheet of clear Plexiglass (33 x 25) on top. The outside dimensions of the box are 34 x 26 - inches. The artist says the lighted coupled with the clear Plexiglass is strong enough to permit him to see a drawing though 300-pound paper. The under section of the box is his horizontal storage section.
F or Making Any Picture Larger or Smaller you can use a Pantograph.
T hey come in metal or wood. Special crisscross design of bars allows you to trace any design and enlarge or reduce it. All you do is trace with the tracer pin and automatically the design is transferred in perfect proportion to paper, board or canvas. With a Pantograph at your side, you can use any picture you may come across and blow up or reduce it! Pantographs cost between $30.00 to $45.00 and can usually be found on sale.
Another way is to grid what you want to paint by drawing equal lines horizontally and then vertically. Once you have done that you can do the same thing to whatever size canvas or paper you want to paint or draw on. Then just sketch in from box to box, sort of like filling in the numbers without numbers.
A guy named John Pike invented a perspective machine which
is really cheap. Using traditional perspective drawing methodology
John Pike created this easy to hold machine to make it easier than
ever to accomplish. Just grid your canvas like the viewing grid. Then hold the machine at arm's length in front of the subject. Place the magnetic steel strips around key subject matter to aid in viewing. Then draw the grid on your canvas. It's that easy. It is 5x6" in size with carrying case.
I have never used one of this however, I often use the grid method when I want to do portraits.
If I was 20 years younger I might invest in a prism projector. There are all different kinds and start as low as $50.00 and go on up. The best ones I have found, again, are on Jerry's Artarama site. However, I am sure there are plenty on eBay either new or used.
Here are a few you might want to investigate.
The Prism has set the quality standard in artist quality opaque projectors for over ten years. It is one of three projectors in the Artograph range that we would recommend for projecting clear, color corrected and bright images onto wall, canvas, paper or board. This top loading projector features a 7x7" glass stage for you to place your original art, books or even small size 3-D objects on. It includes 500 watts (2-250 watt photo bulbs) of photo quality, color corrected incandescent light that provides crisp, bright white images. The bulbs last only about 25 hours so it is a good idea to have a couple of spare bulbs available. A cooling chamber keeps artwork cooler and helps avoid damage. Copy clips keeps art in position even when the unit is tilted while the dual magnetic latch keeps copy cover secure. With thermal overload protection. Prism's 225mm f/4.8 lens provides you with a horizontal projection range of up to 20x original size and reduction ability of up to 80% of the original size by simply reversing the lens. Weighs just 8lbs allowing for easy movement in the studio and simple transport. A real simple one is the trace projector.
A surprisingly inexpensive way to enlarge art, photos, designs and 3D objects for sizing and tracing - getting you to the fun part faster. This bottom loading projector will accept full size copy up to 5x5" in size or larger copy in sections and all small 3-D items. It enlarges up to 10x size in full color onto wall, board or canvas. THE PERFECT PROJECTOR FOR THE WATERCOLORIST AND DESIGNER!
It is made to project vertically down onto work, drawing or drafting table. It comes equipped with an adjustable vertical stand that easily clamps to any table surface up to 2 inches thick. Original designs and patterns up to 6x6" can be projected onto table top from a reduction size of 70% of original to a 4x enlargement of originals in just a matter of seconds. Two adjustable magnetic copy clips keep originals securely in place. You can also remove this projector from the stand for enlarging up to 30x original size (15 x15 feet! ) onto wall or canvas for producing murals, banners, signs or any large graphics. The 250-watt photo bulb provides for bright and clear images. The bulbs last just 25 hours so an additional bulb would be a good idea to have on hand to use just attach stand to your drawing board or work table, mount design or photo into the convenient magnetic copy board, adjust to desired size, focus and trace image. Images are sharp and bright. With black housing, powerful fan for cool operation, front loading 6x6" magnetic hinged copy board, 250-watt bulb and 200mm high quality ground glass lens. UL approved. They start at about $150.00 and go up. Doing anything well is just a matter of practice, drill and rehearse! One cannot take piano lessons and expect to sound great unless one practices, drills and rehearses. The same thing applies to creating works of art.
Let's start with drawing in perspective.
There is a great little book titled "Perspective" by William F. Powell and it is published by Walter Foster who publishes tons of art books. When you practice use the cheapest paper you can find such as butcher's paper or what is called newspaper stock which is available at any art store.
Buy a cheap small sketchbook and keep practicing and practicing. Soon those little squares might look like this. Practice cones, circles, rectangles in perspective and you will wind up with some nice little, happy paintings.
Don't be afraid of the nomenclature! Those are the big words that are indicative of any genre of anything. Read everything you can. What you do not understand, look it up on Google. So much free information!
If you don't want anyone to see or know what you are doing, then don't tell them or show them. However, a mentor or a cheering section is always good to have provided you ask them for their honest opinion and don't have a thin skin when you get it. Don't be afraid of failure. Just remember that Van Gogh never sold a painting in his life time!
