Big Draw supplement

LET’S

draw!

Inspiring projects and ideas for the whole family

You might need a few of these!

From the makers of

Sponsors of The 2014 Big Draw

Artists & I L L U S T R A T O R S

In partnership with The Big Draw and Campaign for Drawing

WELCOME! D

4 Why draw?

6 Let’s play!

8 50 shades of grey 10 Drawing like great artists 12 Drawing with kids 14 Q&A

The Big Draw’s patron Andrew Marr offers a personal testament to the power of drawing

rawing is one of life’s simple pleasures, something we pick up as children and from which we can continue to find enjoyment for years to come.

Brought to you in association with The Big Draw and Artists & Illustrators magazine, this free 16-page Let’s Draw supplement has been designed to encourage the whole family to discover (or rediscover!) the simple joys of putting a pen or pencil on paper.

We hope that our simple project ideas and easy-to-follow demonstrations provide a little inspiration for you at home and don’t forget to take part in a Big Draw event during October – find about some of the highlights on page 5.

Stuck for ideas of what to draw next? Try these eight great projects that are fun for all the family

Talented graphite artist Kelvin Okafor gives a masterclass in how to create a tonal portrait

Illustrator Marion Deuchars shows you how to create a drawing in the style of Paul Klee

Why all children deserve the chance to experiment with top quality art materials

Illustrator and Big Draw patron Posy Simmonds reveals her favourite pencil and hidden talents

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ORDERING IS EASY: Go to www.chelseamagazines.com/artists-BD49 or call 01795 419838 and quote BD49 Let’s Draw, The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd. Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place London SW3 3TQ Tel: (020) 7349 3700 www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk EDITORIAL: Editor Steve Pill Senior Art Editor Chloë Collyer Assistant Editor Terri Eaton WITH THANKS TO: Marion Deuchars, James Dobson, Siân Dudley, Jan Flisek-Boyle, Sue Grayson Ford, Andrew Marr, Kelvin Okafor, Kathryn Roberts and Posy Simmonds ADVERTISING: Advertisement Manager Tom O’Byrne Sales Executive Erika Stone Advertising Production allpointsmedia www.allpointsmedia.co.uk PUBLISHING: Managing Director Paul Dobson Deputy Managing Director Steve Ross Publisher Simon Temlett Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Marketing Manager Will Delmont Artists & Illustrators (ISSN 0269-4697) is published every four weeks. We cannot accept responsibility for loss of, or damage to, unsolicited material. We reserve the right to refuse or suspend advertisements, and regret we cannot guarantee the bona fides of advertisers. Readers should note that statements by contributors are not always representative of the publisher’s or editor’s opinion. News Trade (UK and Rest of World): Seymour International Ltd. 2 East Poultry Avenue, London, EC1A 9PT Tel: (020) 7429 4000, Fax: (020) 7429 4001 Email: info@seymour.co.uk Printed in the UK: Wyndeham Heron Colour origination: allpointsmedia

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Let’s Draw 3

W

hy would anyone in their right mind seek to encourage other people, strangers with lives of their own to live, to draw?

Why should there even be a ‘Campaign for Drawing’?

We don’t need campaigns, apparently, to persuade others to write, or take photographs, or play music. What’s special about drawing?

I think the answer is that it is an important part of being fully human which has, for very specific reasons, fallen out of practice and habit.

Most educated people understand that to survive in the modern world they need to be able to write, to explain themselves, as well as to read. Generations have grown up sending photographic images to others, once by snail mail and now by Instagram.

In many ways, with everyone clasping their mobile phone, this is the most imageconscious society in human history.

Drawing, the primal way of making images, has been important since Homo sapiens left Africa and began to colonise the planet – and arguably before that too. We don’t know any cultures around the world where drawing didn’t happen and wasn’t valued.

There are plenty, of course, whose drawings haven’t survived, from the Bronze Age Britons whose bark rotted centuries ago, to rainforest tribes, again using quickly-perishable materials.

But from the ancient Chinese, to the Aztecs, the Inuit and all modern cultures, drawing has clearly been an important part of how the human being expresses culture.

