Unlike some people I was too overwhelmed to find, let alone review my sketchbooks from 2015, so I took the easy way out and reviewed my Flickr posts instead.

I think that while exploring new ideas and techniques I lost my way. I started out with some drawing exercises to expand my techniques and also had classes with some great teachers at the Urban Sketchers Singapore symposium mid-year. But I didn’t integrate what I’d learned with my own style. So while individual results may have been good, I often found the quality of the drawing disappointing.

So it’s back to exploring and applying some previous exercises and being conscious about using all the techniques I’ve learn to express my own style. To avoid getting stuck on what to draw I’ve been working from photographs taken by Nic Walker , of the Sydney Dance Company, (published in the Sydney Morning Herald of 21 November 2015).

The first step is to return to ‘blind drawing’, focusing on keeping my eyes on the subject and not looking at the page while drawing. Then applying some loosening techniques by drawing with two pens or pencils or a combination of both.
I also tried another loosening technique, drawing while holding the pen or pencil at the very end.

It was interesting to see how the quality of the line varied between the graphite and the Copic Multiliner. Where the graphite flowed easily across the page, the Copic stuttered and hesitated, bringing a quite different quality to the line.
These simple exercises have already produced encouraging results and things like line quality to keep in mind for future drawings.