Editor's Preface
I never cease to be in awe of the "interrelatedness" of most art or craft forms. One such thread or tie is the foundational skill of drawing. It is common to just about all art forms. It is where the "advance planning" and "conceptual birthing" takes its earliest realization. Almost invariably, artists, artisans and crafters, draw it out, sketch it out, lay it out, etc., before they apply the actual tools of their trade to their art or crafting. By no means is it just the artist/painter or the sculptor who needs to be good at drawing…
With this is mind, we’re pleased to continue our ongoing series by author, illustrator, and artist, Brenda Hoddinott, on Drawing. If the following 50 Drawing Tips help you draw better or sketch better, then you’re going to be that much more prepared for making your art or craft piece a true work of art. I’m guessing there will be lots you can glean and learn from these great tips, perhaps even some new things you didn’t know about before…Enjoy!
50 Terrific Tips For Drawing
During my lengthy career, I’ve made tons of mistakes and learned from them. With necessity being the mother of invention, I’ve also discovered several easier and more efficient methods of working. The following tips and helpful hints are designed to help make your drawing experiences more pleasurable and less frustrating!
Always purchase the best quality art supplies you can comfortably afford. Buy only drawing papers and sketchbooks that are labeled acid free. Your drawings can be ruined when poor quality paper deteriorates and turns yellow.
You can clean a kneaded eraser by stretching and reshaping (also known as “kneading”) it several times until it comes clean.
A thorough visual examination of your subject is the most important ingredient for making great sketches. Draw slowly. Accuracy is more important than speed. Your speed will automatically improve the more you practice.
Don’t press too hard with your pencils. Not only do these areas become impossible to touch up, but they also leave dents in your paper. When you try to draw over dents in the paper with a soft pencil (such as a 2B or 6B), they show up as light lines, spoiling the overall appearance of your drawing.
If you need anything to look symmetrical, from a vase to a face, always draw a faint line down the center of your drawing space before you begin. Visually measure the spaces on both sides of this line to guarantee that your final drawing is symmetrical. You can even use a ruler to measure different sections if you wish to be very precise!
Always choose a drawing subject that appeals to you. Otherwise you may get bored halfway through your project. If you’re a beginner to drawing, choose a subject that you feel is very simple. You set yourself up for a frustrating experience by taking on a project beyond your skill level.
Watch your local newspapers and media for art exhibitions and plan to attend as many as possible. You can usually meet and chat with artists in your community by attending the openings of these shows. Check out your local community based educational facilities and recreational centers, for art programs of interest in your area.
Always place a piece of clean paper under your hand as you draw. When you work on a new section, remember to move your paper so it’s always under your hand. This prevents you from smudging your drawing, and protects the paper from the oils in your skin.
Handle your drawing paper by the edges. Don’t touch (or let anyone else touch) the surface of your drawing paper, unless absolutely necessary (even before you begin to draw). The natural oils or dirt on someone’s hands can damage your drawing paper.
Don’t store your drawings, with either clear tape or corrugated cardboard, touching them. Either of these items can discolor your drawings, and do permanent damage after only a few weeks.
Never place or hang drawings in direct sunlight, no matter how well protected you think they are. Better safe than sorry!
When your drawing is completely finished, a spray fixative can protect it from being accidentally smudged. Use this product only in a well-ventilated place. I almost always go outside to spray my completed drawings.
In a graphite or charcoal portrait, you can imply the color of the iris of an eye, by using different values. Brown eyes are very dark in value, almost as dark as the pupil. Hazel, blue, or green eyes are mostly shaded with middle values. Pale blue, green, or gray eyes are very light in value and contrast sharply to the dark pupil.
Always add some shading to the whites of eyes. Different values can illustrate their spherical forms, tiny blood vessels, and cast shadows from eyelids and eyelashes. Only the highlights of eyes are white (or very light in value).
Never draw eyelashes from the tip down toward the eyelid. Always draw them in the direction in which they grow, from the eyelid (or root) outward.
Whenever you draw eyes, keep the initial sketch lines very light so they can be erased later. No part of an eye should be drawn with dark bold lines. Instead of lines, use contrasting shading graduations to separate the various parts of the eye, and give depth to their forms.
The secret to drawing teeth well, is to hardly draw them at all! Simply allow the shading of the lips, the upper and lower gums, and the shadows created by the light source to define them. Teeth that are farther back in the jaw need to be shaded darker because they are in the shadow of the mouth. Never draw lines between the individual teeth, or else they end up looking like a checkerboard!