4 Let’s Draw

WHYDRAW? BBC broadcaster, Big Draw patron and avid drawer Andrew Marr explains why we should all rediscover the simple joys of putting pencil on paper

In this country, as in many Western countries, there was a golden age of drawing around a century ago. Mass media were well advanced, but photographic imagery was still of poor quality and relatively expensive.

So skilled drawings filled newspapers and magazines, advertisement posters and cheap books. I had a great uncle, killed in the First World War, who’d made a decent living drawing coats

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and costumes for department stores, and the illustrations for the new cowboy stories; and you can stand for the thousands of sketchers and illustrators who dominated the visual imagination of the Victorians, Edwardians, and right into the inter-war period.

Even then, the golden age took a long time to die. In the 1960s, when I was growing up, cartoons were everywhere. The books I

loved most had beautifully drawn illustrations; all boys and girls were brought up with the drawings of Eagle, Look and Learn, The Beano, Jackie and so on.

But as photographic reproduction got better and better, and faster and faster, the drawing culture withered away. We are now in the ridiculous position of having a couple of generations who have almost been taught not to draw – that they can’t

other Big TO DO: Fi nd i n m y area Draw events draw – that drawing is only for some tiny, bizarre elite of ‘artists’.

And, of course, when people get to art school, they are then taught that drawing has almost nothing to do with art at all.

All of this is an outrageous waste of human talent and expressiveness. Most of us can draw. All of us learn to look, to see the world more sharply, and to enjoy the simple pleasure of making something, when we learn to draw. Talk to any engineer, inventor or designer, and you begin to understand how fundamental drawing is to the economy.

And as I have learned after my stroke, drawing is a wonderful therapy and a way to connect again with the beauty of the world around us, for the princely sum of the cost of a 3B pencil and a cheap notebook.

To undertake a campaign on behalf of drawing is therefore to try to wrench back part of the culture that has fallen away, and to give ourselves a tool and practice that should have been ours all along. It’s not a campaign for ‘art’, still less for the art market. It’s a lot more important than that.

Drawing Picks Here are nine highlights from the hundreds of Big Draw events taking place across the UK over the next month 1. JOIN THE BIG DRAW PARTY! 28 September, 11.30am – 4.30pm V&A Museum of Childhood, London E2 Join author Jacqueline Wilson and illustrators Nick Sharratt and Marion Deuchers for the Big Draw 2014 launch party.

Open workshops include cartoon portraits and pavement art.

All materials will be provided free by Big Draw sponsor Faber-Castell. thebigdraw.org/ event/3430

2. HOW TO DRAW VINTAGE FASHION 12 October, 1.30pm Fashion and Textile Museum, London SE1 Create illustrations and designs for vintage-style clothes inspired by the museum’s Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood exhibition. thebigdraw.org/event/2833

3. LIFE DRAWING IN THE LANDSCAPE 18 October, 12-6pm Tything Barn, Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire Drawing needn’t always be indoors! This figure drawing event takes place in the beautiful Welsh countryside with longer poses as the day progresses thebigdraw.org/event/3054

4. IT’S OUR WORLD 18 October, 1.30-4.30pm and 19 October, 12-3pm Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow Organised in collaboration with the RSPB, these two workshops offer the chance to explore the relationship between nature and the local architecture. thebigdraw.org/event/3284

5. AMAZING ART SUPERSIZED WEEKEND 25 and 26 October, 12-3.30pm National Maritime Museum, Falmouth, Cornwall Andrew’s A Short Book About Drawing is published

by Quadrille, RRP £15

Work with Falmouth University students to create personal sketchbooks inspired by popular painter Kurt Jackson’s fishy-themed new exhibition, Line Caught and Local. thebigdraw.org/event/3154

6. DRAWING WITH INDIGO 25 October, 1-4pm William Morris Gallery, London E17 Textile artist Lucille Junkere will show you how to draw with stitch and ink, using Victorian designer William Morris’s favourite shade of blue. thebigdraw.org/event/3023

7. JAPANESE ART AFTERNOON 30 October, 2-4pm Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere, Cumbria Introduce the kids to traditional creative skills popular in Japanese culture such as origami paper folding and elegant calligraphy. thebigdraw.org/event/3351

