Dive into

Drawings

About the Author

My name is Emma Healy. I graduated from
Marist High School in 2012. I attended Moraine
Valley Community College for two years and received
an Associates in Arts. I am currently a junior transfer
student at Saint Xavier University as a graphic design
major.


This book features art from my first semester at Saint Xavier. It goes through all of the things I
learned in my computer graphics and drawing classes. I hope to look back at this book in the future and
see many improvements in my art.

Table of Contents
Computer Graphics Work:
Line Drawings

4-5

Value Drawings

6-9

Color Drawings

10-15

Infographic

16-21

Drawing One Work:

Contour Drawings

22-27

Tonal Drawings

28-35

Gesture Drawings

36-39

Line Drawings

s an introduction to the Adobe Illustrator software,

we started out by simply drawing lines using a
drawing pad and stylus. Although working with a new media can
be a little intimidating, having a stylus and drawing pad made it
feel like I was getting ready to draw with a pencil on paper. While
looking at a wine bottle, I drew lines of various lengths to get
the overall form of the wine bottle. The paintbrush tool which is
located on the left tool bar was used to draw the lines. There are
one- hundred lines that make up the bottle.

After the bottles were made, using the brush tools I was
able to change the style of the lines. In the brush window there
are many different brushes to chooses from. By changing the
styles I was able to get different effects. These different effects
give the bottle a different feeling to them, while keeping the form
of the wine bottle still recognizable.

Value Drawings
C

ontinuing with the idea of line drawings, we made

line drawings that start to take into account the
value of the object being drawn. The first image shows the
simple line drawing of the teapot. The second image shows the
object with different values.

Value is the relative

Value is important because it can make a drawing
become more three dimensional. For me this was one of the
hardest parts. While looking at the object it was difficult to see
the many different values of color on the teapot. There was a
bright light shining on it and causing many shadows and shading. Translating that into an image was difficult. As I continue to
practice working with value my skills will become more refined.

lightness or darkness of a
color.

Plenty of Pots
T

his teapot also explores value. The darker values are

used on the inside of the teapot to make it look more
three dimensional. The two different teapots on the right were
more explorations in how to change our pictures to make them
more interesting.

One teapot is made with watercolors and the other is
made with thin lines. Both change the image in different ways.
The watercolor image blends the tones in an interesting way that
gives the teapot a better three dimensional look than the original.
The thin lines gives an interesting negative space that make the
teapot look almost like a weaved basket.

Color Drawings

s we moved forward in the class, we started to learn

about colors. Color is probably one of the most
powerful additions to add to artwork. Color can easily change the
feeling of a image.

Adding color on Illustrator is an easy thing to do. On the
right hand side there is a menu called swatches. This is one way
to change the color. The swatches menu has colors already made
for you ready to be clicked. If you open up colors by double
clicking the box on the left menu, you can pick colors from a full
spectrum. This has certain advantages because you can change
the tone and brightness of a color in that box.

To make this picture I used the paintbrush tool on Adobe
Illustrator. Equipped with a drawing pad and stylus I drew this illustration of flowers. When drawing these flowers I used the same
line drawing principle learned in the earlier weeks of class. I

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liked the way the line drawings give off a very stylized look. It
helped me to draw in a different way. Instead of focusing on the
outline or contour of the objects, I built the object up through
making lines.

Also building on other skills we learned in previous
weeks, I added as much value as I could to the drawings. The
yellow flower has darker shades of yellow to make the petal look
realistic. I also used a dark shade of purple for the flowers in the
back to show that they are in the back. The overlap also attempts
to show some depth.

The most important aspect of this picture is the color.
This picture uses the complementary colors of yellow and violet
to create an image that is nice to look at. The image on the left
also uses a complementary color scheme of orange and blue to
create the same effect.

The colors on Illustrator can also easily be changed to fit
certain color harmonies. By going up to windows and choosing to
open the color window, you can open a menu to play with different colors. You can change them manually on a giant color wheel
or pick from existing color combinations. This is how I quickly
changed the color of the picture on the right to the picture on the
left.

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Summer Sun Fun

his illustration was the next exploration in color. All

of the colors in this picture are warm colors. The
color wheel can be split into two sections: the warm and the cool
colors. This is important when trying to make an image have a
certain feeling to them. The original image on the right feels like
a warm day at the beach, not only because of the objects usually
found at a beach like flip flops, sunglasses, and a hat, but also
because of the warm colors used in the illustration. The color
variation on the left does not have the warm feeling.