Start with something simple. Watercolors are so simple. They get a bad rap because some people think if you are not painting in oils, you are not an artist. I love watercolors because I can clean up quickly, I can hurry up a drying process with a hand held hair dryer, I can even remove paint, I can build up layers upon layers, I can leave white spaces. The gouache (pronounced g-wash) water colors give really brilliant colors. Here are some paintings that sold as quickly as I put them on eBay. They were painted right after I returned from a trip to the Mediterranean . They were all digital photos I had taken on our trip.
When I returned, this year, from Spain I wanted to do a sort of pictorial diary and I created the "Spanish Sketch Book or The 4 Amigos Go to Spain". All the paintings started with photos either taken by my brother, George or myself. All the photos only had 3 of us in them at one time, so when I found a photo that had a good memory, and it was taken by George, I would paint George in and visa versa when I was taking the photo.
Remember part of the title is The 4 Amigos go to Spain . I would basically cut and paste on my computer what I wanted to see in the final drawing. Also because this was a sketchbook and I wanted it to be fun, I did not want a lot of detail. Most of my little drawings were done in the graphic tracing method and then I did water color washes and outlined in pen and ink. When I was finished, not only was everyone delighted, I was delighted and had a great deal of satisfaction. Here are a couple of them.
I think I did 14 or 15 little paintings that immediately brings pleasant memories of our trip, tells a part of the story and we are each identifiable by our clothing. As you can see they are nothing grand, but all tell a whole story with the paintings and the little diary has received a lot of positive comments from friends and families.
When I started painting again in 1999 I did one oil painting in a 6 month time. In the winter of 2000 I did another oil painting. In 2001 I discovered watercolors. I have painted over 200 paintings since that date up to November 2005. I have also tried oil pastels which I like very much. Here is one I did with that medium.
That led me to soft pastels which are a total delight. As you can see in "Who's Whoo?" it is nothing but a series of lines that created a great little picture of these Saw Whet Owls.
Pen and Ink is a fun medium and occasionally I do something with those. One can do something elaborate with lines and a watercolor wash as in "Mountain Man"
above or something simple such as "Hard to Kill" to the right.
Just remember, practice, drill and rehearse. I try to paint or draw at least 2 hours a day. Sometimes I will do it for much longer. It depends on how my life is going. Sadly, there are some days I do not get to paint or draw at all.
On the left is a drawing titled, "The Last of the Mohicans" and it was done as a practice drawing and lo and behold someone thought it was great and bought it for a friend as a Christmas gift. Many times I have finished something that I thought was not my best and others have loved them and bought them. Such as the " Grand Canal " that went to Houston , TX and the "Lavender Fields" that went somewhere else.
The " Grand Canal " was a very large oil painting done of a place we visited one year. The "Lavender Field" was an oil painting done with a palette knife. I had put them both on my website and put them in the garage and they sat there for almost 2 years before someone bought them. So you never can tell. Art, like Beauty, is in the eye of the beholder!
Don't be afraid to enter contests. I tried Hydrous Watercolors and did a picture in April 2005. I learned the manufacturer had an art contest. I was entry # 931 and this painting done with their product on a large canvas board won 1 st place. I was floored and delighted when they told me "Coming Down to the Wire" was their 1 st place winner.
Many contests have a student or beginner's category.
Subscribe to art magazines. Go to art shows and museums. If you could walk into the Louvre or any other big art museum and you will often see people with easels in front of famous paintings copying the style of the old masters.
I recently did this one called "Van Gogh Comes to Munfordville" in soft pastels. It was a fun exercise.
Again, practice, drill and rehearse.
Your initial investment in teaching yourself how to draw or paint could be done for as little as $25.00! You don't need tons of equipment and fancy paper etc. You just need to have the "D" word. Desire!
As you grow, so will your desire and soon you may find yourself with a gratifying hobby that might at least pay for your supplies and help you grow towards other things.
Join a local art society. If you had a chance to play golf with Arnold Palmer or Joe Duffer, who would you choose? Arnold , of course! Learn from the pros. They had to learn it from someone. Your local art society welcomes beginners because all of us were beginners at one time or another.
You never can tell where this might take you. I never thought that one day I would have a studio built for me, but I have a nice little space that allows me to do what I like to do best.
I know one 84 year old lady that cleaned out a big double door closet and put all her art supplies, easel etc in there and that is her "studio".
Make the time to start on your art adventure now. One never knows how short life can be. I was a widow when I was 22 years old. I am the mother of a son who unexpectedly died at the age of 40 years old. These two people left a lot of things undone in their life.
My grandmother used to say to me constantly. "Don't put off to tomorrow, what you can do today!" Now I am saying the same thing to you.
I realized many years ago that older people say things like, "I wished I'd learned that when I was a kid". Well, I'll let you in on a secret. The reason most kids learn so quickly is that most of them have no fear of failing! Don't worry about failing. No one is going to take you out behind the barn and shoot you.
Get cracking and let those creative juices flow!
"Tread the Earth Lightly" and in the meantime may your day be filled with.Peace, light and love,
Arlene Wright-Correll
She is the author of many books which can be seen here
Email askarlene@scrtc.com
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)think all people is good at some thing so you don't have to be good at drawingYes I think all people are good at some things so one does not have to be good at drawing. However, everyone can draw even those who think they cannot.“Tread the Earth Lightly” and in the meantime… May your day be filled with…
Peace, Light and Love, Arlene Wright-Correll
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