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Filling the Page

When I was younger I used to make many small drawings on one sketchbook/journal page. One day my art teacher was looking through my book and suggested that I make my drawings bigger, to “fill the page.” Ever since then I’ve been making larger drawings, and I’ve noticed that they have more impact.

Even so, I tend to just plop my pencil down on the page without much thought. I also tend to leave a lot of white space, which can be good at times, but I think I generally underuse my paper. It is a design aspect that is easy to overlook, especially when I scan and crop most of my sketchbook pages.

Below is a photo of one of my sketches so you can see the whole page.

drawing of beets

©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Beets. Graphite in 8.5 x 11 inch sketchbook.

I spent about a half hour on it, but could have spent way longer drawing every little root. I also scanned it below so you can see the detail better.

drawing of beets

©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Beets. Graphite in 8.5 x 11 inch sketchbook.

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