Sketching under time pressure
The basic idea behind the 3 Min Challenge is to have a regular drawing practice without a lot of stuff to prepare before.
No specific time or material needed. You simple doodle on a sheet of paper for 3 minutes, either with a pen oder a pencil. This time I decided to draw animals. Because I simply love drawing animals. So I'll practice drawing them every day a few minutes. You are always welcome to join me!
No matter why you join. Maybe you start the challenge, because you have never drawn anything before and you are just eager to experience, how it feels like to draw. Or maybe you would like to test, if your drawings are really getting better every day. Or maybe you have the same idea behind as I do: improving your 'hand' drawings.
Feel free to tag your pics with #3mindrawing @baumann_illustration. If you only want to practice for yourself, it’s absolutely ok, to keep it just for you. There’s no wrong and right. #feelthedrawing
By the way, there's a great side effect: drawing releases tensions. you simply relax, when you are totally focused on your drawing. Your whole body is concentrated on the drawing, no thoughts for other topics, just the pencil and the paper.
How does it work? 1. First you need a method to track the time, so you really hurry up when drawing.Use your mobile phone, your computer, your watch or a simply hourglass. 2. Prepare a pen or pencil and a sheet of paper 3. Look at a photo of an animal, you'd like to draw (on pinterest or instagram, for example, you'll find wonderful pictures - but don't forget to reference) 4. then >> START << the time tracking and start to draw: focus on the main elements of the animal. What makes the hand look like a hand? Which lines are essential for the specific animal? 3 MIN DRAWING 5. then >> STOP << your drawing, have a look at it and be satisfied. Keep in mind, you've just drawn for 3 minutes and I'm sure you did a great job.
IMPORTANT: keep this drawing! to look at your drawing process some weeks later is so fascinating. It's so important therefore to keep all sheets of paper to see how your drawing style hast evolved.
6. talk about it if you want, you can share it on Instagram tagging #3mindrawing and @baumann_illustration so we can exchange our experiences.
Let your hand learn the lines based on the Theory of the Muscle Memory. It's all about practice. If you see an animal in real, you capture it with your eyes as a whole composition. But this is impossible to draw everything - unless you have endless of hours time to draw every little detail, so your drawing will come close to an photo and close to reality. Doing this is an exceptional work of art and very fascinating. But drawing can be different. You can capture the same situation with some simple lines without loosing the atmosphere. So you don't have to draw everything to show everything. Some lines are enough.
And that's what we practice in this challenge. To focus on the lines, that are important. What characteristics are essential for an object/a person. What lines describe them best? What lines do I need to recognize an object/a person?
If we have more time, we tend to focus on the details. We loose ourselves in the drawing and forget about time and space. That's awesome, but not the aim of this challenge. The aim is to capture quickly the most important lines, in order to draw it quickly but still we recognize the character of the animal.
If you are in the mood for sketching, feel free to try out this method and upload the sketches on Instagram. It would be awesome if you tag me ( @baumann_illustration) and use the hashtag #drawinggang, so that we can talk about it and I can give you a feature in my stories.
I'd love to see what you are up to!
I'd love to keep you updated about new drawing tips, tricks and exercises in my weekly Newsletter.
Subscribe here to be part of the drawing gang:
In my drawing class "Sketching" I am showing you step by step how to build up a drawing with basic shapes and the effects of the muscle memory.
2 weeks of free access.
I am looking forward to welcoming you in class! When you click on this link, you'll get 2 weeks of free access to over 22.000 classes of Skillshare! There are amazing classes on this platform, it's absolutely worth a try! See you in class!
Hallo, I'm an award-winning illustrator and drawing tutor from Austria. After great experiences in the Marketing and Database sector, I finally realised that I simply need to follow my enthusiasm and fascination for drawing and illustrating.
What fascinates me most, is this way to communicate without using any words. So expressive, so global. And this leads me to my second fascination about drawing: the exchange with others, with you! In my drawing courses I simply love to see the enormous developments of each participant - initiated by exchange and practice. That's what I like to do here, too.
The idea for this blog comes from the bottom of my heart: to get you close to drawing and to show you that you too can draw #drawinggang It's all about learning to feel the drawing!
© 2024 Barbara Baumann Illustration. Feel the drawing.
