Table Of ContentEveryone
can
Draw
Barrington Barber
This edition published in 2014 by Arcturus Publishing Limited
26/27 Bickels Yard, 151–153 Bermondsey Street,
London SE1 3HA
Copyright © Arcturus Holdings Limited
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
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damages.
ISBN: 978-1-78428-158-8
Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
MARKS AND MATERIALS
CHAPTER 2
LINE DRAWING
CHAPTER 3
TONE AND TEXTURE
CHAPTER 4
PERSPECTIVE
CHAPTER 5
COMPOSITION
CHAPTER 6
STILL LIFE
CHAPTER 7
LANDSCAPE
CHAPTER 8
URBAN LANDSCAPES
CHAPTER 9
ANIMALS
CHAPTER 10
PORTRAITS
CHAPTER 11
THE HUMAN FIGURE
CHAPTER 12
PRACTICES AND PROJECTS
INTRODUCTION
It’s not uncommon to hear people saying they would like to try their hand at
art, adding, ‘But I can’t draw,’ as if this were an immutable fact that rules
them out from the start. Yet being able to draw isn’t a rare and special
quality. It does help if you have some innate talent, of course, but that isn’t
the main thing; in my long career as an art teacher I’ve often seen students
with talent but not much will to work overtaken by much less naturally gifted
students who were prepared to put in the groundwork and persevere. I’ve
taught people from five years of age to 70 and have never come across
anyone I couldn’t teach to draw adequately if they really wanted to learn. So
the first step is to feel confident that it’s only a matter of how much work
you are prepared to put into drawing that decides how well you will do, and
that confidence will carry you through the small failures that occur whenever
you try to learn a new skill.
This book follows a particular plan that has been designed to make the
learning process easier for you. It begins by describing the most useful
mediums for a beginner before moving on to the basics of line drawing,
which is the simplest and most obvious method of drawing. Once you have
gained some proficiency with that you will then tackle the use of tone and
texture in order to flesh out your line drawings and make them look three-
dimensional.
These exercises will teach you about observation, which is the most
important thing for an artist to practise. It is particularly vital when drawing
the human figure, because our familiarity with it means that mistakes in
proportion are easily spotted. From this book you’ll learn the classic
proportions, so that if you do need to diverge from them to show an
individual’s particular characteristics you will be able to do so convincingly –
many of us, let’s face it, don’t fit the classical norm.
There’s also a section on perspective that will help you to assess how to
draw larger objects such as buildings without being too intimidated by the
size and complexity of their structure; after all, you can’t draw a scene that
looks three-dimensional without knowing how to convey the sense of objects
receding from the viewer.
Next, the composition of your picture is a useful thing to consider,
although you may not want to think about this until you’ve been drawing for
a while. However, to make your drawings work on a formal scale some
understanding of how to compose a picture will enhance your artistic skill.
Finally, we’ll look at some useful practices that all artists need to know in
order to improve their ability. Learning to draw on the move, for instance,
enables an artist to act on impulse and forces them to respond creatively to
different situations. The great thing about drawing is that there’s always
another skill you can add to your repertoire, and that’s one of the things that
keeps artists working happily into their later years.
Subject matter
In this book we’ll look at all types of subject matter as you build up your
skills. The easiest things to draw are simple still-life objects because you can
arrange them as you like. Some more complex objects, such as a tricycle and
rucksack, are next in line of difficulty; after that come plants and, when you
have mastered those, the whole landscape genre. Here you have to cope with
the light constantly changing and creating different shadows and highlights,
both in rural settings and in town and cities.
