This week I am again looking at an exercise from Kimon Nicolaïdes’ The Natural Way to Draw. The exercise from this week follows on from last week’s ‘Weight and the Modelled Drawing’.
This week: The Modelled Drawing on Ink. (pg 51)
As with last week’s task, The idea is to convey the weight of the form, building up the shape bit by bit. However, instead of using a lithographic crayon, or a chunky piece of charcoal, we will be using pen.
‘…you have only the point of the pen with which to make contact instead of the broad surface of the crayon and consequently it becomes necessary to do a great deal of scratching around.
Start in the center of the form and make in the beginning the same sort of rotating movement that you made with the crayon, constantly filling in the form and working out toward all the surfaces. Keep the pen moving over the paper in all directions without lifting it. Then, as with the lithograph crayon, make contact with the vertical and horizontal contours, pressing back where the form goes back and lightly where it is near you. Remember that there will be no outline because you do not think of edges.’