OUR first assignment had us warming up our draw-think (I made that word up). Draw-think is imagining drawing something without actually drawing it. Since this was the first assignment it was very basic. Getting used to using our tools and learning how to draw basic shapes like lines, circles, and squares. I did learn that instead of “sketching” (little scrapes here and there) it was important to use your whole body. So instead of scritch-scratching (another made-up word) a circle you draw it with your whole arm with one fluid motion. This is the first time I used this technique and I found it liberating. It’s also good for straight lines. If you relax your body when you draw you can actually draw more accurately than you think!!

This assignment also had us drawing lines and applying different pressures to achieve different results. It served well to get used to the different tools and what to expect from them. We also drew gradients to showcase the varying tones by applying a great deal of pressure and then easing up. This is a very handy exercise since many shadows comprise of varying degrees of gradients. Last we did the same with colored pencils just to get used to them and get a feel for how different they are from charcoal and graphite pencils.