8. EVOKING MEMORIES THROUGH DRAWING 1 November, 2-4pm The Creative Quarter, Folkestone, Kent How can we literally draw on our memories? This inventive multimedia workshop will find out while exploring the town’s history as a cross-channel port. thebigdraw.org/event/2982

9. DRAW IT OUT 2 November, 1-3pm The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands Learn how to make your own drypoint etching at this drop-in workshop – a great way to introduce the family to the delicate art of printmaking and approaching drawing from a new angle. thebigdraw.org/ event/2693

TO FIND DETAILS OF YOUR NEAREST BIG DRAW EVENT, VISIT THEBIGDRAW.ORG www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

Let’s Draw 5

!

T R A ST

Look away!

Sit down opposite a friend or family member with a pad of paper and a pen or pencil. Now, try to make a line drawing of them without looking at your page – focus only on your sitter at all times. Hard, isn’t it? You won’t produce a perfect portrait, but this quick exercise helps hone your observation skills.

WHATEVER NEXT?

Turn on the TV. Watch part of a favourite programme and then turn the TV off again.

Try to imagine what happens next.

What might the characters be doing?

What locations might they visit next?

Draw the imagined scene.

If you have a digibox, you could even pause the programme and see how your drawing compares to what really happened on the screen.

Le

NEW WORLDS Ever wanted to visit another planet or go back in time? Well, now you can by drawing yourself in a whole new world!

Find an old photo of yourself or print one out on the computer. Take a pair of scissors and carefully cut around your silhouette to remove the background (kids – you can ask your parents to help with this bit!).

Glue the back of your cut-out figure to a larger sheet of white paper.

Now, draw yourself a new location on the paper around your photo. Where will you go? The only limit is your imagination!

6 Let’s Draw

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a Can you draw s na na ba bunch of ur yo ng ti lif without ? ge pa e th pen off

PLA

ake If you can’t m nt in Big Draw eve n eight more fu that you can with the

Walk the line

Look around your house for an object with an interesting shape – maybe a plant, a toy or a bunch of bananas? Place the object on the table in front of you and try to draw it in a single continuous line without lifting your pen or pencil off the page. Try to describe both the outline of the object and also any key internal shapes or details.

This game is a great way of learning how shapes relate to one another and developing hand-eye coordination.

This is a great lesson in style over accuracy!

LEFT IS RIGHT

t’s

Are you left- or right-handed?

Try putting your pen or pencil in the other hand to complete a drawing of a person or a scene. You will no doubt find it harder and struggle to achieve an accurate likeness but you might also find it is a more expressive or emotive drawing as a result.

AY! l it to an officia are October, here s drawing game play at home whole family

Grand day out

This is a fun one to try after a family holiday or day trip.

Take a large sheet of paper and divide it into rectangles using a black pen and ruler. Challenge your kids to create a cartoon telling the story of what you did that day, drawing the people involved and the places visited in turn.

If they are older, you can call it a ‘graphic novel’ and get them to add speech bubbles or develop the expressions on the characters’ faces. Date the drawings – they will become fun visual diaries to look back on in years to come.

WINDOW DRESSING

Sounds incredible Play some music and draw what it makes you feel or think about. Let the rhythm of the music influence the speed of the marks made.

Use coloured pens or pencils to reflect the mood of the music. Do this with friends or family and compare your drawings of the same songs at the end.

Find a dry-wipe marker, chalk pen or similar that will write on glass and wipe away easily (be sure to get parental approval and have them test it in a small corner first!). Choose a large window in your house and make an outline drawing on the glass of the scene you can see outside. Embellish the drawing with patterns, shapes or extra characters – animals, people or maybe even imaginary monsters. Have fun turning the real world into something more fantastical!

!

H S I FIN

TO DO: Sh are your drawin gs on Twitte r at The_Big_Draw www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

Let’s Draw 7

50 SHADES OF GREY Kelvin Okafor shares his techniques for creating lifelike tonal portraits

Y

oung British artist Kelvin Okafor only graduated from Middlesex University in 2009 but he has already gained a huge following for his beautiful tonal portraits of friends, family and celebrities.

