AP STUDIO ART: DRAWING SKETCHBOOK HOW TO'S
Sketchbook: How to work in it.
The sketchbook you purchase should be your new best friend this summer. You need to carry it with you every day, everywhere. Open it up first thing in the morning and last thing at night and many times in between. Draw in it, write in it, scribble in it, paint in it, glue things into it, cut the pages, tear the pages, change the way it looks to make it look like your own book. At the end of the summer it should reflect YOU and your experiences throughout the summer. Work in your sketchbook is an ongoing process that will help you make informed and critical decisions about the progress of your work. Your sketchbook is the perfect place to try a variety of concepts and techniques as you develop your own voice and style.
Rules for working in your sketchbook:
1. Do not make “perfect” drawings. Make imperfect drawings; make mistakes; make false starts. Let your hand follow your feelings, not what your brain is telling you to do.
2. Always fill the page you are working on. Go off the edges whenever possible. Do not make dinky little drawings in the center of the page. Make every square inch count for something.
3. Do not start something and abandon it. Go back later, change it, and make it into something else. Being able to rescue bad beginnings is the sign of a truly creative mind.
4. Always finish what you start, no matter how much you don’t like it.
5. Put the date on every page you finish.
6. Do not draw from photographs, magazines, or the like. The use of published photographs or the work of other artists or individuals is plagiarism. Draw from observation, things you see in the world. Learn to translate the dynamic three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional world.
7. By the end of the summer your sketchbook should be twice as thick as it was when you got it.
8. No cute, pretty, precious, adorable, or trite images. This is a college-level art class. Expect your ideas about what makes good art to be challenged.
9. Don’t be boring with your work. Challenge yourself!
10. Avoid showing your work to others unless you know they are going to understand what you are trying to do in your sketchbook. You don’t need negative feedback when you are trying out new ideas or experimenting. This is a place for risk taking. Don’t invite criticism unless you are confident that it won’t derail your free spirit.
Ways to work in your sketchbook:
• Draw, draw, draw, draw, draw, paint, paint, paint, draw, paint, draw, collage, and so on. • Use pencils, pens, crayons, sticks, charcoal, burnt matches, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, pine straw, fingers—basically anything that will make a mark. You have the power to make a mark. Work on paper, canvas, sandpaper, or the like. Use wet paper and dry paper to see how specific art mediums and techniques respond and/ or interact.
• Draw what you see in the world. No drawings from published images (plagiarism) or personal photographs. You need to learn to draw without the crutch of someone else’s composition or flattening of space.
• Use gesture, line, and value in your drawings. Try to create a sense of light and depth in your images.
• Use the principles of perspective to show depth in a drawing.
• Glue stuff into your sketchbook, such as ticket stubs, gum wrappers, tin foil, lace, lists, receipts, sand, leaves, twigs, pebbles, shells, earrings, shoelaces, whatever. Make a collage with the stuff. Add these things to pages that you started but don’t like. Let your imagination go wild.
• Build the pages up by layering things; paint and mark on top of collage, newspaper, and drawing. Attach pieces of fabric and photographs and paint over parts of them. What did you do? What are you trying to say?
• Express yourself! Work to develop mastery in concept, composition, and execution of your ideas.
• Make decisions about what you do based on how things look. Go for the tough look, not the easy solution. Do not be trite; say something important about the world you live in.
• Take a news story and interpret it visually; use abstraction to express an idea.
• Play around with geometric and organic forms, interlocking and overlapping to create an interesting composition. Use color to finish the work.
• Create a self-portrait using distortion, or cubism, or impressionism, or minimalism, or pop.
• Create a drawing of the interior of your room but add collage elements for the lamps and furniture. Glue sheer fabric over the collage. Draw an image on the sheer fabric of yourself moving around the room.
• Make at least 100 gesture drawings from observation of the figure. Use wet and dry paper. Try Conté crayons and sticks, vine and pressed charcoal, and Prismacolor sticks and see how these respond and how they help you convey gestures in your images of the figure.
• Change scale; work small and work large. Work with your opposite hand. Tie your crayon or charcoal to a long stick and draw with that.
• Make at least 25 contour drawings from observation of anything around you. Remember to use the whole page. Fill the space behind the objects you draw. Make it count for something.
• Make a simple contour drawing of an arrangement of objects. Repeat the drawing four times. Using transparent watercolors, Prismacolors, and opaque watercolor, explore different color schemes in each of the four drawings. Write about how the color changes the feeling in each image.
• Write about your work. Write about what you like about a drawing, what you don’t like about it. Write about your hopes for your artwork. Write about why you like to make art.
• Write about how your artwork could impact another’s thinking or feeling. Write about what you want to say with your artwork, and what it means to you in the larger sense.
• Lastly, this experience should be for your growth as an art student, as a person who values art as a means of expression. Keep it for yourself so that you will feel free to work without judgment. Remember, this is an ongoing process that uses informed and critical decision making to develop ideas.
• Bring the book to the first meeting in August. You will have an opportunity to select the pages you want to share. We will use your experience as an introduction to some of the thinking that you will be engaged in during the course.
