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Saturday, February 27, 2010

Almost, But Not Quite

9" x 12"
House Finch
Graphite pencil on sketchbook paper

This afternoon I succumbed (yet again!) to elaborating on what was supposed to be a simple sketch. For my friends who don't do much art, there's a marked difference between a sketch and a drawing. A sketch is a quick, loosely done preliminary rendering, usually without much shading or detail, whereas a drawing is a very finished piece which can almost be described as painting with a pencil.

My problem is, I sometimes end up turning a sketch into a drawing before I realize I'm doing it, and so I end up with a piece that's not rough enough to be a sketch, but not quite detailed or accurate enough to be a proper drawing.

Ah, well. Maybe I'll just start calling these pieces, "dretches" or "skrawings".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A sketch can very well be elaborated. I call "sketch" whatever I consider as research and that I wouldn't include in my portfolio as such.

Just look at Alan Lee's sketchbook, most of these are almost finished drawings, but they are still "only" research.

Nice birdie by the way!