Capture Your Space With Pen and Ink

In this lesson, I'm gonna teach you how to rethink your subject matter and learn to look for scenes instead of objects to sketch. We're gonna learn how to economize information when drawing cluttered spaces. And we'll talk about the difference between sketching and illustrating. In other words, how to draw what you see and not what you think you see. So I've got a sketch in front of me here, and this is my little power drill at home.

And this is a common kind of a way to encounter an object. You'll just draw the object by itself. And it's a great object to investigate in a drawing. There's lots of textures, lots of values to take a look at, but there's not really any other layers of information. You don't have the surrounding environment.

There's really no context. And so there's no story associated with this object. I mean, we can all assume we know what a power drill is used for. So we can maybe make believe that this will be used at some point, but without any surrounding environment, without any of that other information, it doesn't have as many layers of visual interest as it could. So while it's an interesting object in and of itself to draw, you can add a little bit more dynamism to the sketch, by adding a surrounding environment.

Let's take a look at this sketch of a laptop computer. Without any surrounding environment, just like the drill, there's no story, no context. We don't know where this laptop is or who it belongs to. If we add the coffee cup and bag, there's a little more information. We could start to infer an activity and a location.

This laptop is in use, possibly at a coffee shop. Adding the background, shows us even more. A specific location with many more carefully observed details, that complete the space the laptop occupies. But the space is still static. There's no action really.

When we see hands, sketching in a sketchbook, we have a real activity in progress. The sketch becomes a specific moment in time and one that tells its own story too. The first person placement of the sketching hands, even places the viewer in the role of the sketcher. So let's take another look at a sketch. This is of an even more immersive environment.

I sketched this at a coffee shop in Denver and it's using pen and ink and some gray scale markers for my values. And what I think is really interesting about this is while there's no main focal point, there's so much detail that the viewer can really, sort of find themselves getting lost in that space. So they might maybe start here in this spot, but I don't really think there's any kind of hierarchy of imagery in this kind of sketching. So this isn't the most important space. It's just maybe an entry into the rest of the drawing.

And then sort of like a Where's Waldo book, you can really get lost in the detail and you meander through the space visually. Looking at everything and kind of cataloging all of that information. And when you have this much space, it's really fun to kind of absorb and take in that stuff. You can really spend a long time looking at a drawing like this. Unlike say a drawing of a single object, where you kind of, it's a one and done deal.

It's sort of a contact experience. This really can take time to take in. And I think that's what is so kind of fun about these types of drawings. So let's take a look at a sketch of a less obvious space. Something that you might more typically pass over, when selecting imagery that you might want to draw.

A coffee shop is sort of, got a romantic connotation to it. And in terms of aesthetics, it might be a little bit more obvious to go and draw that kind of space. But a sketch like this, this is my cluttered tabletop in my studio. It's not something we would immediately think of as something worthy of a sketch. It's definitely not organized in an attractive way and our sort of aesthetic mindset tends to ignore spaces like this in search of prettier things, like flowers or other kind of, more romantic still life scenes.

So the only real compositional or editorial choice I make when doing something like this, is I might sort of take my hands, make a viewfinder and then locate a good angle for that sketch. And after that, my rule is that I draw everything that I can see within that little frame space there. And it's important because I'm not making any other aesthetic or editorial choices now. I am kind of beholden to what I can see with my eye. So everything that my eye sees, I must document on the sketch.

And this particular sketch, it's important to know that, all of this amount of detail can seem overwhelming, and in terms of how much information you have to capture. And you think you have to get it right, right away. There are a couple of little passages here though, where I definitely made a mistake and I corrected it. I went directly in pen with this, no pre-sketching in pencil, but you can see I had my I ruler and this little palette, a little bit too short to begin with. So I just simply added on to them when I thought that the space needed a little bit changing.

And you know what, the drawing doesn't suffer for that. I think, there's so much detail and so many other compelling things to look at, that people aren't really gonna be worried about these little mistakes. In fact, I think they give the drawing a little bit more character. The other cool thing about choosing a not aesthetically perfect space is that this is a real space that I really use. And it's about me.

This drawing is personal because it's a space that I inhabit daily. It's a space that says a lot about me and my personal experience. These are the paints I use. This is what my workspace looks like. And I didn't tidy it up to make it a little bit more pleasing to the eye.

