Drawing Tips

TIP FROM ANDREW

My own personal rule of thumb. Every drawing should these 3 parts. Highlights, mid tones and darks. Highlights can be the white of your paper or a very light colour. Midtones are your greys or any colour that becomes grey when you convert it to grey tones. Darks are your solid blacks or very dark colours. With these 3 tones in your pictures, you will bring out the shapes of objects more clearly. (some exceptions just have highlights and darks)
I find that the more contrast I have between each of the 3 tones, the more crisp the picture becomes.
Squinting your eyes when you are on the streets can help you see the 3 tones more clearly.

TIPS FROM DON LOW

Plein Air and Location Sketching- what to look out for:
  1. Light changes significantly every few minutes.
  2. Working on small surfaces reduces the amount of time spent covering the surface and therefore helps in quickly capturing the light and shadows.
  3. There isn’t time to waste or agonize over decisions.
  4. ... If the center of interest is a particular light effect, it is important to memorize it, as it will be gone in a moment.
  5. ‘Sky holes’ in trees are darker than the sky below them.
  6. The tops of trees are affected by ‘sky shine.’
  7. Atmospheric perspective makes objects appear lighter, cooler, and less detailed with distance.
  8. Objects in fog will still have edges.
  9. Trees, like people, are identifiable by silhouette and structural anatomy.
  10. Green comes in great variety, and the sky is not always blue.
  11. The direction of light needs to be consistent in a painting.
  12. Shadows and reflections on water are not the same thing.
  13. Dark objects will appear lighter in reflections and light objects will appear darker in reflections.
  14. Waves have structure, and their light/colors are different depending on the weather.
  15. Relative value is the structure of a painting.
  16. Relative color temperature and chroma are secondary to the composition of a picture.
(Credit: Judith Carducci's Workshop: The Benefits of Drawing and Working From Life 11 Sep 2008 by American Artist. http://www.artistdaily.com/blogs/qs/archive/2008/09/11/judith-carducci-s-workshop-the-benefits-of-drawing-and-working-from-life.aspx)

Colour Theory:
Color Wheel - have you made your own color wheel? 
http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm

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