Subtractive
drawings
This started out as an assignment from the boys’ art teacher, and they (and I) LOVED making them! It’s so simple, but also a nice change from just drawing.
What you will need:
Paper
Pencil
Eraser
Step 1 - Shade the paper
Using the side of your pencil, shade the entire paper. Then, use a tissue or napkin to rub the entire thing to blend it all in.
Step 2 - Choose subject
Next, choose the subject for the drawing, and find a picture to use as a reference (I usually just pull something from the internet, but a picture in a book or magazine works too!). For ours, Fisher chose to do a cow and Jack chose a chimpanzee.
Step 3 - Draw
We always use a directive drawing approach when drawing anything. That is where I will draw on my paper, breaking the drawing down one step at a time, while the boys draw on their paper with me. Since Fisher and Jack chose different subjects, I drew with Fisher and Jack separately.
Step 4 - Shade & erase
Once the basic line drawings are done, look carefully at the reference picture and begin adding the shades (blacks) and highlights (whites). The shades are achieved by drawing with the pencil…pressing very hard will create blacks, and then you can create varying shades of gray by pressing less. The highlights, or white areas, are achieved by taking an eraser, and erasing the parts that should be white. If, at any time you mess up, you can fix it by shading it in and rubbing it with the tissue or napkin again.
