Like many of you, my love of pretending to draw began when I was just a little boy. I still remember those hours spent in my family's cabin in Cape Breton, pretending that I was drawing crude but expressive portraits of the trees, ocean, and animals around me.
Although I've certainly improved in technique since those early days, it's important not to forget the feeling that is at the root of pretending to draw: the easy, expressive joy that comes from representing the world through imaginary art. I hope that this guide will help you to discover, or re-discover, some of this joy for yourself.
Many beginners who want to start pretending to draw will often want to jump straight into the “meat” of the fantasy: they imagine sitting in their studio, with a beautiful subject laid out before them – a jar of flowers, perhaps, or a nude – and imagine themselves producing a subtle yet powerful work, their pencil moving in elegant and sure strokes. While such easy delusions can be nice, to really improve at pretending to draw, it is essential to master the details as well as the grand, artistic vision.
To this end, a good exercise is pretending to go shopping for art supplies. When you are just starting, it may be helpful to actually visit a store. As you stroll through the aisles of the store, real or imaginary, cast your eyes critically over the shelves. Say you are in the pencil aisle. For this project, you think, a nice, thick line will be necessary. I'll need a good C pencil, at least a 6C. Ask a staff member if they carry an imaginary brand of pencils. When they say no, imagine buying a lesser brand of pencils with a disdainful sigh. This same type of exercise can be carried out for any type of artistic supplies – erasers, notebooks, etc.
When you actually begin to pretend to draw, it is important to remember: details are everything! Don't just imagine drawing a flower; imagine drawing each individual line! Imagine gazing at the flower, really carefully, then gazing back at your imaginary page, then gazing at the flower again, before finally pressing your imaginary pencil to the page, tracing the exact curve of the left side of the flower's right-most imaginary petal, for instance. Don't forget to make mistakes, too. It can be good to pretend to draw a line that is slightly too long, or a bit off-centre. Try re-drawing one imaginary line over and over, pretending that it just doesn't seem right. Picture an imaginary stain building in places where you have repeatedly erased.
When you are finished, critically evaluate your imaginary drawing. This is a phase where many interesting aspects of pretending to draw take place. You can imagine that it is one of your best works yet, evincing a new subtlety of technique, perhaps, or a better grasp of perspective than your previous works. You can spend a few minutes just admiring the imaginary object and your imaginary drawing, enjoying their imaginary similarity.Of course, you can also imagine that things have not gone so well. Maybe, when you really examine your drawing, it is terribly flawed in some way. In fact, it hardly resembles the imaginary object at all! It may look like a flower, but it does not look like the actual imaginary flower that you are pretending is in front of you. You can now segue into broader worries about your artistic merit, career capabilities, and so on. Personally, I like to imagine another, more talented artist who is in the same art class as I am, named Becky. How does she get her shoulders to look so lifelike? That flower she drew the other day was miles beyond mine. That damn Becky, I think, gazing resentfully at my imaginary drawing.
As you can see, the possibilities are endless. Like any art form, the expressive power of pretending to draw comes from the union of imagination with raw material – in this case, fantasies of representing the world with drawings. Ultimately, you can use pretending to draw to express almost anything, if you put some intelligence and effort into it. I wish my readers the best of luck in their future endeavours as imaginary artists.