Sketches vs Thumbnails in Creating Your Paintings
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- I often mention the importance of our thinking before we start to paint. In this video I show in two short demonstrations the difference between a sketch and a thumbnail. Both as preparations for painting.
The pencils I use are:
Blackwing Matte
General's Charcoal White, No. 558
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Do you tend to avoid drawing before starting a painting?
Yes, I do tend to avoid drawing to the extent you did in this video. However, I may have finally seen the light, because I really get what you are saying about how we have to abstract and pick and choose what goes where. I can really see the value of the sketch in getting me to leave things in/out, move them etc. so that when I go to paint I have already figured it out in the sketch. Thanks so much - another very helpful video!
Yes....I also do not draw a sketch....just trying to get in the habit of creating thumbnails.
I have been tempted, in the past, to avoid it when doing plein air. I felt the time pressure and tired of fielding comments of other painters who suggested that I 'just get onto the canvas'. However, now I am finding that the pre-planning of sketches and thumbnails along with a photo of the scene ensures a much better end result upon returning to the studio. Doing the thumbnails and value studies is training my eye to look for structure where before I only saw 'way too much information' in the landscape. I don't throw away as many pieces either!
it depends on the time I got and on the type of painting, in plain air i usually draw directly onto the canvas. but with your approach I might do more drawing before painting thank you Ian :)
Yes, I avoid it or do it poorly. For portraits I manage with a photo and a grid and it works to get a decent likeness, but freehand drawing of something as simple as a cup and saucer is frustrating. I've never been able to find a way to make practicing drawing enjoyable. I practice the piano 4 hours a day, every day, and I can always find a way to break down any difficulty into a series of small problems and then find a creative way to work on each one and then put them back together so practicing the piano is completely engaging and interesting. But for freehand drawing I just get intimidated and frustrated and quickly find that there's something else I should be doing. It's my own fault, I just need to find a way to break down the difficulties of drawing in to a series of simple problems that can be mastered one by one; but I haven't found the way yet.
Never have I heard this topic explained so simply and thoroughly at the same time. It really hit home for me, and I thank you soooooo much!!
The gray paper is so effective to give you all three values in the thumbnail. Thank you so much. This is very valuable information you were sharing today.
So glad you found it helpful. Some images are better on white paper. Some the toned paper just makes it easier. But I like the look of them.
This is a really useful video, as it is difficult to overcome the reluctance to doing a thumbnail. I mostly do sketches, but really a thumbnail helps you to decide your focal point and recognize nice shapes. Thank you, Ian.
Glad you liked it Svetlana. All the best.
Thank you Ian, I did not realize the difference between a sketch and a thumbnail and their very different uses. As usual, you made it clear and concise. I will be doing both in the future. You are a great teacher!
Hi Ronnie, you don't have to do both always. If you are plein air painting you might have to go back twice to do both and then paint. For studio painting it isn't a bad idea. But they each play their own role. Best.
Your step-by-step explanations are the best, ever! Thank you so much!
Just found tis channel and cant thank you enough! You have encapsulated so much, so simply and so concisely! After years of bad teaching I feel I'm making progress! A million thanks!
THANK YOU Ian!!!!! This is so helpful and this is what I have been missing. Your video really helps to understand the thumbnail and a sketch and the benefits of both. I really appreciate your helpful explanation. I will start putting this into practice. You are so right - this is a great place to start - before - I put any paint down on my canvas. I think the light bulb has gone off! I am very encouraged now and I hope my composition problems will begin to diminish and my paintings will become more successful. I feel I am on the right track. Thanks so much!!!
Hi Debra, I am so glad you felt you got the idea. Light bulb moments are great. Good luck and best wishes.
Patience! Love your drawing demo. I do see the value of doing a sketch vs a thumbnail. When I was first learning pleinair there was such a sense of urgency that most often I would jump right in without too much thought. Now I do thumbnails as a way to figure out shape placement and composition, but see that I need to go a step further. I love the Palomino pencil too. Thank you Ian.
Hi Candace. I taught plein air workshops for 25 years and I would say that was the number 1 problem students had. There was such a sense of urgency that they would begin before they knew where they were going. I don't do a thumbnail and then a sketch every time. Particularly not for plein air. But I never start until the main shapes and structure are clear. Best wishes.
Another eye opening brilliant instructional video! Can’t thank you enough
One of the most useful videos -- relevant for every artist, at evey stage, in every medium. Thank you Ian.