And the other thing is that in terms of those sort of editorial choices, you are kind of left with having to sacrifice some amount of detail, because when you get to the edge of that drawing, things that are cut off are just gonna be gone. You can't quite fit them in there. That's okay, you have to kind of live with the amount of information you can fit in there. And, you know, I can't see what's happening over here or what's happening over here because it goes off the page. That's fine, that's sort of one of those things you just have to accept.

I think a lot of people will find a sketch like this daunting because of the sheer amount of information that they're called upon to sketch. And that amount of overlap and the differences in value, lineweight and texture that you have to account for can be pretty scary. But I think that's what I enjoy most about the challenge of a space like this. Is, you know, having to be resourceful in terms of making that space make sense and look realistic to the viewer. So, areas where I get to kind of play with texture too.

They're are a lot of fun, like this terrycloth rag here, or the kind of shiny crinkly bits on the tubes of paint. And then also thinking about how the space reads with these brushes in this brush caddy and how to dynamic that is coming forward. I mean, those are things I have to take seriously and think, well, am I gonna be able to really describe those brushes with all the information that I have, to sort of get the idea across to the viewer and what can I let go? What can I really nail in terms of a sketch like this? So everything about this kind of challenge is really fun for me.

So I encourage you to look for spaces that aren't representative of the typical still life. That don't have the most obvious aesthetic qualities. Uglier spaces, cluttered spaces, messy spaces. Spaces you might be maybe a little bit embarrassed of if they're kind of your personal workspace or something like that. Those can really make for compelling sketches.

So take a look for those spaces next time you're sketching. When I draw a cluttered still life, I like to start with a contour line drawing, to help me kind of make sense of the space a little bit before I add value. So here I have a photo of a little cluttered still life scene in my studio, with just some random objects kind of thrown together, the way you might encounter in your space. So we've got some clamps, some clips, stack of sketchbooks, a palette. We have a bottle of glue, a brush and then a power strip.

Not things you might typically encounter in a still life, but these are great for our purposes. So the next thing you wanna do is maybe kind of imagine sort of a grid on top up of that space to help you kind of take a visual inventory of what's going on in that space and help you establish where things are in relationship to other things. So if you can imagine those grid lines, you can kind of picture them going across, and it'll tell you maybe where the power strip is in relationship to the pallet. Or where that clamp is in relationship to the clips on the top of the page. You can kind of draw lines across or up and down.

The next thing you want to do is kind of figure out your strategy going forward. How you wanna organize the space, how you wanna approach it. Do you wanna take a left to right approach in terms of the drawing? Do you wanna take a top down approach? I find that in a situation with as much overlap as this, I like to start with the objects that are on top, so that I don't have to worry about overlap.

And then the objects beneath them kind of get added in as we go. So I'm gonna go ahead and get started here. And the very sort of central object there is that spring clamp with the blue ends on it there. And that's sort of on top of the space. So I think that's gonna be where I start my contour line drawing.

And I'm gonna go right in with pen. If it makes you feel more comfortable, you can certainly go in with pencil so long as you keep in mind that you're gonna be adding pen on top of that. And just contour first, before you add your value. And right now, we're just thinking in terms of generally getting the proportions right. I find that when you have all that detail added later, the drawing is gonna be a very interesting drawing, whether or not you've really dialed in the details perfectly or not, and whether the proportions are perfect.

So I'm starting kind of with that top down view. Not worried about value at all. Just making sure I account for all the little details in the scene. But not really focused on the light and the dark. And the next thing, which will kind of help me, work my way out into the space is that stack of sketchbooks.

Starting with that top sketchbook. Here's where I have to be careful because that sketchbook is overlapped a little bit by the cord of the power strip. So, I'm not gonna draw the whole cord now, but I'm gonna make sure I account for that bit that overlaps the sketchbook. And then I'll come back to that. Areas where it is dark, it might be hard to discern the details.

So I find you can kind of fudge them in, since, you know they're all gonna be dark later on anyway. So you can cover up any areas where they may or may not be consistent with what was actually going on in the scene. And work my way kind of around the space. Since nothing is really overlapping the flower shaped pallet to the left, I'll go ahead and go that direction now. Certainly with kind of odd shaped objects, it definitely can be helpful to use a pencil if you wanna make sure you're describing it satisfactorily.