His work has been featured by the BBC, The Guardian and Daily Mail, while his debut solo exhibition at London’s Albemarle Gallery last spring was a great success.

“My art developed from a sort of obsessive desire to achieve greater realism and emotional expression in my drawings,” he told us.

“I actually dream about how I will start and finish a portrait. I continue to reference my photos while I’m drawing, but I already know how the portrait will look when it’s completed.”

You will need:

• A range of graphite pencils, grades 5B to 5H • A white chalk pencil • Black Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils • Cretacolour graphite and charcoal powder • Archival drawing paper • A tortillon (for blending) • A Tombow Mono eraser • A good pencil sharpener

1

I begin by studying the subject from either a photograph or a live sitting and embedding an image of them into my subconscious and memory. Rather than creating a grid, I lightly sketch the subject and define the background. It is essential to understand the tonal values, making note of the darkest and lightest.

5

My portraits always develop in stages; I complete each feature of the face before moving on. I then As with hair, skin begins with a light base of graphite go back and work over the entire picture, adding powder applied with cotton buds. To create blemishes, highlights or changing tonal values to finish it off. I also pores or scars I use tortillons and hard pencil grades such as use black Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils in certain 5H. I also use the Tombow Mono Eraser and a Cretacolour areas, as the wax creates yet another subtle effect. white chalk pencil to create highlights such as light reflecting off oily skin.

Kelvin’s portraits tak e more than 100 hours to co 8 Let’s Draw www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk mplete

4

on drawing at Find more tips o.uk/how-to llustrators.c di an ts is rt .a www

2

This subject has medium to dark brown hair so a light background provides the needed contrast. The fairer the hair the darker the background needs to be and vice versa.

I layer a base using Cretacolor graphite powder then build upon that with Cretacolor charcoal powder. I then work in details with various pencil grades and use erasers, particularly the Tombow Mono Eraser, to create highlights.

3

I measure proportions, determine the scale of the drawing, and shape the rest of the features based on the eyes. I believe the eyes show the subject’s soul and are most often the focal point of the drawing.

Lois – White Rose, graphite, charcoal and black pencil on archival paper, 72x58cm

6

I never impulsively create a portrait. I like to study the subject from different angles and then work to express the essence or mood of the person through my drawing.

Who would you draw?

A friend or a famous face? www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

Let’s Draw 9

DRAWING LIKE GREAT ARTISTS Taking inspiration from your favourite Old Masters or contemporary painters is a great way to improve your skills, as artist Marion Deuchars explains

I

n my new book, Draw Paint Print like the Great Artists, I have chosen some of my favourite artists who have been an important influence on me, helping me to develop my own style over the years. By exploring their techniques, I began to understand the essence of their work and how they see the world around them.

Every artist learns by looking at the work created by others, and then picks up bits of that and makes their own art in their own way. Through them, you will discover new working methods and new ways of exploring image making. It may be something as simple as using scissors rather than a pencil, or being fascinated by a new shape or a playful exercise.

Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a German-Swiss painter whose concepts for composition and design remain the foundations of those used in the art and design worlds today.

Like his great friend Wassily Kandinsky, Klee was very interested in the abstract, and his art

How to make a…

You will need:

• White card • Wax crayons (bright colours) • Black gouache or acrylic paint • A wide, flat brush • 2H pencil (or cocktail stick or other sharp tool) • Kitchen towel

gradually developed from representational into purely abstract.

In the 1920s, both Klee and Kandinsky taught at the revolutionary Bauhaus school for arts and crafts, where Klee passed his theories on art and design on to a new generation who would bring them to the world.

Klee was ambidextrous: he wrote with his right hand and painted with his left.

Many of his drawings and paintings look like lines stacking up on top of each other in playful doodles.

He used bright colours and made intricate patterns.

Many of them remind me of crayon etching.

This is an edited extract from Draw Paint Print like the Great Artists by Marion Deuchars (Laurence King, RRP £12.95). www.laurenceking.com

10 Let’s Draw

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ONE

THREE

Klee made all kinds of lines in his work. Some of them looked as thought they were ‘scratched out’ of the paint. You can make similar kinds of marks by scratching lines out of paint-covered wax. It is called ‘scratch art’ or ‘crayon etching’. It is very simple to do.

