Want to improve your drawing skills, but don’t know how? Here are a few things to get you started.
- The first step to improving your drawing skills to fill your head with ideas. I highly recommend doing a Google search on terms like “line drawings”, “Charcoal drawings”, “line art”. This will help you find images that you can study. I also recommend using Firefox to do your searches as there are many plugins available for image searching. One that I use is called PicLens, you can get it at http://www.piclens.com/site/firefox/win/
- Duplicate the Masters. When trying to learn to draw, why reinvent the wheel? Look online or go to your local art store or library and look up a few Master Artists, Monet, Manet, Degas, Rembrant, or DiVinci. Study their line drawing and see the quality of the lines. Particularly look at how their lines were crafted. You will notice; thick, thin, soft, hard and other variations of line. Try to duplicate these lines and notice they are rarely consistent throughout a drawing. The more variation, the more realism will emerge from your work.
- Simple shapes. Never try to tackle a difficult subject. Start with simple shapes like oranges, applies, bananas, basically any type of simple fruit. Once you have mastered the basic shapes, move on to more challenging subjects. Never try to draw a human figure or face when first starting out, it will only lead to frustration. Just know that mastering simple shapes will lead to improved drawing skills, which will help you draw the more complex stuff in the future.
- Trace if you have to. If you’ve never drawn a day in your life, try getting some transparency paper and laying over photos or other drawings and trace away. Use a hard led and draw lightly. Get the basic structure of the photo down and then separate the two papers. Finish the drawing by eye. Use a softer led or charcoal as you continue improving the line and shapes while developing the entire piece. This will help you understand more about structure, and how a drawing fits together.
- Draw from Paper. Sometimes in the beginning, drawing from real life can be challenging. To reduce the challenge and frustration, draw from things you see on paper, in books, or magazines. Making 2D into 2D is easier than drawing from life. Trying to visual what a 3D object looks like on paper is more difficult.
- Using your minds eye. Before you start drawing anything, take a moment to visualize how the final piece will look. Imagine the lines on your paper, before you put them on. Look at your subject several times, study it’s shapes, contour, and other elements. Picture how the subject can be made into basic shapes(ie. circles, triangles and squares.) Once you have a good image in your mind, try putting that image on paper. This will drastically improve your drawings because you have a goal in mind.
- Don’t get discouraged. No matter what people say or how you feel about your own drawings, just keep moving forward. As a good friend once told me,“The more bad drawings you get out of your system, the better chance you’ll have at doing good drawings”
-N.Frangos
So, don’t let anyone defeat you. The more you draw, the better you will get. If you don’t like a drawing, figure out what it is that you don’t like and then just fix it. Just don’t too technical right away. Remember, drawing is art, and art is fun. It can be therapeutic and relaxing if you just let go and know that you will get better.
For more drawing tips and improving your drawing skills visit: http://www.artshowcentral.com/learn-to-draw