Thumbnail Drawings

Thumbnail drawings are the first step in creating a drawing or painting – they are small, quick idea sketches used to capture the subjects and create the composition of your final piece.

At an illustration class I attended last year, the artist showed examples of the thumbnails she drew for each illustration in a picture book she was working on. Sometimes, she had drawn as many as a hundred of them, 1" x 1" in size, for just one illustration. With the thumbnails, she could experiment with the subject matter, the perspective, and her own ideas.

Drawing thumbnail sketches is a place to start when drawing or painting, as it helps insure you will be satisfied with the composition of your final work.

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