More Scarf Lessons

11/25/24 Tombow Mono 2H and Caran d'Ache
Grafwood 9B in Field Notes Streetscapes sketchbook

Along with many drawing instructors who came after him, DaVinci said that there are no lines in nature – only edges. Edges are made apparent by drawing or painting the relationship between the subject and whatever is next to it.

To draw without lines, however, hardly seems natural. So many sketchers, myself included, cut our teeth on the popular line-and-wash method, or what I call the coloring book method: Draw shapes and color them in. How is it even possible to see the shape unless you draw the outline first?

I wish we could ask DaVinci that today. My answer for myself is to draw the lines but then hide them as well as possible with the tones surrounding them. In both studies shown here, the lightest areas are left as the white of the paper, which means I had to leave the outline exposed. If these were more finished drawings or paintings, I would darken the background so that the lightest areas would stand out against it without a visible line. As studies, I think these are OK as is, but it’s interesting to see how those visible lines suddenly make the drawing lose its dimension (and look less “real”) around those lines.

11/26/24 Tombow Mono 100 F and jumbo Staedtler Mars Lumograph 8B 

Other lessons from a draped scarf:

These may look like nothing more than academic studies, but they have a direct application in urban sketching: Drawing flags. Whenever I sketch flags at the cemetery or elsewhere, I am reminded of how challenging it is to avoid the cardboard look. Hanging fabric folds with a soft curl, not a hard crease.

Finally, these studies are also good practice in not drawing “everything,” even when I can see “everything.” The long scarf hangs down quite a ways, and the ends are fringed. I try to fade off anything I don’t want to draw. This is strangely more difficult than it seems like it should be; if I see it, and it fits on the page, I don’t know where to stop.

Technical notes: I’m now hanging the scarf from an upright vacuum cleaner, which gives me more space to pile up folds than a door knob does (and certainly it’s a more productive use of a vacuum cleaner than its intended job). Although I didn’t think about it when I chose this scarf (it was just easily at hand), it has turned out to be perhaps the best fabric choice I could have made: It’s a pale, solid-colored, synthetic pashmina, so light and shadows are easily seen, yet it has no reflections or hard creases. Everything about it is soft and slightly fuzzy, even the edges.