But, I still think diving in with pen is fine because there's something about the looseness and spontaneity of a pen drawing. The lines have character. So whether or not they're truly correct or not, there's something about the wonkiness of the proportions that can happen when you don't correct, that I really enjoy. And we're not adding value right now. So that's about as much detail as I really want to go into because everything else is gonna be soft values.

We'll work our way to the top, to these little binder clips over here, or bulldog clips. And this one kind of overlaps the one to the left of it a little bit. Not much, but as sort of an organizational technique, I always like to hit the thing on top first. So just keep finishing those up here. Some of the detail in the sketch might not translate into contour, and this is where it's kind of, you might wanna start thinking about economizing information.

How much can I include? What might be better served by value later on? For now, just think about general contours to kind of describe the space and the objects you're encountering in that space. It's really gonna help you, in terms of, kind of helping find yourself in that space and working your way through it. Here's where I'm breaking my own rule a little bit, because I'm drawing this clamp since it's close to the pallet there, even though it's overlapped by another clamp, because I wanted to address the relationship it has with that pallet, and it's pretty close there.

Here I'm not worried if I am kind of coming in and overlapping some elements, like those ribbons coming outta the sketchbook. I'll just draw right on top. And I did leave room, in that first clamp for the other clamp that's gonna be overlapping. It is kind of a puzzle sometimes. You have to think about working your way through that space.

And so it's important to consider that strategy. How am I gonna start? Where am I gonna start? What do I want to hit first? What do I really need to nail to accomplish?

What do I wanna to accomplish with this sketch? And what do I think is the most dynamic or exciting thing about this sketch? What do I think are the most fun shapes? And those are the ones that you might wanna pay special attention to. Those are the ones that you might want to consider more carefully when you sketch.

Other things might not need as much attention to detail, to get the sense of them across to the viewer. So I'm gonna continue working on the contour line drawing, working from top to bottom, and we'll take a look at it when it's finished. So let's take a look at our finished drawing. So as you can see, there are some minor issues. And one of the things about doing a contour line drawing of course, is you have that same uniform lineweight throughout.

So it is kind of easy to get lost in the details and some of the areas in here with the cord and where it overlaps the books or the spring clamp or whatever. Those can be a little bit confusing at first. And they'll probably read a little bit better when you add value, which is one of the reasons we do add value later on. Another one of the issues is it's kind of easy to get lost as you work your way around that sketch. You might not come back to the same spot that you started.

It's just, those proportional issues, can be a little troublesome sometimes. So that's why it is useful to have maybe a viewfinder, either just your hands, or you can buy a viewfinder at an art supply store or one with a grid. That's a little sheet of Plexiglass with a grid. Those are especially useful. If you have trouble imagining that grid in your head, in terms of where things should be located.

You can even go as so far as to draw a little grid in pencil if that helps. Another thing that happened to me on this particular sketch is that the last thing I was gonna include was the little brush over here. And I didn't really account for where I was gonna put that brush when I added this clamp over here. So rather than maybe trying to adjust its location, which isn't really how I was seeing it, so that it wasn't, coming up and butting up against that clamp. I decided to go ahead and just draw it right on top of the clamp, like it's overlapping.

And I don't particularly find this little bit of overlap kind of troublesome as far as the drawing and how successful the drawing looks. Those little things to me, kind of make the drawing a little bit more interesting to look at sometimes. So, if it's not a problem for you, then don't worry about those kinds of things. Another reason not to worry necessarily about that is that when you go back in and add value, it might be even less noticeable. So, those are a little, some caveats to, when you encounter problems like that.

But you can see why I do start the way I start. Trying to get the objects that are on top first and then getting the objects that are being overlapped by those objects last, because otherwise you have to account out for those gaps when you're drawing. And it's really hard to kind of make sense of where they're going to be, unless you've got those top objects first. So in a contour line drawing, I really like to think about that space and how I'm gonna work my way through the space, which things I'm gonna account for first, before going down and doing the rest of those. Now let's talk a little bit about the difference between illustration and sketching.

