Daily Composition

Reading on the Balcony

Daily Composition - 27 June 2011

Graphite Pencil on Paper
22cm x 14cm (8.5" x 5.5")

The daily composition is another exercise from the Natural Way to Draw. It is drawn from memory in the scribbled style of a gesture drawing (see Gesture Drawing).

The aim is to draw a person or people and their environment. The instruction is to do a daily composition every day for a year and if you are serious, to do one a day for the rest of your life. These drawings should initially be gesture drawings, but eventually we should develop our own approach. You are allowed up to 15 minutes for a drawing. Most of mine take about 7 or 8 minutes.

Initially, the biggest challenge was to draw a scene without being able to see it. It is strange because as a child I think most of my drawings were taken from memory or imagination.

My memory for scenes is improving and I am gradually including more details into each drawing. The other benefit of which I am aware is that at least once a day I pause and think, “How would I draw this scene?”

The picture at the top of the post is Elaine reading on our balcony at the Queen and Albert B&B. I drew this a little while after I drew the modelled drawing on the previous post (see Modelled Drawing in Ink).

The pictures at the bottom are a group of us drinking wine after dinner at John and Petra’s and the bar at the Bracknell Hilton.

Dinner at John and Petra's

Daily Composition - 29 June 2011

Graphite Pencil on Paper
24cm x 18cm (9.5" x 7")

Hilton Bar

Daily Composition - 3 July 2011

Graphite Pencil on Paper
20.5cm x 16.5cm (8" x 6.5")