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The suggestions on this page should make it easier for you to get started. Pay close attention to that word “suggestions.”
You won’t find any rules on this web site.
Draw anything you see. Draw it quickly; don’t try too hard
to be too exact. You don’t have to get it right.
Later on, when you have developed a practiced hand--and have
done many quick sketches--you can slow down and tackle more exacting work.
If you need a role model to help you get
started, you might well pick the celebrated Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, who in his 92 years created more than 40,000 works
of art--often using crayons and sometimes drawing on cheap paper torn from spiral notebooks. His most awesome achievement,
from the Codger viewpoint, was the production of almost 5,000 items after he turned 70--more than 200 pieces a year at a time
when most of us have slowed down drastically.
But even at our slower pace, a drawing a week wouldn't be a strain
on many Codgers, and that adds up to a stellar 52 pictures a year.
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| RAG RUG |
"Rag Rug" and "Quilt in Progress" are
good exercises for choosing colors and
improving hand dexterity. If you want
to
copy these, DON'T! Take the same ideas,
but do them your way, picking your own
colors.
| QUILT IN PROGRESS |
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| PLASTIC SPRAY BOTTLE |
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As suggested, draw anything you see. Your subjects needn't be any fancier than this brightly-colored spray bottle filled
with blue liquid. When you have finished your drawing, send it to your grandkids. They can stick it up on their refrigerator.
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| MID-SUMMER TREE |
This stylized tree was drawn using yellow green, green and blue green crayons, plus a bit of black and brown for the trunk.
Warmer colors could turn it into an autumnal tree.
Art instructors seem to take fiendish pleasure in challenging pupils to work fast, but the technique often has positive results,
teaching eyes to make spontaneous evaluations of what's in front of them, and training the hand to respond quickly to what
the eye sees. This can put fresh sparks in lazy older brains.
If you have noticed that you're becoming too sedentary, both physically and mentally, this is a great exercise: Take your
crayons to a shopping mall or park and learn to capture the action swirling around you. You're lucky if you get five minutes
to capture the essence of a subject.
The guy and the girl (above) were sketched with Conte crayons on rough charcoal paper.
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THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE, DRAW MORE THAN YOUR BREATH
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