How to Draw Tips | What are thumbnail sketches? How to use them Video Lecture | Develop Drawing Skills: Basics to Expert - Art & Craft

okay so in this tutorial I figured I'd
share something with you guys that I
think is pretty useful and it's using
thumbnail sketches now what is a
thumbnail sketch pretty much it's pretty
much just a small shot started on this
side it's pretty much just a small study
or a sketch of some subject you're going
to draw or you're planning on doing a
drawing off and you're just making a
small sketch of that subject you're
going to be drawing now why do you do it
it's pretty useful because it gives you
it gives you a way of exploring the
subject or different aspects of the
subject before you actually do it now in
preparing to do a drawing there are
different aspects that you may be
concerned with for one let's even look
at this example you're going to do a
horse portrayed right so you have to
decide for yourself okay am I going to
do a a drawing that is horizontal or
like a landscape format or is it going
to have a say a portrait format which is
considered a portrait format where it's
it's it's higher or you know longer than
it is wide and here's wider than it is
long or at all right so doing thumbnail
sketches are small little sketches you
do any charity box them in like this you
don't have to but it's useful to do that
because it gives you a sense of
composition I could let's say for
example we're going to do a horse a
drawing of a horse's portrait like a
horse's head and neck right so with this
you can explore different aspects of the
join before you actually do it so for
example one aspect could be a positive
and negative space okay so for example
you say let's say a horse's head is like
this see and here you're not going into
any detail see just like that so you're
considering okay the negative shape and
this is something that many artists will
do tens of them before they actually do
a final drawing because this gives you
of general feel of the drawing before
you actually you know start it and see
this gives you a sense of do you feel
like the positive shape interacts with
the negative shape or you know what part
of the the subject are you going to show
and for example some people like when
there's a lot of interesting negative
shapes in their drawings so so for
example they may have something like
this and you may consider okay including
more of the head so say for example
maybe something like this see I notice
all I'm focusing on is just negative and
positive shape I'm not thinking too much
about you know the actual details and
whatnot I'm just focusing on how does
the then is it interesting the negative
shape that that is formed see that and
that's just one aspect of you know a
drawing that you can explore this is a
positive negative shape you can actually
also explore and generally when I'm
doing a lot of thumbnail sketches I'll
pretty much have like a whole page full
of these things and I'm just going to do
that as an example for you so you can
see how you know it's a typical way you
could go about it because in a drawing
just like I was discussing in the in the
tutorial about the different the five
stages of a drawing you have the gesture
you know you can have a set of thumbnail
sketches or one thumbnail sketch we're
just exploring the gesture you know just
just a feel of it how do you want the
drawing to feel on the page this is the
space that will contain your drawing and
how do you want the drawing to interact
within that space and you can explore
that in different ways so this could be
exploring the the gesture you know this
could just be one could be dedicated to
the exploring a gesture another could be
exploring the positive and negative
space or negative shapes see another
could be dedicated to exploring
composition seeing that's also generally
a very important thing or a couple of
them could be dedicated to exploring
composition so for example even if
you're not necessarily so you're doing
one that's focused just on a portrait of
a horse you could be doing a landscape
you could be say for example you're
going to do something where you have a
little you know low tree here okay this
gives you a sense of like how do you
want the subject to interact with other
elements in the in the image you would
you want this
to be big in this small or would you
want this one to be big you know and
this small see that's what thumbnail
sketching does it gives you a way to
play around with the subject if we
actually get really serious and this is
very effective when you're exploring
composition ideas and so on and so forth
you could actually change the
perspective this whole thing you can do
it so that it's a you know it's a an
aerial view what if you're like hi and
you're looking down on something like
this you know and this is what thumbnail
sketching does it's really just a pretty
effective way of exploring different
aspects of a joint so like going back to
this example exploring the positive
negative space explain the positive
negative space exploring the gesture
here you could also explore proportion
so for example you know what how are you
going to interact the different sizes of
things okay are you going to have how
much of the body you're going to expose
