Observational Drawing

For the observational drawings we were given a few words to work with. These two were based on 'architecture' and 'from below'. The above drawings went quite well I think but I focused too much on tone, which is why I tried to put more emphasis on line on the second drawing to the right. I think adding slightly thicker lines on certain parts to hint at shadow works much better.

These two drawings were focused on the prompt 'hold in your hand', and the left drawing is also focused on 'organic'. I'm quite pleased with the lines of these drawings but I feel like they would've been more interesting if I'd used a different media that varies the line thickness like pen and ink or possibly charcoal.

I think that observational drawing is especially useful for learning to draw people and working on proportion. Clothing is especially difficult to learn to draw without a lot of practise and observation. I'm quite happy with the top left drawing in this respect because I focused on the way the clothes fell.

I haven't finished doing observational drawing for the other words/phrases we were given but I'm planning on doing that over the next few days.


For this exercise, we were working with observational drawing from memory. We had to look at a photo and try and memorise as much as possible and then go away and attempt to draw it from memory with as much detail as possible. This was a really challenging task but it was interesting because it made it clear which parts of the drawing seem the most vital at a glance because those are the parts I honed in on when I was recreating the drawing. As I repeated this task, I think I managed to add more detail but I didn't focus as much on the proportions as a result, which wasn't something I was expecting.

When I chose a different photo to copy as a reference (without having to try and memorise it) I found that I was able to add much more detail and tone and methodically work through different parts of the drawing, unlike with the previous task.

Despite drawing from life being one of the best ways to improve drawing skill, drawing from reference is very valuable because you won't necessarily always have the resources to draw things from life, so it's a good way to make drawings accurate without having to go out of your way to try and find a real life example.





By the end of the session I was starting to get to grips with drawing from life a bit more, particularly in a media I wasn't that comfortable with (brush and ink). I started to think a bit more about the textures and lines and how to represent them in interesting ways, and I think my favourite plant drawing is the green one on the far right because the variety in textures and tones gives the leaves more depth. Drawing from life is definitely something that's incredibly valuable both for improving the accuracy of your drawings and for exploring different ways to represent something through drawing.