Learning to draw - bad drawings, grid method, projecter and camera obscura

1.  My first drawings in 2008 - oh dear - in animation course we did one day a week drawing class - it had been 30 yrs since i'd drawn and i was shocked that i couldn't do it - very high school level (well not even that, i went to mall galleries student show thinking they meant degree students but they were yrs 11,12,13 high school.  i was amazed.  even now i am average high school standard compared to them.  one student i am trying to track down cause i love her screaming furious child portrait.  she will be a great portraitist - she also did beaming old ladies at bus stop and she really captures character.)

2. then the teacher showed us the grid method - draw a grid on a photo, say 10 squares, then draw a big grid of 10 big squares on big drawing paper and in each square draw what is in the square on the photo.  i used this method for my picture of kim which is probably why it is a bit stiff.  here is the very first one i did in that class using a picture from a magazine.  She's a bit wonky cause i got the square/grid measurements a bit wrong.

3.  then i started drawing classes.  but at the same time i bought a drawing Projector called Tracer (usually £60 but on sale for £40)  i wanted to be able to do things while i learnt to draw at same time.  However i used a few times only - the draw back is the lense can be easily knocked out of focus (the expensive projectors cost hundreds) and it has to be used in total darkness.  You place the projector on a photo and it's projected onto vertical surface - wall, paper on easel etc.   Here is the projector and a the first (only) pics i did with it.  I also copied a picasso simple line drawing but can't find it.  The thing with tracing is not to trace, but to try to draw freely and shade, using the image as a guide, unless as in the case of the picasso i did, where i wanted to capture exactly the pure 5 lines he used for a face.  in the body of the drawing you can see how i kept the lines free - ie they are my lines drawn freely over the image without trying to keep to the original lines so the image just helped me keep in the right areas and shapes.  it is still a better drawing than i could have done alone.  the second one i traced pretty exactly from a vogue magazine so looks more like an illustration than an art drawing but you can see it could be useful for a design element.  i was a bit more free with the scribbly shading.

3. Camera Obscura   is a prism of 2 plastic mirrors that reflects what is in front of you down onto your drawing pad.   i had read the book by david hockney about the use of lenses and camera obscura thru the centuries by the masters etc (not everyone agrees with him).  I got one couple of weeks ago for £124.  again it has drawbacks - image not clear, arm moves easily or if your eye moves then image moves - as you will see with john's head where he has 2 noses, plus you sometimes get funny reflections so you can't see your drawing hand or paper properly as the image is too strong (hard to explain).  but you don't need to be done in total darkness.  you can use outdoors to capture buildings or a landscape or you can attach photo holder to front, as shown in photo. the following photos are shown in order i did them on the day i got it.  i think it will be particularly useful for landscapes when i go away or as you will see drawing the rooms etc - see the little table in corner of my room which only too 10mins and quite accurate - much easier than if i had done without the camera.  Bit hard to see - black base drawing board with moveable black arm holding the camera/prism/lense at the top.  You look down the hole in the top of prism.  Photo sitting on board on the front photo holder arms.  the last one is of my brother in law at my sisters wedding over 40 yrs ago - here i used the image as a guide to shading and shapes and not so much tracing some of it works but his face looks badly traced.

i hope to experiment with all the above methods as well as learning to draw without them and in combination with them.  I have also used tracing using blue and black typewriter copy paper which gives a lovely monoprint quality.