Bjørn Laursen: Two different systems of drawing - outline and shading

If we think of systems of drawing and I asked you: Can you draw a horse? I might be able to point out some patterns of how you probably would try to answer the question, if we think of systems of drawing. Most instructions in drawing typically focus on two phenomena: 1)use of outline and 2)drawing an entire object. In this way figure 1 could be created:

Figure 1. Outline drawing of a horse, an elegant horse for riding. Notice how complex the outline is suggesting a lot of details and movement. Was that the kind of horse you were thinking of?

One of the major pedagogical problems here in my view is that it is a very attractive goal to make a drawing like figure 1, but extremely difficult to master this complex drawing process, so all beginners will fail making the desired visualization. I would never ask you initial questions like that when I teach people to master the process of drawing!

In my pedagogical approach to figurative pencil drawing I would ask you to make a visually intense study of your surrounding world. Then I would ask you to just choose some minor parts of some nearby objects and then try to depict only these minor parts in a small format, like in figures 2a.- d.

Here I have found a part of a tiny wooden object on a very dark surface, and I have started to draw the outline of just a minor part of it. Then it is easy to draw this outline you can see in figure 2a:

Figure 2a. This is the outline of a small part of a wooden object (the big part of the format) on a clear dark background (the small lowest part). An intense visual analysis is followed by this simple outline drawing. But the drawing is actually ambiguous: it could also be seen as a mountain or a wave, the eyes having some difficulties determining what is figure and what is ground?

With your eyes you can change the figure/ground relationship if you like! Try! You have started an interesting
fight with the visual powers on this little rectangular picture plane!! Pedagogically this is a fruitful start, because it easily done and still you face complex phenomena immediately!

I continue to study the grey tones of my motif carefully, and by bringing a little piece of white paper in front of it, I
can see that this object is not white, but darker. So the whole format must be grey. Now I draw the lightest grey
tone all over the rectangle and make the background part dark, se figure 2b:

	Figure 2b. This second step in the drawing process is also simple, but now it starts to look like something that could end up as a picture, where the outline has disappeared and some planes instead are dominating. But you can still change the figure/ground positions visually if you like Studying my motif spatially I now ask myself if I can see some shadows. I can, and the next step is then to draw these body shadows, se figure 2c. This visual analysis and the drawing related to this step is - like the two former - a process which anybody also can master without problems:
	Figure 2c. Now the ambiguity of the drawing is disappearing. It looks most likely that the light areas are in front and the dark areas are in the back. A form has been created. Finally I carefully study the surface of the wooden object, and I analyse visually what the structure of the light and darker patterns are like and draw it. This is not in itself difficult either and gives the entire drawing a new and relevant quality, se figure 2d:
	Figure 2d. Can you feel the texture of wood now?

I did not start trying to draw this complex pattern of the rings in the wood. I waited until I had control over the outline, the shading and the form of the part of the object. Then I could concentrate on studying and depicting the final texture.

These simple principles should be followed - simple phenomena should be mastered before you deal with
the more complex ones, and even then it is still complex problems you deal with, the figure/ground relationship here as one example.

Beginning with an intense visual analysis of a tiny part of the surroundings, followed by a systematic drawing process, are the basic elements in my pedagogical strategy teaching figurative drawing here. Later on we can make a lot of interesting experiments with the whole little wooden horse, that this object turns out to be!

How does it actually look this wooden and tired horse I depict? In figure 3 you can see all of it:

Figure 3. Immediately we see that the horse is tired, why? Body language?

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