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Wessex Muse - Visual Arts
May 2009
New drawing aid improves realism
and builds confidence
A new drawing aid has just been launched to help artists create more realistic results. It’s quick and easy to use yet can boost accuracy, skills and satisfaction enormously.
It’s a very cheap device so making better drawing accessible to all those who thought they weren’t any good.
Whether they are 6 to sixty, beginners or experienced, Easy-Draw helps artists create more realistic drawings and so offers them new levels of enjoyment and achievement.
Easy-Draw is a development of the well-known grid system but, here, it includes a plastic template with squares cut out to match those on the grid. This allows users to plot the exact location of key points of the original on their paper. Thus the proportions are much more accurate and the end result more satisfying.
The grid system of breaking a subject into squares has been used for hundreds of years, by many great artists. However, the problem has always been how to map the outline onto the drawing. Copying and tracing is very tedious and messy; drawing a light pencil grid is fiddly and the lines have to be erased afterwards.
The innovation with Easy-Draw is that it uses a plastic template with squares cut out of it. This is matched to a clear plastic overlay, or wallet, with a set of gridlines overprinted.
The artist places the original image they wish to reproduce in the wallet, and their drawing paper under the template. Then they identify the key points of the original (the edge of the eyes, the corner of the house, the wing mirror of the car).
These are mapped onto the corresponding squares of the template so the artist can later simply ‘join the dots’, confident that the main proportions of the drawing are correct. Thus they can now concentrate on the ‘fun’ bit of applying texture, shading or colour.
The sense of ‘correctness’ is vital in a drawing as the eye is incredibly sensitive to even small variations in familiar subjects. One of the main reasons people lose confidence in themselves and give up drawing is that they get the basic proportions of an image wrong. So a primary aim of Easy-Draw is to make it easy to get the basic layout right. This builds confidence, develops skills and, above all, makes drawing more fun for all, regardless of their experience.
The grid system can easily be used to make enlargements and reductions. There is a second grid on the other side of the wallet, with two-thirds spacing, which allows for different ratios of scaling
At only £9.95 Easy-Draw costs less than a good brush or drawing pad but could transform the standard of drawing. It also makes an ideal gift to inspire a beginner or re-ignite interest for an older person. It is initially available online at www.easy-draw.co.uk but it is hoped it will be available in retail stores in the future.
Wessex Muse Magazine http://www.musera.co.uk/
