The ideas in this article take it all as far as I know to go when it comes to the most difficult aspects of drawing freehand with proportional precision.
Micro Sketching
All lines only need to be as good as they need to be at any stage of a drawing, and this certainly applies to fine and very fine detail . You have to remember that most of the time (until you enter the) you are placing lines and shapes on the paper just to help roughly shuffle around and position other lines and shapes. The more lines/shapes added, the more you see what needs to be shifted/modified next and so on. Exactly the same principle’s at play as when laying the first bold, broad sketch lines on the blank sheet of paper; soft skritchy-scratchy, sketchy lines just to get you started. This also applies much further into the development of a drawing when you are trying to roughly establish the starting point for numerous individual shapes and marks inside a shape and size of a pea or smaller. It’s always counter-productive to try and add too precise a level of marks and lines too early, better off using softer lines and very gently ‘roughing’ the detail features you can see in and then adjusting them to suit once you have enough visual information to go on (exactly the same process as starting the entire drawing except on a much smaller scale). Don’t try and add ALL the), just the main bits that obviously divide the shape into portions you can then proportionally judge and juggle. Then you can shift, fudge, squirl, and finesse the light/dark, sharp/fuzzy aspects and details into the best possible representation of that little pea-sized bit or narrow slot on the drawing. Usually when once you’ve provisionally added the first few small marks, it will point out clearly that the shapes right next to the pea sized paddock you’re working in could stand a bit of further tweaking before even trying to further develop the bit you just added to, etc, etc. In fact quite often a spot of in a small section of the drawing opens up (makes apparent) a welter of potential proportional refinements, sometimes resulting in your working on the other side of the composition before you know it. All good, you should always be trying to bring the entire drawing up at the same time anyway and you always eventually get back to the pea.