This is so true even in carving sculptures. You need to find those problem areas before you start chipping away, as in stone you can’t put it back. Sketch, then clay, then stone. We are always so impatient, wanting to get to our chosen medium.
Great to hear from you Helen and glad you liked it. All the best.
That is such a great image of a sculptor carving stone. No going back.
You are a so ampatique person it’s refreshing to have a instructer like you, instead of many big head and ego centric ego ho invaded the web! Thank you so much Ian.
Even though I have heard many of these concepts before, I always learn something new.. I love the toned paper . Thanks so much.
That is great Holly. Glad you found something new.
Thx Mr.Roberts for your lessons, i learn sm from you and understand my struggles and can solve them better🌻
I have gessoed over so many failed paintings because of discovering insolvable problems halfway through. I wish I had been aware of your valuable instruction long ago. I love to watch you sketch. Thanks for this.
There is always this hunger to get brush to canvas. And partly of course that is great. But the planning before saves so many heartaches of bumping up against foreseeable problems if a bit more time had been spent drawing it out. Glad you found it helpful. Best.
This is a very generous valuable and most useful information you have shared today, I realize the importance of it and from now on will not start a painting without this stage, I was being lazy or in a hurry to start my work I guess!
I have to say that eagerness to get brush to canvas can derail so many paintings. And it is very common. Partly it might be laziness. But also maybe not a faciltiy with drawing so it is a fluent and enjoyable tool of exploration. All the best.
Ditto to Kathy BrooksArt. You are a master at explaining your methods in such clarity. Thank you Ian.
You are the greatest!
You teach this all the time, but it was good to dive in depth the importance and value of these! You are the best teacher. I’m so grateful for your lessons weekly!
Thanks Sarah. I really appreciate your letting me know you are getting a lot out of the videos. Best wishes.
Thank you so much Sir! Your lectures are so easy to undestand and practical.
This makes so much sense-I love this!!!
Thank you,, Ian. This was very informative. Don't forget to take care of yourself while giving so much to so many. Gayle
Hi Gayle. Thanks and yes, balance. Breath. Walk. Time to think. Good reminder.
This was a great reminder of all the techniques that you taught in your drawing course!
Hi Diane. One trick pony. That's me. All the very best to you!
This is marvellous. Thank you. I need a lot of practice with thumbnails. Every piece of instruction is very helpful. I really like the way you used the photo and pointed out the focus in the distance and how to achieve this.
Hi Sandi and I am delighted you found the video helpful. With best wishes.
Mr. Roberts, I greatly appreciate all these videos ! Very educational, & concepts clearly explained for an intermediate artist like me.
Thank you !
What I love about certain landscape paintings, And have not been able to achieve yet on a consistent basis, Could very likely be accomplished using your thumbnail technique. You talk about solving the problem before hand and simplifying the painting process. Also, I have wanted to start using photographs more but don’t really understand how. I do a lot of plein air painting and many semi successes because these problems haven’t been solved in advance. So, thank you again, this is great Food for thought and artistic and put. Happy painting!
Thank you Ian, this was a really excellent demo. Happy new Year!
Thank you. Exactly what I’m trying to learn now.
You explained the differences between a thumbnail sketch and a more detailed pencil sketch very succinctly. To me, when the artist does a thumbnail sketch, he or she is more concerned with the division of the picture plane, so it’s more a 2D design issue, the artist is more interested in the big shapes. When doing a pencil sketch, the artist needs to think more in a 3D mind frame, designing shapes with interesting value contrast in order to make a more realistic representation of the landscape in front of him/her.
Thank you Ian for this video.
Good advice on thumbnails. My thumbnails run the gamut of being informative and not so very informative, like your examples. I don’t tend to sketch because of the very reasons you expressed: a lack of drawing skill, and not knowing how to make marks to distinguish the various values. As always, I appreciate your demonstrations and tutorials. Thank you.
Hi Ann Marie, I think honestly that is the reason so many people rush into getting brush to canvas. They simply don't feel comfortable or competent to do any kind of meaningful exploration with a pencil. Glad you are enjoying the videos.
