Wednesday Warm Up Square Six Subtract

Square Six Subtract Warm Up 4

Welcome!

For at least the next three weeks, this blog will host “Wednesday Warm Up,”— a day of usually quick drawing, inking, brushing as warm up to our serious art. I’ll share a strategy to try each Wednesday using the iPad app ProCreate. I will only use the brushes in the app— there are so many I haven’t tried that warming up with a new brush will be an added bonus and challenge.

I hope you enjoy this one that I call Square Six Subtract. It’s a reverse strategy from last week, a great way to unthink and get the creative juices flowing— forcing yourself to see the unseen!

Goal: warm up the mind memory for drawing; freehand; quick design decisions; fun shapes and creatures– all from a blank square to warm up both the mind and the hand…by erasing what doesn’t belong.

This one is similar to the last one, but it’s about taking away— what can be taken away to create something?

The Process

Set up your canvas with a colored background. Then draw in six solid squares.

Here’s mine— you see a deep red background and six black squares, evenly spaced on the canvas— but do your own thing, of course. You may want to use circles.

Use a timer if you’d like to challenge yourself.

Take a good look at a square and imagine something within it.

Erase parts of each square to create something out of each — a monster, face, an object. Monoline brush or dry ink both work well.

Your erasures can be detailed:

Or simple:

Just have fun and create by subtraction!

TIPS

Easily Create Squares:

Remember that you can easily create a square in Procreate by choosing the select tool, select rectangle in the menu, draw the square, then drag in the fill. 

Or– with Procreate 5x: Choose your color. Choose Select. Choose Rectangle. Choose Color Fill. Draw your square and it will fill in automatically.

Exit select and duplicate/transform to create your template…

Make templates:

As you can see from my layers, I create a template for both squares and circles. To create the template, draw in one square.  Duplicate it and transform it next to the original.  Merge those two layers. Duplicate and transform that layer twice to create the six square template. Merge to one layer. Label it as “template.” Each time you want a warm up, just duplicate the template and hide the other layers.  

I hope you share your warm ups!