Drawing in drafts

Pocket watch, originally uploaded by marydell.

I drew this picture of an antique watch for a family friend, who owns the watch. The watch recently turned up missing (odd phrase, that), and the owner is distraught--it was her father's, probably also her grandfather's, and may have been stolen. The family has some photos of it but none of them are very clear. So I decided I'd use the photos as a reference and draw a memento for her, to cheer her up a bit. I'm putting it in the mail tomorrow.

In the course of working on this, I discovered, after about 30 years of drawing, that the key to drawing well is to do it in drafts, just like writing. I started off drawing the details of the watch in pencil on ordinary paper, trying to get a feel for the positioning and proportions of the decorative elements. I drew it about twice the size of the final picture, and didn't compose the picture, just drew the stuff as - gasp - a practice run. Then I drew everything at the correct size, and in this composition, on normal paper, and then for the third run I drew it again on the watercolor block (I like extremely smooth hot-pressed paper for watercolors, since I combine them with ink).

I've never done a practice run at a drawing before - sometimes I'll make a sketch for a painting, but in those cases I just lay out the elements and then don't finish the sketch any more than is necessary for visualizing the composition. I hate to draw the same thing twice, because there's always a bit of an element of luck in my drawing--if it comes out well, it's like magic, and if it comes out badly (which is more often the case), it feels like that's out of my control. In the course of drawing this watch three times I realized that NOT doing complete practice drawings is why it feels like it's out of my control. I had so much more confidence by the third run at this drawing that I was able to draw it pretty much the way I imagined it. There are still some imperfections--I can't freehand a circle to save my life, as you see--but I'm very pleased with the results, and I'm excited now about drawing in a way I haven't been since I first started learning.