A Will Davies "How to" - Step 3: Rough Drawing

Having reassured himself that his composition was sound, that the figures were arranged correctly, Will would lay another clean sheet of bond paper on top. Now the real drawing would begin.


I asked Will if he would use the Lucie* to trace down the models in his reference photos, assuming that this would speed up the process, but Will says, "No, I never used the Lucie very much. I didn't find that it made things faster -- because then I'd have to correct all sorts of things that hadn't worked out in the photos. I found it was faster to just have my reference photos nearby to look at and then I'd just draw, correcting things as I went along. That was actually faster. And I liked drawing."

But even this third stage was not the final one before Will would begin the actual illustration. Tomorrow we'll look at the finished pencil stage.

* For those young 'uns who never used (or even saw) one, the Lucie - or camera lucida, also known as the Artograph, was a huge contraption of sliding arms, adjustable lenses and angled mirrors used in a darkened room to project a photo at the drawing board at whatever size the artist wanted. He could then trace out the projected elements onto his paper or canvas working surface.