so for example if you're joining a horse
you can say okay this is the space that
my joint is going to be in now am I
going to have the horse his head on this
side like that and then I have the body
like this you see what I mean and then
you have this negative space because
that may make it interesting are you
going to cut it off right here you know
so only a part of the body is showing or
you may actually want to do it so that
the entire body is showing or you may
want to put this on this side so you may
actually shift this over to over here
like this but now you may have this see
so this one is exploring just the head
you're putting it to the left this one
is showing the same thing but now it's
almost like you moved it the view or the
imagine is as your viewfinder you move
it to the left so see now you're showing
the body of the horse
another important thing that's um good
for the thumbnail sketches are good for
is exploring values because you can have
for example a drawing that will say for
example have a horse's head like this
and see what this does it frees you up
to have a lot more creative control over
your drawing you're not just a slave to
the image that you're seeing okay you
have to learn how to you know compose
just like a composer composes music as
an artist you have to also compose your
music you know your composition you
determine how you want it to be will you
have the background be pitch black see
this is exploring a value pattern see
are you going to have a a black horse a
white horse um
you know is it going to be gray is it
going to be black and white is it going
to be a pitch black background like this
or it could have a another background
that maybe you know gray so see you're
not focusing on any details and stuff
like that here you're just focusing on
getting basic shapes basic value
relationships so like with this you may
say okay what if you know this one it
will be really dark this one it may be
really gray this one you may say okay
I'm gonna have the life source come from
the upper right this one I'm going to
have the light source come from the
upper left see this is what you do with
thumbnail sketches you know you have
that the light source is coming from
from the upper right then you know that
the shallow areas are going to be on the
lower right right seeing this is the
type of stuff you do with value sketches
you see this gives you a nice sense of
okay how am I going to lay in the values
where the darkest area is going to be
and you can get a sense of that your
mapping things up before you actually
begin with this one you may be a little
bit different over here you're going to
have the shadows on this side so shadows
is going to be on the lower right see
that and then you can play around with
you know what details am I going to
include in this drawing and this is how
you resolve composition questions value
questions you know proportion questions
and even the value forms how will you
have the different aspects of value and
form interact you
you can explore even issues that you
think you're going to have you can start
resolving them early and get a good
sense of that you may even want to do
additional sketches of just details see
that's another thing that makes it's
pretty useful you may say for example
you may want to just do a zoom in study
of just the the mouth of the horse you
know whatever you know if you look at a
lot of drawings by people like you know
Michelangelo a lot of people who you
know especially um people who do a lot
of figurative art you see they sometimes
would do studies of just in the joint of
a person's face they may do a study of
just their nose they may do a study of
someone's finger and so on you know they
just have little details of the overall
subject that they may study and this in
itself can help you especially if you're
doing large-scale drawings this can be
useful in terms of giving you an idea of
how will you deal with that detail when
you get there and you can even use it as
a model so for example you can save this
study for when you're doing other
drawings or you may just save it as a
way of you know reference she can use it
for future drawings even with drawing
something else so you may think of this
and say okay you know this is a good
idea or you may use it as a source of
inspiration for something else you'd be
doing and these are what you know
thumbnail sketches are pretty much
useful to do and I'm sure you can find
many of the ways of incorporating them
as well but it's it's something that I
think every artist or every art student
should learn to do as early as possible
any even with here again see I've done
similar poses you can explore different
ideas you could actually do a drawing of
a horse that's just grazing see that's
another idea you can play around with
that you know how would that look you
know that's the head the ear and I'm
just doing this from my imagination
right now see so I'm not concerned with
having it look like a horse actually
looks you know I could think of grass
like here and stuff like that and that's
what you do and it you will see how this
will allow you to see things in
different ways and just play with ideas
some of these you may never use them
again but just the exercise is is
healthy for you