Castilla y León PAU Artistic Drawing II common mistakes
Castilla y León PAU Artistic Drawing II · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
The candidate starts shading or detailing a figure or object before establishing its overall proportion and placement (encaje), so the drawing drifts off-centre or the head-to-body ratio ends up wrong and cannot be corrected later without erasing everything.
Under exam time pressure the candidate wants to show rendering skill immediately and jumps to the 'interesting' part; also many students never practise a fast structural block-in, so they lack the habit of measuring first.
What to do instead
Spend the first 5-8 minutes on a light structural sketch: mark the format margins, place the extreme points (top, bottom, left, right of the subject), check the main axis and the big proportional relationships with a pencil held at arm's length, and only then commit to contour. Keep these lines light so they can be adjusted.
The candidate draws the figure with a fixed template (e.g. always 7.5 heads, standard eye line) instead of measuring the specific model in front of them, producing a generic mannequin that does not match the pose or foreshortening.
Memorised canon proportions feel safe and are easier than observing; students confuse the ideal canon with the actual observed proportion of a specific model in a specific pose.
What to do instead
Use the canon only as a checking reference, never as the starting construction. Measure the actual model: compare head height to total height, check where the elbows/knees fall relative to the torso, and verify against the canon only to catch gross errors. Note any foreshortening explicitly before drawing limbs.
The candidate represents volume with a single flat mid-tone plus a hard outline, leaving no clear light family and shadow family, so the form reads as a sticker rather than a three-dimensional mass.
Beginners equate 'shading' with 'colouring in' and are afraid of dark values; they also have not learned to identify the terminator (core shadow) and the direction of the light source first.
What to do instead
Before rendering, decide and mark the light direction, then separate the drawing into two value families (lit and shadow) with the core shadow as the darkest zone on the form. Add reflected light and cast shadow after, and keep highlights as reserved paper. Squint at the model to check the two-family reading.
The candidate uses an even, uniform grey across the whole drawing with no value hierarchy, so the focal point is not distinguishable and the composition looks flat and muddy.
Fear of ruining the drawing leads to timid, evenly applied pressure; without a planned value scale the student has no reference for what 'dark' and 'light' mean in this particular drawing.
What to do instead
Establish a 5-step value scale on a corner of the paper first, then assign each area a step. Reserve the strongest contrast (darkest dark against lightest light) for the focal area and deliberately compress the value range in secondary zones. Check by stepping back and squinting: the focal point must pop out.
The candidate places the subject dead centre and fills the format edge-to-edge symmetrically, ignoring negative space and the format's proportions, producing a static, cramped composition.
Centring feels 'safe' and students are not used to thinking of the paper as an active frame; they also tend to run out of room because they did not plan margins.
What to do instead
Before drawing, make two or three thumbnail sketches in the format's exact aspect ratio, testing placement, scale and negative-space shapes. Choose the one with a clear visual hierarchy, then transfer the main landmarks. Leave intentional breathing room and check that negative shapes are varied, not uniform strips.
The candidate mixes colours by intuition on the paper, adding black to darken or white to lighten indiscriminately, so mixtures turn muddy, greys go chalky and the harmony breaks down.
Colour theory (complementaries, temperature, tint/shade/tonal shift) is often learned verbally but not practised; black and white are convenient and seem neutral when they actually desaturate and shift hue.
What to do instead
Mix on a palette, not on the support. Darken by adding a complementary or a darker hue of the same family rather than black; lighten with a tint that respects the hue's temperature. Plan a limited palette (e.g. an analogous or complementary scheme) before starting and test mixes in a margin strip.
The candidate overworks charcoal or graphite with constant smudging and erasing, ending with a shiny, grey, dirty surface where highlights can no longer be recovered.
Panic-correcting and lack of material control; students do not know how each medium builds up and how erasing damages the tooth of the paper.
What to do instead
Work from light to dark in layers and stop before the surface saturates. Use a kneaded eraser to lift highlights and a soft brush to remove crumbs instead of rubbing. For charcoal, fix between layers and reserve the darkest accents for the end; for graphite, keep a light touch and avoid burnishing until the final pass.
The candidate draws a natural scene with inconsistent vanishing points or eye level (each object's lines converge somewhere different), so the space does not read as coherent depth.
Perspective is applied object-by-object from memory rather than from a single established station point and horizon line; students also confuse isometric/axonometric conventions with conical perspective.
What to do instead
First draw the horizon line (eye level) and mark the station point/vanishing points lightly; then take every receding edge to those same points. Check verticals stay vertical in one- and two-point perspective and use the measuring-line method for depths. If the task asks for axonometría, keep parallel edges parallel and do not converge them.
The candidate renders every part of the figure, drapery and background with the same level of finish and line weight, so the drawing has no expressive intention or focal emphasis and reads as an academic exercise.
Students equate 'good drawing' with 'even completeness' and are not taught to make deliberate decisions about line weight, edge quality and what to leave unresolved.
What to do instead
Decide the communicative intention before drawing (tension, calm, weight, movement) and express it through controllable variables: line weight and pressure, hard vs lost edges, level of finish. Deliberately leave secondary areas loose and reserve the sharpest edges and heaviest accents for the focal point. Write one sentence of intent in the margin and check the drawing against it.
The candidate mismanages exam time: spends most of the allotted time on the block-in and rendering of one area, then rushes the background, the required technical annotations or the final contrast pass, or leaves the drawing unfinished.
No rehearsed time plan for the specific PAU format (single piece plus optional written justification), and perfectionism on the first zone encountered.
What to do instead
Rehearse full timed runs before the exam and split the time explicitly: roughly 10-15% block-in and composition, 60-70% main rendering, 15-20% unifying values and resolving edges, and a final 5 minutes for the written commentary/justification if required. Work the whole drawing in passes rather than finishing one zone at a time, and keep a visible clock.