Chapter Three - Day Three: Navigating your Drawing Journey

This chapter starts by cover the simplicity of drawing and shows you how to go about seeing objects as simplified lines or shapes.  This is how we draw when we’re kids, a house is a simple square with a triangle on top, a tree is made up of a circle and rectangle. Being able to see objects like this is a gift and will take a bit of practice if you are not use to it.

The book recommends treating yourself to a simple colouring in book. This will help you in seeing what simplified objects look like, but also demonstrates how even the most simplified object is a recognizable shape.  Once I’ve tried to draw a few simplified objects such as a tree, a house or a mug etc the book briefly covers shading and textures as a subject.

I won’t write to much about this, as it is not very detailed and just basically shows how shading and texture add a 3D element to your final drawings.  Both texture and shading are covered in detail a little further on in the book.

So on to Project 3: Sammy and Samantha. This project gives you a brief overview of everything covered in the chapter, lines, shapes and even texture. It’s a cute rough drawing of 2 twins, very simple in terms of the facial features as we’re still on the squares and circle stage of drawing, but the curly hair helps in understanding how to make texture work in a drawing.

She calls this kind of effect a “Squirkel’ a mixture between a circle and a squiggle and it works great! Just start drawing little circles and then move off as if you where doing a squiggle - and Wa-la a squirkel! Brilliant - I think that’s the first head of hair I have ever drawn.

So next it’s onto Chapter 4 but also part 2 of the book ‘‘Exercising the Basic Skills’’

Just as a final note, the author Brenda Hoddinott, recommends that you keep most/ if not all your drawings dated and signed, to help show you how your skills are progressing.  Even if you don't like them keep them, always respect your origin and your progress but most of all enjoy the journey.

Sammy and Samantha

Meet my Sam, a little out of proportion
but a Sam none the less.

(Please note: that photo examples are taken from "Drawing for Dummies by Brenda Hoddinott'' and the  above views are not representative of her and are purely based on a 3rd party view being Me! All snippets taken directly from the book are stated as been so)