Power to the Pencil

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Dancer Tying Her Scarf Edgar Degas

With so much interest in plein air painting these days, it’s easy to overlook how important drawing skills can be to the landscape artist. Fundamentally, drawing is both a way of seeing and a way of knowing a subject. If you can draw it, then you own it. It is in your visual library and can be recalled when needed. But the act and art of drawing goes much deeper than a mere recording process. For the artist, drawing is how we know the world. It is an expression of life and evidence of what we find relevant and recognize as beautiful. The ability to translate that appreciation of beauty into a beautiful drawing is a high art.

There is also something wonderful about the tactile sensation of a pencil or crayon dragging across a receptive paper surface. It is a feedback loop, and when one gets very accomplished at drawing, there is a seductive pleasure in making the subtle variations of pressure which result in the kind…