Exercise: Draw, draw and draw again

Pick some reference material to draw from, perhaps a single photograph with a figure and some other details. It could be a photograph you’ve taken or one you’ve found.

Draw what’s in the photograph – the figure, their expression, their clothes, the setting. Try and record all the information from the photograph in your drawing.

Now, draw it a second time but do it quicker. Pick out the important elements in the image and focus your drawing on these. Leave out the information that is less important.

Put the original photograph away and draw it again, this time from memory and with reference to your other drawings.

Finally draw it again, this time with no reference material at all.

I spent some time trying to find a reference photo. Originally I searched on Google Images, but I could not find anything suitable or that I really wanted to draw four times. I then decided to look through a selection of photos from the 1920s on the Getty Images Gallery. I had used some of these for an exercise in the Graphic Fiction unit and I felt that sticking to a black and white photo would prevent me becoming distracted with colour.

The reference image I chose was ‘Best Friends‘.

Drawing from the reference photograph: the first drawing took the longest as I wanted to try and include everything from the reference photo. I really focused on the proportions and the placement of each element in relation to one another.

At the beginning I was very unsure about how it would turn out and I was quite frustrated by trying to replicate the child’s face and expression. The dog started off looking like a pig, so I am glad he/she did end up more canine in appearance. I also do not feel I managed to use enough range in tone as all the darker areas are similar in value. Perhaps this could have been improved by using softer pencils (I used 2B and 4B graphite sticks). I also do not think there is enough texture evident, for example in the brickwork and the wood.

However, on the positive side, I feel I did manage to convey the overall setting and placement of the different elements. I also was quite pleased with the folds of the child’s coat, as clothing is definitely an aspect of drawing I need to practise and improve upon.

Drawing a less detailed version, using the reference photo: I found it challenging to filter out details, as can be seen in the folds I started adding to the clothing. I also did not particularly enjoy drawing at a quicker pace.

I did manage to get the placement of the elements more or less accurate and even though it was not a true representation of the child’s face in the photograph, I actually preferred the expression on this version as it looks more childlike.

I could have improved this drawing by indicating more of the darker areas. It also would have been interesting to do a version that was reduced right down to basic shapes and outlines, which is possibly what I was asked to do in the brief…

Drawing using the first two drawings as reference: I was surprised to find that I enjoyed doing this drawing the most of all. At first I was not that enthusiastic, but my confidence increased as I drew and I feel this was reflected in the strong lines. I mainly used the first drawing and my memory as reference and I felt much freer with this version as I did not feel so confined by attempting to replicate the photograph.

There are certainly things that I would like to improve, some of them similar to the issues I had with the original drawing, such as the child’s face, which in this case looks like a young woman!

Drawing from memory: I really do not like this drawing! The only positives I can find is that I managed to place the elements in position and I remembered some of the folds on the child’s coat. Other than that I was disappointed with the outcome. Both the child and the dog look peculiar and it all looks rather amateurish to me.

Final Thoughts

I believe that the first and third drawings were the most successful in this exercise, which demonstrated to me that I work best with reference, whether that be photos or previous drawings, in combination with my memory. I also found that the more times I draw a particular scene, for example, the more confident I become in terms of composition and line. The overall conclusion from this exercise can be summed up via the title in that I should ‘draw, draw and draw again’. I also hope that the more skilled I become, the better any drawings that I do from memory alone will also improve.

Bibliography

Kirby/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images (1926) Best Friends. Available at: https://gettyimagesgallery.com/images/best-friends/?collection=1920s (Accessed 6 October 2022).