The sketchbook you purchase should be your new best friend this summer. You need to carry it with you every day, everywhere. Open it up first thing in the morning and last thing at night and many times in between. Draw in it, write in it, scribble in it, paint in it, glue things into it, cut the pages, tear the pages, change the way it looks to make it look like your own book. At the end of the summer it should reflect YOU and your experiences throughout the summer. Work in your sketchbook is an ongoing process that will help you make informed and critical decisions about the progress of your work. Your sketchbook is the perfect place to try a variety of concepts and techniques as you develop your own voice and style.
Rules for working in your sketchbook:
1. Do not make “perfect” drawings. Make imperfect drawings; make mistakes; make false starts. Let your hand follow your feelings, not what your brain is telling you to do.
2. Always fill the page you are working on. Go off the edges whenever possible. Do not make dinky little drawings in the center of the page. Make every square inch count for something.
3. Do not start something and abandon it. Go back later, change it, and make it into something else. Being able to rescue bad beginnings is the sign of a truly creative mind.
4. Always finish what you start, no matter how much you don’t like it.
5. Put the date on every page you finish.
6. Do not draw from photographs, magazines, or the like. The use of published photographs or the work of other artists or individuals is plagiarism. Draw from observation, things you see in the world. Learn to translate the dynamic three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional world.
7. By the end of the summer your sketchbook should be twice as thick as it was when you got it.
8. No cute, pretty, precious, adorable, or trite images. This is a college-level art class. Expect your ideas about what makes good art to be challenged.
9. Don’t be boring with your work. Challenge yourself!
10. Avoid showing your work to others unless you know they are going to understand what you are trying to do in your sketchbook. You don’t need negative feedback when you are trying out new ideas or experimenting. This is a place for risk taking. Don’t invite criticism unless you are confident that it won’t derail your free spirit.
Ways to work in your sketchbook:
• Draw, draw, draw, draw, draw, paint, paint, paint, draw, paint, draw, collage, and so on. • Use pencils, pens, crayons, sticks, charcoal, burnt matches, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, pine straw, fingers—basically anything that will make a mark. You have the power to make a mark. Work on paper, canvas, sandpaper, or the like. Use wet paper and dry paper to see how specific art mediums and techniques respond and/ or interact.
• Draw what you see in the world. No drawings from published images (plagiarism) or personal photographs. You need to learn to draw without the crutch of someone else’s composition or flattening of space.
• Use gesture, line, and value in your drawings. Try to create a sense of light and depth in your images.
• Use the principles of perspective to show depth in a drawing.
• Glue stuff into your sketchbook, such as ticket stubs, gum wrappers, tin foil, lace, lists, receipts, sand, leaves, twigs, pebbles, shells, earrings, shoelaces, whatever. Make a collage with the stuff. Add these things to pages that you started but don’t like. Let your imagination go wild.
• Build the pages up by layering things; paint and mark on top of collage, newspaper, and drawing. Attach pieces of fabric and photographs and paint over parts of them. What did you do? What are you trying to say?
• Express yourself! Work to develop mastery in concept, composition, and execution of your ideas.
• Make decisions about what you do based on how things look. Go for the tough look, not the easy solution. Do not be trite; say something important about the world you live in.
• Take a news story and interpret it visually; use abstraction to express an idea.
• Play around with geometric and organic forms, interlocking and overlapping to create an interesting composition. Use color to finish the work.
• Create a self-portrait using distortion, or cubism, or impressionism, or minimalism, or pop.
• Create a drawing of the interior of your room but add collage elements for the lamps and furniture. Glue sheer fabric over the collage. Draw an image on the sheer fabric of yourself moving around the room.
• Make at least 100 gesture drawings from observation of the figure. Use wet and dry paper. Try Conté crayons and sticks, vine and pressed charcoal, and Prismacolor sticks and see how these respond and how they help you convey gestures in your images of the figure.
• Change scale; work small and work large. Work with your opposite hand. Tie your crayon or charcoal to a long stick and draw with that.
• Make at least 25 contour drawings from observation of anything around you. Remember to use the whole page. Fill the space behind the objects you draw. Make it count for something.
• Make a simple contour drawing of an arrangement of objects. Repeat the drawing four times. Using transparent watercolors, Prismacolors, and opaque watercolor, explore different color schemes in each of the four drawings. Write about how the color changes the feeling in each image.
• Write about your work. Write about what you like about a drawing, what you don’t like about it. Write about your hopes for your artwork. Write about why you like to make art.
• Write about how your artwork could impact another’s thinking or feeling. Write about what you want to say with your artwork, and what it means to you in the larger sense.
• Lastly, this experience should be for your growth as an art student, as a person who values art as a means of expression. Keep it for yourself so that you will feel free to work without judgment. Remember, this is an ongoing process that uses informed and critical decision making to develop ideas.
• Bring the book to the first meeting in August. You will have an opportunity to select the pages you want to share. We will use your experience as an introduction to some of the thinking that you will be engaged in during the course.