Hi Steemians!

Would you like to learn to paint or draw? I am sure there are many tutorials and courses on the internet. Most of them offer lessons in one medium, like pencil drawing, watercolors, acrylic painting and so on. My idea is to choose one object and display it in many media. It will be a nice way for comparing difficulty and the whole work between them, and also to find similarities.

For now I have chosen pencil drawing, watercolors, acrylic painting, paper collage, digital drawing and pen drawing. As a teacher of art and craft it is good for me to know how to work in as many medias as possible. This will be a good training for me too. For the beginning it is good to stay in realistic representation.

I am offering this project in a way of tutorials for you, so if you want, you can join me and try it too. I will also gladly offer you my tips and guidance if you post your creation for this project into the comment section.

The subject

All of you who paint or draw just a little bit know how difficult can be to find some nice subject. You need the proper light, quality, view and so on. I wanted something small, but not too simple for this project. This photo of a blueberry cake seemed to me like a perfect target, because it offers lots of advantages and challenges:

• Single subject - easy to display without background
• Different surfaces and shapes
• Lots of reflections
• White and dark parts
• Not too difficult - short time to do

Now we can start with the first task. I have chosen pencil drawing, because I consider it a base of visual arts and it does not require a lot of supplies.

We will need

• Pencil / Mechanical pencil - it is good to have at least two grades - HB and 5B
• Rubber
• Paper A5- some harder paper for drawing. I use this one.
• skewer

Sketching

It is is a thing we will have to do in every media. It is one of the more difficult activities, but there will be many attempts, so do not worry, we can do this! :)

There are a few rules and tweaks for sketching. I will write them down in short points:

• It is easier to draw in a scale 1:1
• It is easier to draw according to a printed black and white picture
• Drawing and subject should be in the same direction while drawing
• Do soft and light lines (easy to erase)
• Use a needle or a skewer for measure

There will be some more tips, but we can start to sketch now. I printed the picture 1:1 and placed it next to the paper.

🔵 We can see the cake is a triangular prism with one round side. This is the basic shape we are going to sketch..

🔵 There was a rule "Drawing and subject should be in the same direction" - parallel, so we can transfer the lenghts and angles. Take a skewer and measure from the highest to the lowest point of the cake. Catch the size with your fingers and move it to the paper. Mark the points. Do the same thing horizonally. Try to place those points evenly from the edges so the object will be in the center of the paper.

🔵 We can use the skewer for the whole sketch. When there are two points we can start from them. Take the size and the angle of the outer side like you see it bellow.

🔵 Now you can connect those points with a line and continue with the vertical sides of the cake. The principle is the same. It is better to stand up and draw it from the distance so you can see better if you are doing it right.

🔵 When you are sure you made the basic shape right you can continue with those irregular shpes inside. It is a common mistake to deal with details when the sketch is not finished. It is a useless work, because there are always some mistakes and then lots of erasing, so take your time :)

🔵 Sketching is mostly about observation. Your eyes should be trained for seeing the connections and also divergences. There are moments you have to see the whole object and also to see only some parts of it. Sometimes it is necessary to forgot what kind of object you are drawing and just draw what you see.

🔵 While checking the sketch stand up and move your eyes quickly from the photo to your sketch and try to find some differences. Sometimes it is hard. You just have a feeling something is wrong, but you can´t see it. Try to focus on the basic shapes and lines. Examine the drawing by parts and correct it. It is better to draw the correction first and then erase the wrong line.

So this was the first part of the Pencil study. In the part two we will learn shading and we will finish our cake drawing. I hope this tutorial was helpful and you are ready for the continue! :)

 

Thanks for watching!

 
 

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