Here are some drawing and painting exercises I did over the last few years. Whenever I get a concept for a new painting, I always do exercises and practice drawings first in my sketchbooks. For example I will draw a drawing using a grid, then draw the exact same drawing again without a grid. I will also do studies of value creating miniature versions using more or less tones. I also do some with different levels of colour.

In the painting above I created drawings by looking at a book on painting animals. I then added the colour and created the different textures. I did not spend too much time on this so it is not fully developed.

In the drawing above, I created different shapes of colour to create drawings using, 4 colours, 6 colours, 8 colours, and 10 colours. In each version the shapes are slightly different.

In this painting, I created different tones of colour, red, blue, yellow, and greyscale. In each version I mixed added the toned colours and this is how it came out.

In these 2 versions, I created the same drawing using a grid, then recreated the exact same scene without the aid of a grid. Sometimes I find using a grid helps to keep everything centre, but it can also make the drawing look rigid. I try not to use grids too much unless it is for the foundation for one of my paintings, but when it comes to drawing birds and animals I can find they can really aid in getting the proportions right.

In this version here, I created the same scene using different textures. The top left is stippling, where I add tone by putting dots of value. In the top left I used a typographical technique where I try to outline the terrain of the drawing and create 3 dimensional shapes of value. In the bottom left, I used hatching which is similar to the typographical with the exception that it does not follow the shape of the objects. In the bottom right, I did outlines of everything while also adding tone.