Looking closely and drawing
Art & Design · Early Years · The School
Look first
Before you draw something, just look at it. Look for a whole minute. Do not pick up your pencil yet. Turn it round. Look underneath it. A leaf has veins. It has a stalk. Its edges are not smooth. Most people draw before they have really looked. You can tell when they have.
Small details
Close looking finds things you did not know were there. A crack. A spot. A bump. A change of colour. A bit that is not quite even. Those details make your drawing look like THAT leaf, and not just any leaf. Add one or two of them and the drawing changes a lot.
What you see, not what you remember
Most people draw what they remember. They do not draw the real thing. They draw a flower as a circle with petals round it. But the flower in front of them looks nothing like that. Keep looking back at your object while you draw. Look more than you draw. That is the whole trick.
Put a leaf in your pocket. Now draw a leaf from memory. It will come out as a pointed oval with a line down the middle. Now take the real leaf out. Draw it while you LOOK at it. Spend more time on the leaf than on the paper. This leaf has a nibbled edge. It has a torn corner. Its veins branch in odd ways. It has a brown spot. Put your two drawings side by side. The difference is looking.