How to Create a Preliminary Layout of Your Chalk Drawing
Hi, my name is Mary Demigo, and I’m a private art instructor, and this is Summer, and we are working on our still life pastel drawing. And right now we are going to start the preliminary drawing of the project. And the first thing you’d like to do after we have our still life set up, of flowers, we wanna make sure that it’s in specific place where Summer can see it from a distance. And normally she will be sitting down for her drawing. So another thing is that you like to think about is where you’re going to place it. Make sure it’s not too close to the edge of the table, especially if you’re using a glass… glass vase. And we want to also think about the lighting that is going to fall on our still life, so that we can work with the lights and shadows. Again, you can either use natural light or if you have a spotlight. So first thing we’re gonna do is use a pencil for our preliminary drawing. It’s little bit easier to erase than the chalk pastel. So we’re just gonna do a quick sketch layout of our drawing. And you wanna make sure that you have an eraser and a pencil sharpener. And so, first thing we are going to look at is our horizon line. And a horizon line is where the sky meets the ground. And so our horizon line maybe where the table top is for our drawing, so that we can create some perspective. So the first thing we’re gonna start Summer, is where the table top is going to start. And so, if we are using a piece of paper, this size, you wanna make sure that our drawing is going to fill the page for a great composition. And we can decide if we’re gonna put the drawing or the still life in the center of the page or off to the side, we wanna make sure that there’s enough room for the whole drawing, so that the vase, if we’re having tall flowers, the vase start down here at the bottom of the page, and then we work our way up. So the first thing we’re going to do is start with the table top. So you can decide where you like to have that. So the drawing we’re gonna draw from left to right… so near of the bottom page, it’s gonna be a very light pencil line. So that if we do make a mistake, we can erase it, and we’ll have smudges in our paper…. Okay… next one we’re gonna start with the vase, depending on what shape it is. I wanna think about how you’re going to lay that out on the drawing. So this vase is more rectangular shape and it’s tall, so, we’ll probably wanna start this going up to the middle… close to the middle of the page. Surely we have enough room for the flowers. And so the top of the vase, we’re just gonna draw light line and again you can decide if you want it in the middle of the page or off to the side. And we can come down, and this vase has a different shape to it, kinda curves a little bit. And so we’ll make this look three dimensional… I wanna show from all sides, especially if it’s a see through. So we can create almost like a cube shape, 3D rectangle. And now our drawing will overlap the table top, and we can go back and erase that later. So, our vase is see through so, we are going to just keep overlapping our drawing as we go. The next thing you’re gonna start with is the stems of the flower. And deciding on what you like to do, you can go top to bottom or bottom to top. So I’m gonna start top to bottom, you can do which ever you like. And so we’re looking… first flower that catches my eye is this one to the left, so the rose here. So I’m gonna look at how the stem falls all the way down, and it’s not straight down, it curves a little bit. And then the point of the stem goes towards the back edge of the vase. And we wanna create 3D so it’s not just a line, it’s a shape… the stem… okay. So before we get to the whole drawing of the flower, we want also wanna look at how the rest of the flowers gonna fit there together before we get to detail with the rest of the drawing…. Okay. So, we’re gonna look at the other stems that are in there, and you can decide if you wanna leave a flower out, if you wanna leave some of the leaves out, if it’s a little too much. You don’t have to have all of the flower petals that are… that are on it. It’s up to you what you would like to include in your drawing. Then we’re going to look at the other… we can look at the other rose, and they kinda overlaps. It crisscrosses inside of the vase… and it’s about the same height as our other rose. So we’re just drawing very lightly and we’re overlapping… okay, very good. Okay, then we have the last flower that’s in the back, our tall flower. So that one is pretty much in the back of this. And it’s something, if you see a flower that’s in the background, one thing you wanna think about is the detail of the flower. And when things are farther in the background, they appear to be smaller. So we are going to try to create depth with this drawing. So we’re simply just drawing the stems. So just long rectangles, drawn lightly. And then we wanna think about the leaves. The leaves are the next thing that you see, if we’re working from bottom to top. And the leaves are just a basic… an oval shape if you wanna make it simple. And so we just can connect some oval shapes from different angles… they just don’t grow out of the side, they go… you see them in all angles of the stem. We see some off the back, we see them from the side. Sometimes you see them in front of the stem. And so another thing to do is to just to vary the size of our leaves, so they’re not all the same size. So now you’re ready to begin the flower drawing and we do have two roses and various other flowers. So, when you start the drawing, just focus on the growth petals. They do not have to be completely exact, but they just wanna make sure that showing overlapping and we have organic shapes for the rose. Start loose and light drawing. And once we get that far… after this is what you’re first sketch when we are completely finish. Will look like… this is how far you wanna get with your drawing before you start adding color. And we are ready to move on to our chalk pastel techniques.