Standardizing the Drawing Process

Is standardizing your drawing process important? Do you always have to follow the same steps in the same order?

I’d like to talk a little bit about that today. But first, I want to tell you why I’m even thinking about this.

The Reason for This Discussion

I had the privilege of teaching an online workshop for Ann Kullberg at the end of 2024. The subject was one I’ve drawn dozens of times: A horse.

But the real subject of the workshop was using a verdaccio (green underdrawing) with colored pencil. This is my finished project for the class. (If you look closely, you can see some of the green showing through the layers of color. That’s part of the glory of the verdaccio method.)

It was a fun class, and students produced excellent work, but I learned something I didn’t expect to learn.

I rarely draw the same way twice!

During the second session of this five-session workshop, one of the students asked if I had a PDF tutorial of the subject. I didn’t, but I could make one. I kept a drawing journal and scanned the drawing step by step when I did the original version. What could be easier than pairing the scanned images of the original drawing with what I was doing on the second version to produce a tutorial?

Easy as pie, right?

What I didn’t expect was to start reading that drawing journal and discover that the way I did the original drawing and the way I was doing the class drawing were not the same!

That got me to thinking. Why don’t I draw the same way every time? Of course, that led to another question.

Could I benefit from standardizing my drawing process?

Standardizing the Drawing Process

Why Don’t I Draw the Same Way Twice

The answer is surprisingly simple.

I’ve always been intuitive in creating art. From composition to color selection, I’ve always been one of those artists who “paints by the seat of the pants”. As with writing novels, it seemed like when I planned something thoroughly, it went no further than planning. It’s as if my brain said, “The planning is done so the project is done. Next!” I have dozens of very carefully planned novels that have never gone any further.

Could the same be true for art?

I think it is.

Artists who work intuitively also experiment a lot. At least that seems to be the case with me.

Naturally, when one experiments a lot, they try a lot of new things. The new things may be paper, a new brand of pencils, or just different color combinations.

But the bottom line is that I seem to be constantly adjusting the drawing process. Yes, even when I do repeats of the same scene! Here are four compositions based on the same reference photo. Except for the original (lower left), they were all created in just a few weeks in 2024. The look is the same. Brooding sky. Sunlit fields. Trees.

But although I used the same paper (Charcoal Grey Pastelmat), the same pencils (Faber-Castell Polychromos) and even the same colors, they are all different.

The way I drew them is also different.

Why Standardizing the Drawing Process Could Be Important

When I first made this discovery, it seemed important. It was easy to see that having such a “happy-go-lucky” attitude toward the drawing process made it difficult to teach my drawing methods.

This experimental and intuitive process was also likely to confuse students. New students who were still feeling their way through learning colored pencils were especially likely to find it confusing and unhelpful.

So here was my thinking.

If I were to always start my drawings the same way, and proceed the same way, it would be easier to teach others. I’d also have a roadmap of sorts to help me when I got into difficulties with a drawing.

If, for example, I always started with a green underdrawing, I would always know what color to start with. I’d come to know when the underdrawing was finished, and I’d be better able to evaluate the composition before I put a lot of time and effort into the drawing.

The same would be true if I used the umber underdrawing method all the time, or the direct drawing method all the time. The idea is consistency.

Second, I can’t help but think that if I standardized my drawing process in some way, I’d spend less time floundering (or feeling like I’m floundering). Once again, it would be a lot easier to judge where I was in the drawing process and to know what I should do next.

Third, it would definitely be a lot easier to develop tutorials, classes, and workshops if I had a standardized drawing process. Explaining what I was doing at each step would be easier because I’d always be doing the same things at each step.

So one of my 2025 goals was to further evaluate the situation.

My Usual Drawing Processes

I’ve known for some time that I have three or four different drawing methods.

There’s the drawing method I used when I first started, which is what I call the direct method. I started with local colors in the first layers, used local colors throughout the drawing process, and finished with the local colors. That’s probably the way most colored pencils artists work, no matter what their favorite subjects or drawing style.

Then I discovered the umber underdrawing method and started using that. With that method, I start a drawing with earth tones, usually just one or two colors, to develop shapes and values. Then I glaze color over the top of that.

I’ve also used the complementary underdrawing method a time or two. That’s fun, too, but can be quite complex, especially if you have a lot of different colors in your composition.

More recently, I used a green underdrawing and glazed color over that.

So I don’t have one drawing method that’s always the same every time. I knew that and I thought that was okay.

How does one go about standardizing a drawing process when so many different methods are used?

What I’ve Learned

The first thing I realized is that the way I draw is natural to me. Yes, sometimes I make color swatches and plan (a little). But most of the time, I draw by the seat of my pants. I have an idea in mind and do different things until it’s accomplished or abandoned. I don’t necessarily like admitting that, but it is what it is.

The second realization is that I don’t honestly know if I can simplify my drawing process down to a single method. As I look at the drawings hanging on the walls around me, I can see some that would be more difficult to do with an umber underdrawing or the green underdrawing method.

Some of them might have been easier.

It’s likely that I will never find one method of drawing that works for every paper I want to draw. Even if I do find such a method, it’s unlikely it will work with everything I want to draw. Yes, there are a lot of basic principles that apply to horses and dogs and well as landscapes.

That all makes me wonder if I really want to standardize my drawing process at all.

So what is the bottom line?

Standardizing the Drawing Process: The Bottom Line

It seems entirely likely to me that I will never have one drawing method that I use for everything. For the last several years, I’ve used one of two methods: the direct method and the umber underdrawing method. Yes, I liked the verdaccio method and I drew some nice landscapes with the complementary method, but they’re not my go-to methods. At least not right now.

I also know myself well enough to know that I will continue experimenting, looking for the “magic method” that does work every time with every subject on every paper.

Yeah. I know. That is a pipe dream where art is concerned and especially where I’m concerned.

I have to admit that after thinking about this over the last few weeks, the fervor for standardizing the drawing process has dimmed. Maybe I just need to keep doing what I’ve been doing all this time and reconcile myself to the idea that not all experiments work out.

I recently read the comment of a fellow artist who said something like this:

It’s just paper. If it doesn’t work out, trash it and start over.

So I guess the real bottom line for me and for all of us is to draw in the way that’s most natural and most enjoyable. Go with it and if you make some great art along the way, that’s icing on the cake.

What do you think?

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