Roger Conlon
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  • Teaching - drawing
    • Drawing advice & quotes
    • Learning from masterpieces
    • Learn to Draw exercise sequence >
      • 1 Touch self portrait
      • 2 Feeling the form
      • 3 Wrapping the form
      • 4 Creating volumes with contours
      • 5 Contour systems - bracelet shading
      • 6 Tracing v copying
      • 7 Follow a leader
      • 8 Oval and Axis - constructing the figure
      • 9 Pattern : mapping and negative shapes
      • 10 Measured drawing
      • 11 Dark and light - tonal patterns
    • Drawing the Head >
      • Rotating basic form
      • Child's head demo
  • Teaching - painting
    • Painting advice & quotes
    • Oil Paint >
      • Materials to start
      • Colour mixing : hue, tone, intensity
      • Limited palette tonal painting
      • Oil glazes
This is simply a list of things said , read or heard that I have found useful as a practitioner and teacher.

Drawing


Squint -half close eyes to assess tone and try to match tones across the image ( find friends for each tone)

A geometricised contour can help when there is a lot of internal modelling

A form always shares a tone with its background.

The first thing to look at is the shape of the support you are working on. Think about  the dynamic of the composition – can geometry activate the shape  in front of you?

Upside down is useful – for copying and for looking at your work afresh

from The practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed
Don’t burden a line drawing with heavy halftones and shadows; keep them light. The beauty that is the particular province of line drawing is the beauty of contours and this is marred by heavy light and shade. Great draughtsmen use only just enough to express the form, but never to attempt the expression of tone. Think of the half tones as part of the lights and not as part of the shadows.