Hi friends!

Today I should talk about the drawing exercises of the participants in the Homework Contest - week #2, but there is no participant because, despite the congratulations and encouragement, no one has actively participated in these classes.
I'm aware that the first steps are difficult and boring because many expect to learn how to draw a face, an eye, etc. as soon as possible but I chose the longest and hardest path to teach, the way that is also the most durable in time.

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In previous posts, I've talked about techniques for using your drawing tools. I also told you about the importance of practice to acquire enough muscle memory.
In the last published lesson, I introduced two new concepts: observation and knowledge.
All of these topics need to be handled together to become a professional artist of drawing.

But how do you succeed in this arduous craft?

°Resistance to failure, you will make mistakes many times, it happens to all of us, but practising, observing and studying, the day will come when your hand will do what you want to do.

°Don't fall in love with your drawings, always look at them with a critical eye. The most important thing is what you have learned by drawing, not the drawing itself. Do your drawing as best you can, but without pretending that your drawing will be wonderful, worthy of being framed or anything like that, this attitude will cause you stress and accentuate the difficulty of your concentration on the drawing.
Rather, be willing to learn from your drawing process.

When you see a musician playing his/her instrument masterfully, you can't imagine how many hundreds or thousands of hours he/she has practised before showing his/her art.
The same happens with visual artists. We only see the final result of their work, but we do not know how many exercises or studies the artist carried out before showing their final artwork. Without a doubt, many more than we can imagine it.

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Anyway, to cheer you up I'd like to tell you about the man who made this painting (below) when he was 14 years old.
In this portrait the perfect handling of drawing is evident. Achieving a portrait like this is impossible if you do not have a solid knowledge of the craft of drawing.

Man in a Beret, 1895

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This drawing below was made by him when he was 16.
You can see here the softness of the strokes to get the different shades of grey and how he achieves the darkest areas with several soft strokes over and over. Notice how he achieves drawing freehand straight lines, and parallel lines, observe how the circle of the pedestal was obtained with the simple tricks I showed you.
In future lessons, I will show you how to achieve a drawing like this but first, you must prepare your skills.

1897

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This portrait was drawn twenty-one years later by him. You can see here the hatching technique to get the darkest areas. Also, notice the subtle and delicate strokes to draw the body and observe the several smooth strokes to draw the hand. I showed you that technique when we saw the exercises with doodles.

Olga 1918

Perhaps you already know who this man is. If not, see the image below.
"Guernica" is surely the best-known work of art of the 20th century. It is related to a specific historical event and expresses Picasso's political commitment.
I have visited several exhibitions of works by Picasso, in Belgium, France, Holland, Spain and Chile. I have seen the best and the worst of his work but I have an unforgettable remembering of an exhibition of the study works of Picasso's Guernica.
I feel very lucky to have seen this incredible exhibition, over thirty works, many of them in large format, some were pencil drawings, some were ink drawings, and some were wonderful large canvases of oil painting. I am sure that for this exhibition only a few works were selected from the total that Picasso made for this painting.
Thanks to over fifty years of tireless practice in the drawing craft, each element was deeply studied and masterfully achieved by him.

Here I let you some of the many drawings and paintings made by Picasso as study works previous to the final Guernica. I hope you enjoyed them as I did and of course to encourage you to learn and practice the craft of drawing if you feel you love it.

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I wish you a very nice day and good exercise!

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Here are the links to the previous related posts.
1-Introduction - 2-Introduction - 3-Introduction - 4-Introduction -
5-Introduction - 6-Lesson - 7-Lesson - 8-Lesson - 9-Lesson - 10-Lesson -
11-Masterclass - 12-HW Contest - 13-Lesson 14-Lesson - 15-Lesson -
16-Lesson - 17-HW results - 18-Masterclass - 19-HW Contest - 20-Lesson - 21-Lesson - 22-Lesson

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100% SP (manual transfer to SP)

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