For all three of the color drawings we had to keep one
color constant throughout. For me, that color was yellow. I used
the yellow in this picture as a focal point. The hat stands out
because of the red frame I made using the red sunglasses and red
flip flops. Different values of yellow were used to try and give
the hat three dimensional qualities. However, this could have
been expressed with colors that have more contrast. The colors
blend together too much because they are too similar. The image

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on the left works better in this aspect.

What made this illustration more fun was the fact that
many different hues could be used. The other two combinations
we used only feature two main hues. In the future I would like
to try other color combinations like a triad or monochrome color
scheme. There is lots to learn about color harmonies.

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Lovely Lemons

his illustration was my first attempt at the color

drawings. The illustration on the right is what I
eventually ended up with after many revisions. Working from this
first draft to a revised version was very important in my learning
process. I knew when I finished this drawing that it still needed a
lot of work.

No work is completely finished because

additional changes
can always be made.

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The great thing about working in a digital media is that many

changes can easily be made to old pieces of work. When working on paper or other types of media not as many risk can be
taken because of fear of messing up your only copy. Digitally
you can make as many copies as you need and experiment with
new things. It is a great way to keep improving yourself. Art is a
process that works differently for everyone. I like to keep trying
to improve old things.

The color scheme on this illustration is an analogous
color scheme. That is, colors that are close to each other on the
color wheel. On all three of the color drawings, I kept yellow as
a featured color because it is one of my favorite colors that I feel
is under used. A lemon tree was the perfect image to use to create
this illustration.

In the first drawing, I had a lot of trouble trying to use
shading on the lemons and leaves. The values of yellow that I
started with were way too bright. When I tried to add darker and
lighter values, they were too similar and ended up making what
looks like holes in the lemons. The revision fixes that a little bit.

The other problem I had was the negative space. There
was way too much white space. By simply changing that to
green and adding a few more leaves I was able to make the piece
look more balanced. The focus is changed to the lemons. I used

rounded lines in this revision to give it more of a rounded look.

This made the image look better than the previous one because
the items had better shading as well as a more stylized and unique
look.

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Infographic
T

16

he next part of class focused on making an information graphic. Infographics are very popular media
these days. They provide an easy and interesting way to consume
information. Many different elements need to work together in
order to make a good infographic.

As you might have guessed by the graphics on the side,
I made my infographic about swimming. Thinking about the
content of the infographic is the first step in creating it. I have
been a swimmer for all of my life, so I knew it was the perfect
subject matter. I am also going to hang the finished project at
the pool where I work as a lifeguard and swim class instructor.
Swimming is one of the best forms of exercise, so I wanted to
share the benefits of swimming.

I did some research on the topic to get interesting facts,
information, and charts that I could use for the content. I like
to have a clear idea of the content being presented before I start
thinking of different designs.

After coming up with a concept, I started to think about
the graphics I needed for the infographic. I knew that I wanted a
swimmer to be the focus of the infographic with zoom in features
that emphasize different parts of the body. I had this idea because
the content I came up with could easily be separated into four
categories.

This swimmer was made by tracing a picture of Micheal Phelps. I started out by tracing the main outline of Phelps
and finding the main features I needed to include like the
shadow under the arm. The red swimmer was my first attempt.
It looked too simple to be the main graphic on the page, so I
added more details. I added a more shadows and water on the
swimmer. I also changed the color of his swimsuit and cap to
match the color scheme I wanted to use for the infographic.

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Got Graphics?
T

he graphics on the side are the other graphics that

I made for my infographic. All of these were made
using the same tracing method as the swimmer on the previous
page. By tracing the image with the pen tool and using the fill and
outline to color it, I created graphics that relate to my information. I made a heart and lungs to highlight the cardiopulmonary
benefits of swimming, muscles to show the physical benefits, a
brain to show the mental benefits, and a ring buoy as decoration.

These graphics are used to make the information easier
to consume. By simply looking at the infographic, you can get
an idea about the information presented in it without reading it.
There are some graphics that work with the text and other that are
used as decoration. The decorations are still related to the subject,
but not used in the same way functionally.

When putting together the infographic these graphics
were placed onto my illustrator document by going to file and
place. You can move the graphics around with the black pointer
tool. This tool makes it very easy to rearrange items on your
document. Once I had the main graphics placed I could focus
on where I wanted the text to fall. The next page will show the
completed infographic.

