Warm-Up Exercises: End ‘Sacrificial Pancakes’
Warm-up exercises are one of those things that most of us avoid, right? Most of us like to dive right into the ‘fun’; whether it’s exercise or sketching.
How many times have you gone out to sketch in your Nature Journal, only to be disappointed in those first sketches you attempt? If you follow Jack Laws, or Marley Piefer, they call these initial sketches ‘sacrificial pancakes’. It’s just like making pancakes for breakfast. The first one is almost always a flop.
Good news! There is a way to put an end to most of those initial awkward sketches.
Why We Need to Warm-Up
Anything we do that has more than one step involved, over time, creates a connection between the muscles used to accomplish the task and our brains. It’s a bit like a short-cut key on your computer. Think about something like driving a stick-shift. When you first start to learn, you have to very consciously think about each and every step. It’s difficult to coordinate the movements. Once you’ve driven that car for a while, you no longer need to think it through. It becomes subconscious — you can think of other things as you drive. You have created a muscle memory.
Creating muscle memory for sketching and drawing is similar. Your brain makes the connection between certain shapes and your brain. You know what those common shapes look like and how to create them.
There is another element involved, however, and this is where the warm-up comes into play.
Warm-up exercises for sketching help us to switch gears. It signals our brain that we’re going to draw now, so that your muscle memory kicks in. It’s much like winding down after your work day. During our commute home, most of us listen to music or maybe our favorite podcast. That activity tells our brain that work is over, we’re switching to personal time now.
Simple Warm-Up Exercises
I’m not gonna lie. I don’t always remember to warm-up before I begin a drawing session. But when I do, I’m happier with my first results and the session as a whole is much more enjoyable.
Start off with some simple lines; vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. Switch-up the pressure. Go from light to dark, dark to light; play with the line weight.
Begin with lines – vary the direction and weight 
Move on to s-curves. Again vary the direction and weight
In case you were curious — my favorite graphite drawing pencils — Derwent Graphic Pencils. These have been my go-to pencils for years. For me, the graphite is smoother and creamier.
Now try more organic-shaped lines, s-curves and such. Again, vary the direction and the line weights.
Next move on to basic shapes: circles, ellipses, cones, and rectangles. Make sure to vary the sizes and angles.
The last exercise I do is putting some of the shapes together. A triangle + an ellipse = a cone, which can become a bird’s beak later when you’re sketching.
Turn the 2-D shapes into 3-D forms. A triangle becomes a cone — which becomes maybe a bird’s beak.
A rectangle becomes a cylinder, which in turn becomes a tree branch or the body of a mammal.
A rectangle plus a couple of ellipses = a cylinder, which later becomes a tree branch, or perhaps the body of a deer. You get the idea.
So there you have it. Written out, it looks a bit intimidating but in reality we’re only talking about a few minutes to do all of these exercises. I promise that taking those couple of minutes will reward you with much better sketches from the beginning. Remember, this is not about perfecting anything. It’s about switching gears and letting your brain know that you are getting ready to draw.
