Sketch Book Practice – Mindless Drawing

This is the kind of drawing I do in the evening to unwind. I call it mindless because I feel my way through the drawing more than I think about it. Because it’s thoughtless, drawing this way reinforces the link between pencil, hand, eye, and mind under the surface as your mind goes on with other things.

The Mindless Line Drawing

For this mindless drawing session, draw something similar to what I’ve drawn so I can talk to you from that frame of reference.

In a sitting position, place the tablet in your lap and brace your elbow on your body or leg. Hold the pencil in an overhand grip, swing the pencil from the elbow pivot point, and draw three fat arcing stems with the side of the lead. (Think weird looking Aloe Vera plant.)

This pencil grip and arm position combo gives you a lot of freedom of movement, so put some variety into the shapes. Relax and let your hand take the pencil in the natural arc it wants to follow.

Very Simple Shading

I shaded this drawing with imaginary lighting similar to the type on these chain links. On rounded form, this lighting makes downward edges dark and upward curves catch the highlight at the center. In other words, down equals dark, and up equals light.

Hold your arm or tilt the paper however you need to, but use the overhand grip and keep using the side of the pencil as you shade.

As you gradate the dark edges into the lighter center of these rounded stems, try to get a “feel” for the shading. Imagine that pressure on the pencil pushes the form away from you and down into the paper. Less pressure lifts the form out of the paper towards you.
After a while, you’ll associate pencil pressure with form so well that you will actually feel the form take shape as you draw.

For variety, I “flattened” the twisted tips of the stems by hatching them a single value. You don’t have to do this if you’re on a roll with “round” shading and don’t want to stop.

Stems 2 and 3

The other two stems are shaded in the same way, so relax and just repeat what you’ve already done. This is the mindless part, so unplug your brain, don’t worry about neatness, and enjoy yourself.

At some point, take a look at the drawing and see if it needs anything more. No harsh judgments allowed. See if the form would benefit from a differently shaped stem tip, or slightly fatter stems, or deeper shadows, or whatever else occurs to you.

You may want to switch to the more precise writing grip for more control at this point.

My attention was caught by the flat ends of the stems on my drawing. It felt like they needed more detail, so I switched to a writing grip and added greater 3d form to the twists by shading the farthest edges, highlighting the closest edges, and by adding a touch of shading underneath each one.

Small Fixes

Finally, use the kneaded eraser to even out dark spots in the texture and make the highlights lighter if you want to make the round stems pop up from the paper plane.

I used a kneaded eraser to “tap” out lighter highlights down the middle of the stems in my drawing.

Reminder: Don’t rub to erase or the graphite will smudge and the consistent texture of this drawing will be lost. Tap the drawing with the eraser to lift the graphite gradually, and it’ll blend with the texture.

Some drawings call for variation, but the uniform texture created here lets the eye cruise on without a hitch. This also makes a calm and uncomplicated drawing experience.

Since graphite does smears so easily, spend a few seconds removing any smudges around the edges and then you’re done.

Looking Forward

This drawing probably won’t be something you’ll want to have framed, or maybe it will because art just happens sometimes. Either way, you’ve taken more of the drawing process into yourself, and someday soon it will spontaneously flow from there to your pencil tip and onto the paper without a thought.