Draw a border on the white card.

Paint over wax crayon with black acrylic or gouache paint with a wide, flat brush.

Cover evenly. The paint should be quite thick but not lumpy.

TO DO: Enter this competition today!

I’ve scraped the black pain t to make a Kleelike doodle

TWO

Rub wax crayons onto the paper, up to your border, leaving no white spaces.

Rub away surplus wax with kitchen towel.

WIN!

Enter our prize draw for the chance to win signed limited edition prints

by Quentin Blake and Posy Simmonds

A

rtists & Illustrators and The Big Draw have teamed up to offer one lucky reader the chance to win two fantastic limited edition prints by Campaign for Drawing patrons Quentin Blake and Posy Simmonds.

Quentin’s print is pictured above, while Posy’s can be seen on page 14. Both prints are signed limited editions and available to purchase from www.bigdrawshop.co.uk.

For your chance to win these two stunning prints...

FOUR

Scrape your pattern into the black paint to reveal the wax colours. Rub away the surplus dried paint.

Click here to enter T&Cs apply – see www.chelseamagazines.com/terms www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

Let’s Draw 11

Drawing with Kids

Siân Dudley explains why all art materials are suitable for children – and why we can learn a thing or two from how they use them too

T

here are very few people who would deny that children are precious. There are not many people who would give children less than the best they could offer in every way possible – except when it comes to art materials.

When children are making a piece of art, they are exploring, WHY NOT... discovering not only a world of imagery and self-expression, ...try our but also the joy inherent in the act of creating something. project on Why hamper them with inferior materials? page 13 with Even in something as simple as a coloured pencil there is a crayons or world of difference between a ‘children’s’ pencil and one paint to designed for artists’ use – the latter will release its colour add colour? more readily and consistently. A child will find this far more satisfying to use, enjoying the brighter colour and probably completing a picture within the time limit of their concentration span.

I would like to advocate using good-quality materials from the time your child wants to make marks. A three-year-old is ughter capable of using a good-quality brush without ruining it – try Siân’s granda , gets telling them to tickle the paper and listen for it laughing!

4 ed ag Sophia, tists’ ar h it w Adults have much to learn from watching children. Picasso to grips ls ia er at m famously said, “It took me four years to paint like y qualit Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

I don’t think he was simply referring to their observation of the world.

As a student I was taught that the first art lesson you give a child in any new medium is to give them it and then sit back, watch, and listen.

Note their responses, how they use all their senses to explore the medium. Very young children will do this before trying to use it to produce something and I believe this is an approach we should all try to recover.

If children are ready to draw and paint, they are ready to succeed. Let’s do everything we can to help them.

You never know, we might just pick up a few tips for ourselves on the way...

12 Let’s Draw

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HIGH FIVE!

Siân Dudley’s fun drawing project will encourage the whole family to get hands on The poor old pencil is often overlooked, simply because they are so commonplace.

For me picking up a decent pencil is still an exciting experience; the feel of the pencil as it glides over a lovely paper with a decent ‘tooth’, and the range and expressiveness of the marks I can make, continue to delight me.

Use this activity to encourage your children to explore the possibilities of graphite pencils further.

Have them use all their senses – note the way the pencil feels in their hand, the smell of the wood, and the sound it makes on the paper. Take this opportunity to compare the different grades of pencil, and learn how and when to use each of them.

You will need:

• Three grades of graphite pencil – for example, an HB, a 4B and a 9B • Large sheets of good-quality drawing paper • A good sharpener • A good light source, strong enough to cast shadows

will ncil on its side Turning a pe e ak ks you can m vary the mar

STEP ONE

STEP TWO

STEP THREE

STEP FOUR

Encourage your kids to play with the three grades of pencils to experiment with the marks they can make and notice the differences between them. Have them try using different pressures: tickling the paper for light marks, pressing harder for darker ones. What happens when they layer the graphite? Can they make marks ‘shine’ by burnishing them? How do they feel?

Encourage them to alter the angle at which they hold the pencils. What sorts of lines can they make now?

Could they, for example, make marks that look ‘slow’ or ‘heavy’?