Same here, its a lack of confidence in my drawing skills but i get why i should learn it and out more effort in it, thank you
Oh dang, I'm honestly only seeing the value of thumbnails now, a year into my art degree, this is what my lecturer has been trying to emphasis, without the demo though, I guess she just assumed we all know what thumbnails are and how to do them? But not really, I mean as a self taught artist and a risk aficionado I never really plan artworks, or anything really smh, I just right in...and I'm seeing now that the reason I have so many unfinished pieces is because of the simple fact that I don't sit down and plan and simplify the process for myself and then quarter- way into the artwork I'm overwhelmed and I just stop , under the measly guides of feeling unmotivated ofcourse , and then next thing I know it's easier to just move onto another piece. Man this was a real eye opener, you're a genius Ian. Thank you for sharing🙂
Oh my gosh, feel like you konked me in the head and knocked some sense into my painting process. Thanks
Very good tips, I really appreciate your videos!!
I take a digital drawing approach when I’m painting in studio. I can grey scale or add and remove objects easily. But a need to put pencil to paper more for drawing practice since it’s weak spot of mine.
Very helpful and informative. Thank you Ian, for sharing your knowledge every Tuesday
You are welcome Lorraine. Best wishes.
Ian
Thank you.
Your tutorial is great 👍
So helpful.
Farzad from south of Iran 🇮🇷
Really helpful. My attempts at thumbnails have been in trying to put too much detail into it, such as changes in value that I see (eg the lit and dark sides of the trees) instead of making a simple determination of value in a simple shape. Using straight lines also will help. I would value seeing even more complicated scenes reduced into thumbnails and thumbnail sketches. There have to be more people out there like me who can make even simple source material more complicated!
Thank you for this. I will definitely be doing this
I like the tumbnail as a start for a painting . It was a great video ! very helpful as usual , thank you !
Thanks Christine. Always nice to hear from you.
Ian I follow your videos I think you explaineverything better than all other artists on line acrylics but the rules still apply with technique
Thank you for this super valuable tutorial! 👍
Thank you, Ian. Very persuasive explanation. Great job!
Thanks a lot Svetlana. They serve different purposes. But the more the reason for doing them is clear the more you get attracted to explore the idea on paper before beginning to paint. All the best.
You make it sound and look so easy Ian! I have such a hard time with thumbs, especially from nature. Too much detail. But I'm afraid when I get back to the studio I won't remember all the things that made the scene sing! I'll keep working at simplifying!
Hi Elaine. The thumbnail is only about structure. And therefore starts to abstract the image for painting. It is a completely different process getting enough information (detail) for back home. That is either a more detailed drawing or photos. But the thumbnail on its own is only really helping with that issue of finding the structure underlying the image.
Really helpful. Not planning enough or correctly is a problem I need to work on.
This is very helpful! Thank you.
Thank you. I learned a lot within a few minutes (with each of your videos, actually).
Ian , I have a wee question. When artists paint ( oil paint) on a canvas NOT on a stretcher . So as they can send their paintings, rolled up and posted to the buyer. Thus allowing the buyer to get the canvas on a stretcher and framed..........doesn’t the painting crack??? ...........I once did a painting on a cheap, poor quality frame. So I bought an archival quality stretcher. Removed my painting from the cheap stretcher and attempted to apply it to the new /better stretcher.....it cracked all around the new stretcher- different size. The new stretcher was smaller. I ended up removing the painting from the new stretcher and glueing it to Masonite board.....slightly smaller again to remove the cracked edge around the frame......it sort of worked, but I learned a lot about changing Frame sizes. So the question is, does the painting not crack when applied to a stretcher after it’s been painted without a stretcher??? Thank you.
what a great video, thank you.
I think you like the telephone poles, because in many of the pictures you choose to paint, there is one of them. That calls my attention since they are just a vertical line with no apparent weight for the composition.
I do like telephone poles because they are there and they do create verticals. They certainly add structure. Not sure about weight.
Hallo Ian, I've just discovered your channel on UA-cam. It's amazing! Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I'm going to watch all your videos and I want to buy a book of yours. Any suggestion? I'm an watercolorist. Greetings from Italy🤗
Very useful! For plein air then you do a thumbnail to see where you are going? But for a studio painting you do the sketch to work out the problems further? Or do you essentially move from thumbnail to sketch for your studio painting? Thanks for showing us how to use white chalk pencil. I am guessing that if your paper is pretty white already, you wouldn't need the white chalk as much, except to highlight over darker areas. Yes?