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Benefits of Swimming
PHYSICAL

-Works all major muscles

in your body

MENTAL

-lowers stress

-Teaches self-discipline and

boosts confidence

Calories burned in a 30 min swim

90-220 cal 150-370 cal 220-550 cal
recreational moderate
vigorous

-releases endorphins which is

known to make you happier

Final Infographic

CARDIOPULMONARY
-improves bodys oxygen use and

increases lung function

PERKS
-easy on bones and joints
-Swimming is a low impact

exercise, meaning there is

little risk for injury

-reduces risk of coronary heart

-Suitable for all ages and

abilities

and decreases LDL (bad cholesterol)

ra
Nea Life

ard
gu

20

an Red
ric

oss
Cr

Ame

disease

Swi
m

-increases HDL (good cholesterol)

he completed infographic is a combination of all

the things we learned in our computer graphic class.
We had to apply the things we learned to make an interesting
infographic. At this time we learned a lot about the type tool. By
opening the type window there are many options for modifying
the type. From this menu you can change the font, size, spacing,
bold, italic, alignment, and various other options. By making text
boxes you can move the type around easily. You can even set the
type to wrap around a path such as a circle, which you can see
was used to make the swim near a lifeguard and American Red
Cross graphics on the bottom right of my infographic.

I knew that changing the font to a font that is a little
more interesting is important in making the information more
interesting. To change the font, first the font with the style you
are looking for needs to be downloaded from a trusted website
and downloaded onto the computer. Then you can change that
font when you need to as long as the font files are in your master
folder. The master folder needs to hold all of the pieces of the
final product like the graphics and the fonts. Illustrator needs all
the files together to make the final product.

When creating the overall design of the infographic,
one of the first factor I took into consideration was the colors. I
knew that blue was going to be used because of the water that
goes with my swimmer, so I decided to use green because it is
analogous to blue. I used color for the headings and for important
words and phrases in the text. The color of the text is very important. At first, I had black text on the dark blue at the bottom.
This made it very hard to read the dark text. The text had to be
changed to white so that it can be easily read.

I added various small things to add to the overall design.
I added a safety line at the top and bottom to add a border to the
infographic. I also made the swim near a lifeguard and American Red Cross graphics to put at the bottom to not only quote
my sources, but also to add more content to the bottom where it

looked very empty in comparison to the rest of the infographic.

The ellipse tool and line segment tool were made to make the
zoom in frame. The four categories that I came up with at the beginning of my research came in handy for the layout of the text. I
was able to put one category in each corner of the page. It made
the inforgraphic feel very balanced. I tried to make a unified
design with a constant color scheme and balance of text.

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Contour Drawings

ontour drawings are a lot like the line

drawings that we did in computer graphics. They are just the basic form of an object, or the
lines that make up an object. The first half of my
drawing class worked a lot on drawing contour drawings because the contours are used as a base and more
things are added onto it like tone and color.

The drawings on the side are examples of
basic contour drawings. Only the important lines of
the object are drawn. It is a simple version of the real
thing. These drawings were made during the first
week of the semester. Each object had to be drawn in
two minutes.

his drawing was made on the second day of

drawing class. Not having any experience
in drawing I was very nervous to draw. Although the
form is no where near perfect, I really liked this drawing because of the composition. I thought the way I put
my feet looked interesting. I like how one foot leans
into the other. It reminds me of a shy kid looking down
at his feet. We were told to look at our feet and draw
what we saw. I moved my feet around to make it more
interesting, but that made it harder to draw.

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We had to use a sharpie marker to draw. This was

very difficult for me because I could not erase.
There was also one more catch: we could not pick
our pen up from the paper. This is supposed to
help us find the overall form of what we are drawing. It is very similar to the line drawing that we
made in computer graphics. Both are to help us
find the main form of what we are communicating.
The only difference is the medium.

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Contour Still Lives

A

s we continued to practice contour drawing, the teacher continued to create more

difficult still lives to draw. This still life is a small statue
of a man, woman, and child, and a camel in the background. The statue was set up in front of the camel, so
I really had to watch my proportions. Also, I had to put
the statue in front of the camel. The angle of the objects
was one of the hardest things to find in this drawing.

