Moving Past the Lollipop Trees

When some people attempt to paint or draw, they fall back on the symbols that they have learned as children. Remember the square houses with triangle rooves? The stick figures? The lollipop trees? New artists need to be able to move past creating pictures with elementary symbols. There's one simple way to do this: Open your eyes.

If you struggle with symbolic drawing, draw things as they appear instead of how you think they should look. A simple drawing exercise can assist an artist in drawing things as they appear. Set up a simple still life. Place a bottle or bowl and some fruit or vegetables in a small area. With pencil and sketchbook or loose paper, draw the still life without looking at your paper. In order to be able to draw the still life without looking at your paper, start at either the very right or left of the page and begin to draw the corresponding item in the still life. Use one continuous line. This exercise is not about creating a masterpiece. It is merely an exercise in using the eyes and translating what you see into lines on the page.

When approaching the beginning of a painting, let go of symbols. Let go of preconceived notions. When painting an existing landscape or still life, trust your eyes.