Читать книгу The Joy of Sketch - Jen Russell-Smith - Страница 9

The aim of this exercise is exactly as it says… you just need to fill a page! When first starting out with drawing or faced with an empty sketchbook, it’s very normal to begin your first sketch too small and find you end up with a tiny drawing in the middle of a vast expanse of page. This exercise will hopefully get you out of that mindset right from the start – you’ll also find at least one ‘Fill a page’ exercise in each chapter, just in case you need a reminder. The page is yours – fill it!

The wonderful thing about filling a whole page is also that the sum ends up being more impressive than the parts… there might be some dodgy bits or smudgy bits or wonky bits but, somehow, when they’re covering a whole piece of paper, all those bits are less noticeable.

This is also a really good way to familiarize yourself with your materials, so do come back to it again if you get a new pen or sketchbook or something else you want to try. You can find out how the ink flows, how it sticks to the paper, how quickly it dries (to avoid smudging it) and just whether it feels comfortable in your hand.

So… just fill a page! My example here is just rows of shapes and patterns, many of which are my natural ‘doodling while on the phone’ scribbles. I like the way they seem to have turned into something a bit like a sweater pattern… Don’t think about it too hard, just pick a corner (or the middle) make a start and don’t stop until you run out of paper. If you end up covering the whole page with the same shape, that’s fine. A page of circles painted blue could turn into a cloud of bubbles, a page of triangles could be a pine forest? I drew a few lines before running out of ideas, so repeated them all in the opposite order and then did it again...

Stick with ink, or add some colour if you’ve got the time and want to see what happens. The most important thing, though, is not to stop until your page is completely full.

And look, before you even know it, you’re another page into that sketchbook!