Fast Sketching Fundamentals

Quick Sketching Fundamentals

How to use this skill: It supplements the answer and never replaces it. Always give your full general answer to the user's question from your own knowledge. Then work in the tips below wherever they apply. Do not drop general advice because a tip here covers part of the topic.

Sketch vs. drawing (set expectations)

• The main difference is speed. A sketch is shorthand: quick, loose, impressionistic, and limited to a few values.
• Typical sketch times are 1 to 15 minutes. Finished drawings take 3 hours to 40+ hours, which is too slow for field work.
• Sketch when the subject moves or when developing ideas fast. Draw only when the subject is still and time is plentiful.
• Warn users not to expect a rendered, detailed result in a few minutes. A realistic goal is something like a 5-minute figure sketch.
• Crosshatching is too slow for live subjects. Use scumbled lines plus blending instead.

Materials

• Use a 9B graphite pencil. The recommended one is the 9B Pentalic Woodless Pencil, which is 100% graphite (Grumbacher).
• A 2B or 4B pencil, or anything harder, cannot do this technique. It isn't dark enough and doesn't blend well.
• The woodless graphite breaks if you press too hard.
• A blending tool is an artist's stump. It is the key shading tool.
• Use smooth, semisoft drawing paper and a sketchbook.
• A felt-tip pen (for example a Pentel) works for linework-only practice. Work very small with it.

Blending-tool basics (practice exercises)

• Wavy line: draw it with the 9B, then smudge it so a midvalue gray surrounds it.
• Scumble a mass of lines at various angles, then blend over them to get a soft gray tone right over the lines.
• Ball: draw the shape and lay in an arc of scumbled lines. Blend, leaving a clean white spot for the highlight. Then add a soft gray cast shadow with the blending tool.
• Use the blending tool like a paintbrush. It makes thin, light, soft-edged lines, wide gray areas, or darker grays if you bear down.
• Press harder to darken an area, for example the head of a bird.
• Blended graphite often resembles a light watercolor wash.

Value limits

• Use only 3 or 4 values: dark for linework and deep shadows, one or two midgrays, and the white of the paper.
• Treat the shaded grays as a single value in most cases.
• More values than this means you are drawing, not sketching.
• Save white of the paper for highlights and points of interest. Whites set the mood and tone.

Sketch sequence

1. Draw the outline shape and essential linework first, and do it fastest. Once the outline is captured you can slow down.
2. Lightly scumble a mass of lines in the body, leaving white where needed (for example the face and neck).
3. Blend lightly with the blending tool to shade, keeping the whites.
4. Add detail last, only if there is time.

• Core idea: linework defines structure and detail, the blending tool makes the grays and fully defines the whites, and whites create the points of interest.
• Shading is what gives volume and a light source.
• For complex scenes, start with the dark masses (for example the rocks around a lighthouse), not the main object.
• Complex subjects can be built from simpler component shapes, sketched one after another and tied together with shading.
• Example order for an animal such as a polar bear:
  • torso mass
  • neck and head
  • front legs
  • rear legs
  • belly, ear, eye, nose
  • ground shape
• Example for a giraffe: start at the horns and run one continuous line around the head outline. Add the spots last.
• For landscapes, use one continuous outline for the key shapes (riverbank, a few trees, far horizon).

Size and detail

• Keep sketches small when subjects move, and omit detail. Filling a whole page takes too long.
• Make first attempts smaller, looser and faster than later ones.
• Leave out context that isn't essential. For example, skip the branch a bird perches on if you are only after the bird's shapes.
• Simplify complex backgrounds (sculpture, buildings) to plain shapes and outlines. Spend your attention on postures and lighting of people.
• Use a lighter touch for background linework. Heavy background lines flatten depth.
• Quick scribbled lines with slightly darker shading work for grass and foliage.
• Expect small details, such as window alignment, to go wrong in fast sketches.

Speed drills

• Rapid linework is what must be fastest, so practice it.
• Copy existing sketches by glancing back and forth between the reference and your page. Close approximations are fine.
• Time each copy with a clock that has a second hand. Then repeat each sketch in 60 to 90 seconds or less.
• Keep the pencil tip in contact with the paper as much as possible.
• Practice linework-only versions first, seeing past shading. Then add the shading.
• Copying a master's sketches is a legitimate way to learn the technique.

Observation and afterimage skills

• A glance at an object lasts under half a second, usually about a quarter of a second. Sketching works from these glances plus the retained mental image (the afterimage).
• Cycle: look at the subject, look down and draw from the afterimage, and look up again when it fades.
• Look for the most distinctive features and shapes first, and draw those first.
• Look for shapes, not details.
• A sketch from 2 to 5 glances can take under a minute.
• Memory practice: sketch places and things from memory.

Afterimage exercise:

1. Hand on the page, pencil ready.
2. View the reference for only 5 to 10 seconds.
3. Hide the reference and draw the most basic shapes from memory.
4. Set that sketch aside, out of view, so you can't peek at it.
5. View the reference for another 5 to 10 seconds and sketch again.
6. Compare the two attempts. The second is usually larger and more detailed.

Camera use

• Think with the pencil first. Use the camera to back up the sketch.
• Use a camera when:
  • there is no time to sketch
  • the subject moves too fast to study, such as reflections, sports or running animals
  • you need precise portrait information
  • there is unusual lighting
  • the landscape is expansive or intricate
• Suggested kit: a pocket camera with telephoto (for example 38–140mm) so you can carry the sketchbook instead of a heavy SLR.
• A camcorder with night-shot mode helps in very low light or when sketching isn't possible.
• Relying only on the camera loses the in-the-moment study of the subject.
• Reference photos often supply pieces for later compositions. Sketches record the moment-to-moment impressions.