Why do so many artists think that thumbnail sketches are important? These quick little sketches have been around as long as there have been artists making paintings. There’s a good chance that somewhere near the caves at Lascaux you might find a place where the artists warmed up with a few little thumbnails sketches.

Thumbnails are valuable because they help the artist distill a complex and overwhelming subject into perhaps six or seven basic shapes. The size of these drawings can be anything from a literal thumbnail (the source of the description), perhaps one inch square, up to credit card size and even as large as 5×7” if the finished painting is to be quite large scale.

The idea is to break down a complex subject into simple shapes that are small in size and therefore quickly done. These are not meant to be labored over or carefully resolved, although the amount of time that goes into any one sketch is quite varied among artists. From thirty seconds to five minutes, the thumbnail sketch is used to capture the fundamental nature of a place. The speed with which the artist works is part of what helps to keep the brain from dawdling over intricacies or stopping to puzzle something out. Instead one must move, respond, try, try again, not taking time to think.

A student of mine proved the value of such speed one day quite unexpectedly. The assignment was to make some quick thumbnail sketches from a photograph, varying the approach by changing the format or rearranging elements. My student had selected a quick sketch that pleased him and fastened it on his drawing board next to his photograph. As he began to draw I came by and saw that the building he was drawing was one of the pueblo style flat-roofed houses common to the southwest. In perspective the roofline was at a steep angle, something he had easily seen and recorded in his sketch. However, as he began to draw he made the roofline parallel to the edge of the paper without any slope. When I pointed this out he looked puzzled for a moment and then the light went on. “I’ll be darned,” he said, ”I knew it was a flat roof so I started drawing it that way…” He’d had no trouble seeing the shapes when he suspended what he knew about the building. The lesson is that in working small and fast you may help to suspend the part of your brain that wants to use the shortcut that you may have already unconsciously decided on—the ‘flat’ roof of the building for example.

Another valuable part of thumbnails is the quick resolution of values. Divide your sketch into only 2 or 3 values. Rearrange things so that you arrive at different tonal compositions, perhaps making the foreground dark in one and light in the next, just to see what it does. Try darkening or lightening values in different areas. Create different effects by drawing the darkest and lightest values close together, placing them in different quadrants of the image area. Vary the size of dark and light areas. Play. Experiment. Have some fun. No one ever has to see these drawings, they are for you alone to help you find new ways of composing.

Start with a 30 second thumbnail sketch, then do the same one in 2 minutes, then in 5 minutes. You’ll be amazed what you can capture on paper in 30 seconds if you practice and you may end up liking it better than the 5 minute version, in the long run.

Try different compositions from the same photograph. Vary the shapes and divisions of space, zooming in closer or moving to one side or the other to achieve different compositions.

Thumbnail sketches can be the size of your thumbnail, literally, or the size of a credit card, as long as you are working small enough not to become too detailed.

Try varying the format of the image from vertical to horizontal. My notes help me remember the thing I was most interested in painting. I’ll use the photograph for my painting alongside the thumbnail.

So, your assignment is to show us your thumbnail sketches! They can be any size, any number of varitations you want. It might help if we can see your photograph, too, if you use a photo, or at least shots of the place you were standing when you did your thumbnails. It would be most helpful to you to make more than one sketch, too. Try all sorts of different ones, from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and keep track of how long they are so we will know. Oh, and you can use any media you want to to do this–charcoal, pencil, pastel pencils–whatever. Have fun!

Deborah