You’ve got a few pieces of paper, a pencil and maybe a graphite but only five minutes. Five minutes only to throw a few marks, some crazily rushed shading with a flat edge of graphite( if you lucky to have one) and then when the last minute already runs out, why not to whack a couple of anger marks. If your paper is thin, you may create a hole. Time’s up! Your model walks off.
Don’t be upset, it’s just a beginning. Eventually, when you don’t have time to think, you’ll produce your best drawings. Only when there’s a shortage of time your hand and material get united, then the intuition of a drawer takes over and leads to capturing what is really important; the mood, the state of light or maybe a movement of some thought within the head of poser. In this speedy encounter, you don’t need to draw the anatomical structure of muscles and bones hidden under somebody’s clothing- you need to draw what those muscles and bones are going through right at that very moment. Then the shortage of time will work for you but not against you. And you won’t have to explain to your mother, why your drawing’s not finished. When you have at least twenty sketches, make yourself a cup of coffee or a peppermint tea, spread those drawings on the floor and squint, squint sensing the differences in their tonality. You’ll have such a great time that your tea will go cold. And instead of boiling more water you may sit down in front of your kettle and do another sketch. Fortunately, your kettle has unlimited time to pose, and maybe if it has a mirror-like surface, you’ll be able to see a reflection of your kitchen and maybe even yourself. Its up to us what needs to be included.
I always go back to look at the works on paper of such artist as Schiller. In his mastery, he tells you straight away that it’s all about proportions but not meaning the correct alignment between physical parts of a model, but the dynamics amongst the elements which create the process of drawing . What is the strength of the line and why, here and there, does it have to fade into a background. In which spot and for what reason the shading begins, is there anything smudged or erased, how many shades of tonality needed to create an impression of light. Perhaps, it’s not very different form the literary text. When the writing is sound, then the description of things do not clash with a dialog, after a few paragraphs you’ll be able to smell the wall paper in some old hotel where you never have been.