All in the Preparation
“You’ll never do a great or even a particularly good drawing on rubbishy paper but it’s most definitely great stuff to loosen up on…”
By now you should have your basic sketching and compositional skills happening, your drawing gear and studio area organized and your own artistic philosophy and commitment level worked out and warmed up.
Time now to talk about the finer points of the actual process of starting a serious drawing project. It’s always a good idea to do at least one but ideally a couple or a few loose, fast (not fast for the sake of speed, just don’t bother taking too much time on it or get into too much detail) sketch studies of the composition you have decided you will be drawing (fig 1). Do this on butchers paper or cheap cartridge and please, please keep in mind that you are just doing roughs to familiarize yourself with the different shapes, proportions and idiosyncrasies that make up your composition, don’t fall into the trap of trying to turn what started as a rough study into a finished drawing,