Hi Ralph, You pretty much have. Plein air, I use the thumbnail to organize structure before starting. Studio I would be sorting through spacial relationships, scale of masses and so on before starting. The chalk pencil you need a toned paper. As you say you can't see it on a light paper. Most scenes in nature (not during winter) are a long way from white. So often the color of the paper does a lot of the work for you by giving you that all over value at the start and you just put in the darks and lights. All the best.
So helpful!
This is helpful to realize that a thumbnail is what you need to do before Plein air painting. The whole video was a great review. Thanks Ian. What chalk pencil are you using Ian?
Hi Lana, glad you liked it. The chalk pencil is General's Chalk white No. 558.
Thank you so much,. This was very helpful. Since I've been watching your videos I have been drawing before I paint and I have begun to really enjoy it. Now to work on thumbnails........I hope you paint this for us. Also, you left out the dark bush midway on the far left, is that because it would be too distracting? Again, great instruction.
Hi Loretta, I just painted it so you'll see it next week. I left that bush out because it was so dark and pulled my eye over there. In the end I put it back in but much lighter. you'll see. Glad you are enjoying drawing. I find it so meditative and engaging.
Another excellent video and another beautiful sketch! Thank you Ian.
This may seem a strange question but what about where you have a landscape in front of you - whether en plein air or in a photograph - and there is no obvious focal point? for example, a really wide open view of lets say a river with mountains in the distance? In other words, the beauty of the image is all of it, not a particular point of interest?
HI Francesca, it isn't a strange question. But I think you would find that what you describe might make a good photograph, like say a National Geographic photo of a beautiful place, but something that would perhaps be sort of formless as a painting. There are lots of beautiful photos that I would never want to try and paint. Does that make sense.
Ian Roberts Thanks Ian, that makes perfect sense. I guess what I need to do is start looking at images & views in a new way - like an artist rather than as a photographer. Thank you once again. Your
I really needed this, Ian! The road map was extremely helpful and the sketch, too! I love Tuesdays!! Thank you for sharing your teachings with us each week. I could watch different versions of this again and again if you're looking to repeat any! ;O)
Hi Joani, I'm delighted you found it helpful and are enjoying the series. It's a good point the idea of looking at the roadmap with each image.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition I really love the hatching that you do also in your sketching.
Thank you. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Hi this demonstration was very nice 👍
Can you please share the reference u use in your painting
Hi Ian, What type of grey paper do you use?
Thank you very helpful
I noticed you used 2 different types of pencils for thumbnail vs sketch . Any reasons for that?
Thank you once again Ian, I didn't realise how vital thumbnails are! May I ask, do you always have it as a square shape? If so does that not skew the composition for say, a wide landscape? Love catching your videos, even though I mainly watercolour the composition information and tips are very useful, thank you!.
Hi Carol. I crop the image, either from life or a photo, and depending on that crop I will have a rectangle. Sometimes it's square but more often than not it's something like 10 x 12 say (canvas size). Even though the process is different with WC you are right in that underlying the painting whether wc or oil, is the structure, the composition. Glad you are enjoying the videos. Best wishes.
Thank you!!!
Idea for vid... splain the difference between painting from life, vs painting (drawing) from a photo. More for beginners probably.
I'm thinking to do one on still life soon and that would be a good discussion for that. Thanks.
so on a typical painting you do 3 drawings? First a thumbnail, then a sketch and then lastly draw it out on the canvas you'll be painting on? I have enough trouble drawing straight on the canvas and then painting. If I'm applying my new learned knowledge of drawing first I do so with chalk straight on the canvas and then start painting. Is there a reason you don't just kill 2 birds with one stone and draw on the canvas?
Hi Tricia, I'll have to clarify this point next week. I didn't mean you do all these as steps before beginning. Just that thumbnails and sketches serve two different purposes. Plein air I would do a thumbnail and then paint with ochre (doesn't stain so can be erased easily) the main lines for the painting and then begin. If I am doing a large studio painting then I might do both drawings before beginning. Does that answer your question? Best wishes.
Thank you
Great examples! Your voice gets very whispery 6:30-7:13. Just a heads up for future! :)
I think I was just getting involved in the drawing and was sort of mumbling. Mainly can only do one thing at a time!
So is your sketch a value sketch and a thumbnail only about shapes?? what about notans??
I'll do one on Notans one week and address this. It's a good question.
🙏🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
cool beans
I forwarded to 2 of my Granddaughters
That's great Greg. All the very best to you.