So, drawing is visual communication, and oftentimes when we draw, we want to make things as clear as we can for the viewer. But observational sketching is a little bit different. So let's take for example, a bicycle. Typically I think when we think bicycle and we have to make a drawing a bicycle, we're gonna go with this sort of perfect, kind of profile view of the bike. So we have the wheel and we have the frame.

We have the seat. And then we have the other wheel over here. Right? Perfect profile, the handlebars, and, you know, the pedals, that kind of thing. Right, now how often do you really see a bicycle like that?

Not necessarily all the time. Sure if you encounter it in perfect profile with leaning against the wall or it's on a rack and it's perfectly straight up and the wheel is right out in front. But oftentimes when you see something like a bike, in real space, you're gonna see it in a kind of a, you know, maybe not an optimal circumstances for communicating what it is you're seeing. So, maybe the wheel is gonna be at an angle towards to you, the viewer, and then maybe the handlebars are kind of also out towards you in a way that it's kind of hard to communicate handlebars. And then the rest of the bike frame is out behind that, and it's being blocked by the front wheel, or something like that.

You know, that's a bike. That might be how you see the bike, but it can be frustrating to communicate bicycle to the viewer. So what you have to do is kind of trust the viewer to take in the context of your sketch. If you've got a bike rack in there, or other bikes parked next to it, or something like that, you have to trust the viewer to understand this as a bicycle. And you have to let go of some of the information that you want to convey in your sketch, because you're being truthful to what it is that you see.

So this is a difference between drawing what you think you see and what you really see. And the temptation for many of us is to change certain details in the observational sketch to make it easier for the viewer to understand. But what I want you to do is get out of the habit of doing that and get into the habit of trusting both your eye and the viewer and what the viewer is gonna take away from that scene. So let's take a look at this sketch of a kitchen that I did here. And you'll notice, there's a lot of information in this sketch, but I wanna show you one particular area of this sketch here.

Over on the kind of top left here, there's a little dish rack. And in that rack, there's a couple of things. There's a colander, there's maybe a griddle or a frying pan. And there's some other things. Now out of context, without the rest of this kitchen scene, and maybe even without the, the dish rack drawing, it would be kind of hard for the viewer to understand this is a colander, or this is a griddle.

There's not very much to go on in terms of both how much detail you can accomplish at this scale. It's a very, very small drawing. And also, how much, especially of that griddle you can actually see because it's overlapped by the colander, et cetera, et cetera. But with the rest of that environment shown, the viewer understands, oh, dish rack, it's next to the kitchen sink. Oh, and then I'll bet that's a colander.

I'll bet that's, you know, I can kind of see that that looks like a handle. So that's probably like a little frying pan or a griddle or something like that. I bet those are plates or a cutting board, et cetera. So, those two things, both the scale that you're drawing at and the lack of context can make you kind of fearful that you won't be able to get the clarity you desire and communicate what it is to the viewer, but you have to trust the context is gonna help the viewer. And the viewer is aware that you have to economize information.

You have to make the most from what you've got in terms of the space you have to work with. So, let's show you how you can kind of economize. Let's do a little drawing of something that you might see in a much larger sketch. So we've got, over here we've got a picture of a pen box. So there's some pens and pencils, and there's a little dust brush in there, right?

It's a fairly detailed little assembly, but imagine it in the larger context of a scene, like an artist's studio or something like that. When we draw that, and it's gonna be very small on our page, we won't really be able to show people, oh, here's a Sharpie, and this is a dust brush, and this is a pencil. There's just too much detail for us to be able to show that amount of information at the scale we're probably gonna have to. So here's how I might approach a drawing like that. Just a few diagonal lines, some slanted lines, the dust brush may be the most recognizable thing that we can get into that amount of space.

But it's important, just don't get carried away and worrying about communicating exactly and with specificity what it is. You have to economize. So make the most of that situation. And outside of the context of maybe where this is located, that is tough to read. You're not sure what it is.

Is that a pile of sticks? What's in that box? Even that, that could be a toothbrush. That could be anything. But now you've got it on a desk, surrounded by other objects, there's pencils and pens, there's sketchbooks, or an easel, those kinds of things.

And even if that context doesn't necessarily help the viewer pin down what that is, the viewer's not gonna necessarily care that they can recognize the specific objects in there. It's gonna be a part of that bigger scene and the viewer's gonna take it for granted.