Drawing with Brett A Jones

What a huge response to Issue No. 1, thank you very much to everyone who contacted either myself or Simon the publisher with messages of support and positive feedback. This second issue of Drawing with Brett A. Jones picks up the story where we left it, with another collection of Pencils Down articles from Artists Back to Basics and four new special features written just for this book, a new mailbox section, and a new poem for the poetry page. The dozen Pencils Down articles have again been extensively re-worked and extended including more images and captions in most cases. The main special feature this issue “By any Other Name” goes very much into the depths of one specific drawing again, this time with emphasis on the compositional considerations and…

Here are some words arranged and nailed down about the bit of my own trip between leaving Cairns and diving into the Sea of Pain. It is again of course out of sheer necessity massively expurgated; it was hard to know what to leave out, a lot can happen in twenty years. Maybe one day I’ll write the whole story down with all the (many) crunchy bits included. Many thanks to all the good friends and sometimes strangers that helped me along the way, just because you wanted to. In the last issue I laid out a bit of a rough idea of my life’s path (see “A Brief History”) between hitting the ground running and finding my own place in the sun in the Wide Bay area. Might as…

It’s funny how some things work themselves out if your mind is open and the go is left to flow. Last year Simon the publisher asked me for four options (subject and composition-wise) for the drawing I would be doing for the front cover. He intentionally made no suggestions on subject but told me he would be choosing the one to go with, the premise being that even if he chose my least favourite of the four options it would still be a subject and composition I would be happy to draw seeing it was coming from my own strange brain. I put a lot of time, thought, and effort into creating the four potential compositions, as they all had to be suitable as cover art for a whole magazine…

Drawing has been overshadowed in the modern era- to some extent- by the emergence of forms such as abstract and cubism which really don’t demand much from the artist in areas like realistic representation of the subject matter, or the effect of light and shade. The waters are further muddied by methods like gridding and projecting having gained acceptance in the fine art world; this too must detract from the motivation needed for an artist to acquire the necessary and difficult skills required for freehand drawing. I want to explore the really basic fundamentals of drawing... to give anyone interested in learning to draw freehand a good foundation from which to begin. There are really only two basic drawing techniques, and many subtle variations on these themes. The first technique…

In any highly detailed representational freehand drawing project there are quite a number of stages to pass through in order to achieve the best results. These next four articles will review all the stages you need to go through to have what you need down on the paper to be able to successfully utilise the techniques used in the final stages of any highly detailed, realistic work in graphite. I call these advanced “finishing off” techniques fudging and squirling. We will be using the progress of the drawing of an empty, clear glass vase as a visual aid in all four articles to demonstrate the entire process from start to finish, to explain each stage with both words and illustrations (figure 1). Away we go..... Moving Back and Forth to…

I’ve developed my own particular way of drawing naturally over many years which has proven to not only bring real results but also allowed me virtually unlimited control over my all time favourite medium of 2B graphite. Results in each finished drawing and the potential to keep on improving my skill level, and control over the way I interpret each new challenge as far as expressing light effects and fine details and subtle textures with graphite. I can’t explain how or why other people draw the way they do, only how I do it. By the same token my way of drawing is certainly not the only way to do it, nor is it right where others are wrong. It’s just the only way I know so if it helps…