✏️ Drawing with Constraints

Four different ways to improve your creativity

‘Limitations are really good for you. They are a stimulant. If you were told to make a drawing of a tulip using five lines, or one using a hundred, you’d have to be more inventive with the five. After all, drawing in itself is always a limitation.’ — David Hockney

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Sketch 1: Constrain the colours

Choose a theme and sketch with the same colour palette (or with variations of this colour scheme).

For example:

• Trees in a monochromatic palette

• Urban sketching using only three colours

• Light and shadow with complementary colours

Drawing the trees and plants with a palette of three colours: blue, green and orange © Ana Vila

✏️ Shades of Summer

Sketch 2: Constrain the subject

Choose a subject and sketch it over and over again at different times, testing different media and colour combinations.

For example:

• That beautiful tree outside of your window

• Someone you love

• Your favourite building or place in town

The little house in Normandy © Ana Vila

✏️ September in Normandy

Sketch 3: Constrain the time

Get back to a place you like every day at the same time and notice the different details, light conditions and changes. Depict the different atmospheres.

• The early morning

• The evening and sunset

• Different seasons (the arrival of Spring)

Summer evenings at the Market Square (Plaça del Mercat), Xàtiva © Ana Vila

Sketch 4: Constrain the medium

Choose a specific medium: pencil, pen, collage, crayons, digital drawing, etc. Work several times with this medium depicting different subjects and themes.

• Daily sketches of London

• A Summer trip in crayons

• Paris in pencil

Montmartre, Paris in pencil © Ana Vila

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Constraints are excellent tools in creative practices: they force us to be more imaginative with less.

I love this quote by Hockney on how constraints can trigger imagination:

‘You might have a bit of colour - but if you can use only three colours, you’ve got to make them look whatever colour you want. What did Picasso say? “If you haven’t got any red, use blue”. Make blue look like red.’

Last Summer I bought myself a set of Caran d’Ache crayons and set myself the challenge to do a drawing a day during my holidays in Spain and France. The crayons came in a pack of bright, bold colours, which forced me to look not at the real colours of what I was drawing but to pay attention to the relationship between what colour and light conceptually conveyed. (Make blue look like red.)

Constraints are a great tool to experiment with - imagine you are like an (art) scientist testing pictures.

I used the time and changing sceneries of my Summer trips to test the different constraints described in the exercises above. My approach was very open-minded and experimental but technical at the same time. Almost scientific. And exactly as with any science, the most interesting results came after iterating the same constraint or set of rules over and over.

I recommend focusing on one constraint at a time. You could also experiment with the exercises above with photography or any other medium. Or you could also start with these sketch line exercises we’ve previously shared in The Sketch Club:

✏️ Sketching With Constraints

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There is another type of constraint that every great artist will intuitively develop while working with different mediums: a more complex mix of constraints that involve colour, geometry, themes, memory, and techniques - all at the same time.

Some people call it style (or aesthetics). I prefer to call it imagery.

Adam Nathaniel Furman is a fantastic example of an artist and designer that applies his imagery to every creative process he explores. One can recognise his bold style in every discipline in which he’s created: architecture, textile, ceramics, pictures… They all share the same constraints: bright colours, pure geometries and repetition of patterns.

Nigel Peake is another example of an artist that draws from his imagery. He uses layers of lines, softer minimal colours, abstraction, and his particular handwriting as continuous constraints in his designs, books and illustrations. This set of drawings (click to go to the link) are fantastic.

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Happy sketching! ✏️✨

Ana

Have you been sketching this week? It would be great to hear about it! Leave a comment and share your thoughts :)