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his drawing was an exercise in drawing ellipses. I learned a lot about using reference
lines to keep proportions in place. Ellipses are used to
give objects a tilted effect. It was challenging to keep
the proportions right. Later in the class we learned
how to use a pencil or our finger to take the sight size
of something. By calculating how big something is in
sight size and adjusting the size to fit the paper, you
can get good proportions.

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ventually, we started to use new materials. This was my first ever time using vine
charcoal to draw. We started out by filing the whole
paper with charcoal, then used our erasers to bring
the objects out. This is called the subtractive method.
What is left is the outlines of a roll of paper towels
sitting on top of a stool.
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his is a drawing of my favorite chair. For

this exercise we were supposed to use cross
contour lines to help give the object more dimension.
This was very challenging for me. I tried to vary the
lines in different ways. Some are long, shore, thick,
thin, close together, or far apart.
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Tonal Drawings
T

onal drawings are exactly like the value

drawings that I did in my computer graphics class. It is too bad that I did not learn more bout
tone when we were drawing the value drawings in
computer graphics. I would have been able to make
better pictures. Tone is the term that is used when
talking about black and white. Value is used more often
for the darkness and lightness of a color.

The eggs on the side were my first attempts at
tone. It was a simple way to learn about tone. It is easy
to see the dark and light spots on an egg. The shadow
usually casts the darkest tone and the light reflecting
on the top is the lightest tone. It is best to use the side
of your pencil when shading. Once tone is introduced
to a drawing, you can make the drawing look more
realistic.

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29

Trying Tone

his is an abstract drawing of folds in a piece

of fabric. I used vine charcoal, white conte
crayon, and compressed charcoal for this drawing. We
were told to zoom in on one spot in a piece of fabric
and draw all the folds. It was in interesting light that
made it hard to draw. I struggled a bit with expressing the tone, but there are parts of the drawing that
demonstrate tone.

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sing vine charcoal, charcoal, and white

conte crayon I drew this still life of a yoga
ball. The lights were very dramatic in this set up and
cast a complex shadow. I used my fingers to blend the
charcoal together and create an even tone. Blending
the colors together helps to create a more smooth and
natural look to the drawing.

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Take out the Trash

his is a drawing of two garbage cans made

with charcoal and vine charcoal. To get
the white tone, I used the subtractive method. First I
blocked in a solid tone with the vine charcoal, then I
used an eraser to draw in the white tones. The black
tones for the trash bags are the charcoal. Smudging
the charcoal with my fingers were a very useful way
to blend the tones and make it look better. We went
outside one day to find things to draw. These two trash
can sitting next to each other looked like an interesting
thing to try because of the difference in color of the
two garbage cans.

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33

After School Tea

Time

his is yet another still life drawn with

vine charcoal, charcoal and white conte
crayon. It is a drawing of a teacup on a plate with a
pourer, sugar holder, and teapot in the background.
I really enjoyed drawing this picture because I got to
set up the still life. I arranged my mothers good china
dishes in what I thought looked nice and shined some
light on the side of it. I had the spouts of the teapot
and pourer point to the teacup in the middle to give
the composition a focal point.

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35

Gesture Drawing
A

t this point in the class we started to draw

human figures. We learned how to draw
the overall gesture of a persons pose. In class we had a
model pose and we would draw a quick sketch of the
pose. A gesture drawing does not have much details
and is messy looking. These gesture drawings on the
side were all done in thirty seconds. Having a time limit made it difficult to draw the pose. I learned to draw
without relying on contours. I used the line of action
that runs through a person to help find the movement
of the pose.

n class one day that we were working on gesture drawing, the instructor Mr. Villa decided to pose for us. He sat on one of the drawing horses
with a drawing board and posed as someone drawing.
I was able to add more detail to this drawing because
we were given more time. What helps me when drawing figures is to draw circles for the major parts like the
head, thigh, calves, arms, etc.

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37

Self Portrait

owards the end of the class we started to

work on self portraits. These portraits
utilize many of the things we learned in the class.
For this drawing we used the grid method to draw.
First, we took a picture of ourselves and drew a grid
on top of the picture. Then, on the paper we copied
the grid to fit the page. By focusing on the details in
the box you can work to make the whole picture look
very close to the original. This drawing was done in
graphite, so blending the tones was more difficult for
me. We used a new tool to help with blending called
a shading stump.

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You get better at working by

working. And if you dont work,
youre not getting better.
Terry Crews

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