How I Made My Porsche 911 Drawing
Title: Porsche 911 | Year: 2023 | 11x14 | Pencil on Paper | Made According to Commission
Story Behind the Drawing
This Porsche 911 drawing was Commissioned by a friend of mine. One day, he wanted me to draw his dream car and sent me a photograph for reference. Seeing this, I got excited to be able to test my skills with pencils again. As you’ll see in my Art Gallery, I had been doing a lot of oil paintings and hadn’t gotten a chance to make an actual drawing in quite some time. So, I jumped at this opportunity, even though parts of it intimidated me.
In many cases, I have often found myself beginning an art piece without knowing how I can draw or paint a particular part. But that has always been one of the exciting parts of being an artist. I find I grow as an artist when I take on a challenge that I don’t know how to do, and then must learn how to do it anyway. It is something I try to look for in every drawing I take on.
Drawing Techniques
To draw this sports car, I used a technique called a Grid Transfer. This process involves creating a grid of squares over the reference image and a matching grid of squares over the paper you draw on. After this, I simply drew what I saw on the reference image into the corresponding box on the paper. One by one, the boxes filled in until I had a finished drawing. It is like printing a drawing one square at a time. This is the method I use most often when I want to match a photo as closely as I can.
Reference:
This is the reference image that was sent to me, and using the Grid Transfer Method, I was able to recreate it to the Porsche 911 Drawing you see above.
The Challenges of This Drawing
To draw a Porsche 911 is no easy feat, and it came with its fair share of difficulties. The first challenge I had to overcome was drawing the trees. Since I was using a grid transfer method, I had to pay close attention to the shape and movement of the leaves to smoothly connect each box with the last. This also meant taking advantage of Negative Space and leaving room for the holes in trees. Artist Stefan Baumann likes to call these larger gaps in tree leaves Bird Holes, stating he “Likes the idea that live birds can fly through these.”
The next challenge was the stone wall. Since these stones are so blocky, I had to be careful that they didn’t just end up as squares. In addition, I had to make sure that the motion of the wall was consistent and drawn in Perspective. After adding in all the shadows and cracks, the wall tied together very nicely.
Finally, drawing reflections was another big challenge I had to overcome with this pencil drawing. Drawing one square at a time, you can lose track of how all the elements relate to one another. So, I find it helpful to draw what you see, and, once it's all done, take a step back and add in the final changes. In this case, that was erasing highlights that reflected the brightest parts of the sky, and pushing the darks to make a high contrast for the finished Porsche 911 drawing.
Summary
Overall, this drawing was filled with challenges, and I needed to learn a lot to successfully draw it, but in the end, I did. My friend loves the piece and so do I. Though the original Porsche 911 drawing is not for sale, thankfully it is not just relegated to the Art Gallery. Prints of this Porsche 911 Drawing are available for sale. If you would like to purchase one and support me in my art journey, or even if you simply want to look at my other artwork in the gallery, it is always appreciated!