HOW TO DRAW QUITE NICELY | Trafford Publishing

Trafford Book Publishing Author DES THOMAS was born and grew up in Northern Rhodesia, which later became Zambia. As there were no secondary schools or universities in the country at that time, I traveled to Southern Rhodesia to school—a 2-day train journey. After graduating as a mining engineer in the United Kingdom and marrying, my wife and I returned to the Copperbelt. I worked for the same company in six different countries in Africa and South America. From childhood I always wanted to draw and paint but never had the opportunity when younger and later on was never brave enough to give up my profession. After what seemed to be a lifetime, I at last reached retiring age when it became possible to start painting. I worked hard by putting in hours of practice every day and taking advantage of as many courses, workshops, and painting holidays as possible. During the last eight years, my wife and I have been on painting holidays in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Greece. These have varied between two and four weeks, and they have not only been beneficial to me but given many hours of enjoyment to both of us.

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Tones I believe that a drawing or painting can only come near its’ best if correct tonal values (darks and lights) are used and that using different tones is the one most important aspect of making a picture. If the tonal values are wrong then forget it !! It is no good trying to compensate for the poor use of tones by going wild on colour. It won’t solve the problem. In fact the converse can make a very pleasing picture. As long as the tonal values are correct you can sometimes, with success use bright outlandish colours. Among the greatest artists that ever lived was Caravaggio who didn’t bother too much about colour but my word, his use of light and dark was breathtaking. Rembrandt limited his pallet to mostly the autumn colours and only a few of them. All of his pictures came to life by his use of tones. Indeed, without different tones we would all see very little. Simplifying the number of tones to Dark, Light and Mid-tone, we can make observations which may help your pictures along. One tone should predominate; and none should cover a similar surface area of the picture as either of the other two.



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