On the same piece of paper, have them create a new set of hand shadows and draw around each of them again, this time using the 4B pencil. Once you have a ‘layer’ of hands drawn with that 4B pencil, change again to the 9B pencil and repeat.

You will end up with an arrangement of hands, interwoven but distinguishable because of the quality of lines made by the different grades of pencil. You can continue until each member of the family has had a turn or carry on to cover a larger sheet of paper!

Angle your light source so that it produces good shadows on the page. Have your children place their non-drawing hand between the light source and the paper, playing around with the shadows until they find an interesting shape.

Using the HB pencil, have them draw around the outline of their hand’s shadow. Take turns to make shadows, overlapping HB outlines and building up interesting shapes on the paper as you go.

Hands wobble so have them rest their arms on something if necessary.

Now have them add texture, tone and pattern using the range of marks they discovered in the first step.

They do not have to follow the shapes of each hand, but instead encourage them to look at the patterns that the shadows have made when they overlapped.

As they fill in each shape, try to have them keep an eye on the balance of tones and marks across the whole page. The result will appear abstract at first, but on closer inspection it is also a lovely record of your family’s hands. Lastly, don’t forget to date it!

www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

Let’s Draw 13

When did you first start drawing?

I remember being three years old and drawing lots of circles. As soon as I picked up a pencil, I knew it was what I liked doing best.

Why is drawing so important?

It teaches you how to really look at things and to understand them. Drawing can do such different things. When it’s very exact, like architectural or medical drawing, it’s an excellent analytical tool.

Plus, a lot of people get a lot of pleasure out of it. I think drawing is extraordinary.

You’ve been creating strips since the 1970s.

How did you get started?

After I’d left college, I was freelancing and doing what most students did those

Q&A

POSY SIMMONDS

The much-loved illustrator and Big Draw patron reveals her favourite pencil and a talent for tap dancing INTERVIEW: TERRI EATON

days: carrying my portfolio in a black case and going to see people.

This was before the days of websites so I spent a couple of months reaping not much success. My first commission was for The Times and it was to fill in for someone who was on holiday. August is a good time to pitch, even now, because a lot of people are away and there’s always drawing to be done.

Buy a limited edition print of Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds at www.bigdrawshop.co.uk

What is your career highlight so far?

Being asked to do the regular comic strip for The Guardian in 1977 because it was something very different and exacting.

Are there any lessons that have stuck with you?

My early days at The Guardian taught me how to draw quickly. They gave me some copy and said they wanted the illustration by 5pm. There was no time for second thought but it allowed me to develop my own visual handwriting.

It was overwhelming but I really liked it.

I remember [the director] Stephen Frears remarking how the book’s graphic novel layout made it easier because it was like a ready-made storyboard. When you’re writing a graphic novel, it’s like drawing a film in a way, only I’m in charge of everything – the direction, the script, the props, the camera, the lighting.

What one art product can you not live without?

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?

Being told I’ll make 1,000 drawings that I’m not happy with but being assured that it’s perfectly normal.

What’s the biggest misconception about being an illustrator?

It’s often something I’ve read in a paper and you think, “Gosh, how appalling or absurd!”

What’s the secret to drawing good characters?

Spend a significant time developing them, draw them from different angles and ask questions about their character – what car they drive, what shoes they wear, www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

Your strip Tamara Drewe was adapted into a movie in 2010.

How was that?

It used to be a beautiful black Berol Karismacolor pencil but they’ve been discontinued. I’m now using a Faber-Castell one, which is still very good, but it makes me sad when a brand I love no longer makes a product.

Where do you find your inspiration?

14 Let’s Draw

whether they’re vain and such like. Hopefully then there’ll be some sort of recognition for the reader.

Everyone thinks it’s such fun. I’ll bump into someone after a deadline and they’ll say, “Oh, you’re still doing your sketching? What fun!”

They believe that you sit at home with a teapot at your elbow, a cat on your lap and it’s all very cosy.

Apart from art, what’s your biggest talent?

I can tap dance a bit.

I’m quite good at doing impressions of animals too, like chickens, cows and cats!

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Let’s Draw 15

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