You can’t accurately depict the aging process by simply drawing lines on a person’s face. You age progress a person by illustrating the changing three-dimensional exterior forms of the skeletal structure, and by transforming the outward appearance of the skin, fat, and muscles pulled downward by gravity.
When drawing a cartoon or caricature of someone familiar, such as a friend, family member, or a celebrity, exaggerate prominent features. If the eyes are far apart, draw them even farther apart. If his or her eyebrows are heavy, thick and dark, draw them heavier, thicker, and darker! If he or she has a big chin or nose, draw it larger! If the hair is thin, make it thinner and if it’s thick, draw it thicker!
When selecting a pose for a portrait, something as simple as the tilt of a head, can enhance your composition, make your drawing more interesting, and even tell something about the personality of your model.
Define the focal point with more detail and a stronger contrast in values, than other aspects of your drawing.
Always place your focal point off center in your composition. Stay away from the Bulls Eye. A focal point placed in the very center of your drawing space is a big “NO”, unless you have a specific expressive or artistic reason to do so. Any object that is placed dead center commands the viewer’s full attention. All the other important elements of your drawing may be ignored, and the drawing loses its impact.
By visually overlapping closer objects over distant objects, the illusion of depth is created.
Balance dark and light values in your drawing space. Sometimes, simply moving objects slightly to the right or left in your drawing space, or making them lighter or darker than their actual values, can balance a composition. Confirm that objects, spaces, and perspective elements are drawn correctly. Check the relationships of objects to one another, observe that angles, sizes, and proportions are accurate, and adjust as needed.
Include an odd number of objects into a grouping, rather than an even number, whenever possible. An ideal composition needs a variety of objects of different values, textures, shapes, and sizes. Arrange your objects asymmetrically. Taller objects usually look better off to one side. Keep it simple! Too many objects in a drawing creates overcrowding and disharmony.
Often you discover perfect drawing subjects with imperfect compositions. If nature or man has placed an object in a position that you don’t like, you can simply draw it in a different place or remove it entirely.
The farther away objects and people are, the smaller they appear to be.
The horizon line and your eye level are the same thing. Objects at your eye level seem to touch the horizon line, and their perspective lines converge both downward and upward. Objects above your eye level are above the horizon line and their perspective lines converge downward. Angular lines of objects below your eye level (below the horizon line) converge upwards.
Perspective allows you to draw your subject visually correct and more realistic. For example, long parts of a body, such as arms or legs, look disproportionately short when viewed from an end. Find opportunities to view people and objects from extreme perspectives. For example, you can lie on the floor and have a friend or family member (the taller the better) stand beside you. As you look upward take note that the person’s head will look especially tiny, his or her legs and feet look disproportionately large, and the entire body looks much shorter than it actually is.
Be patient with yourself. Your abilities to render perspective accurately, improve with practice, and eventually become instinctive. Careful observation of people and objects around you expands your understanding of perspective.
You can create the illusion that clouds near the horizon line are farther away, than those directly overhead, by drawing them smaller, closer together, and lighter in value.
In order for blending to work well, you must first be reasonably skilled at putting graduated values on your paper. After all, there has to be something to blend. On the other hand, expecting blending to fix poorly done shading, simply isn’t realistic. Blending is difficult for beginners. Many teachers of fine art even discourage blending techniques altogether. They generally encourage their students to focus on classical shading techniques, such as hatching and crosshatching.
When blending NEVER use your fingers! As a matter of fact, don’t touch your drawing paper where you plan to blend. Your skin can transfer oil to the paper, which becomes noticeable after blending (especially in light values). Creating a smooth tone then becomes darn near impossible.
Realistic shading with blending needs a broad range of values. The most common blending mistake is to over blend dark values. Either use blending very sparingly in dark shadowed areas, or don’t blend your darkest values at all. When blending removes too much graphite, the values may become too light. If this happens, you can darken the values again by adding more graphite.
You can make the transition from one value to the next barely noticeable, by drawing the individual lines of hatching or crosshatching different lengths. Sometimes a short line, placed inside a space between two other lines, helps make the transition look smoother.
Your drawings can appear flat, rather than three-dimensional when too little contrast in values is used. Unless you are trying to achieve a specific mood or want the subject to look flat, always use a full range of values.
The shading in a cast shadow (on the surface on which an object is sitting) is darker closer to the object and becomes gradually lighter as it moves outward.
For crosshatching, I personally prefer to turn my drawing paper around in various directions as I draw, so that I am always using my natural motion. You may also wish to try holding your arm in different positions as you draw. Whatever you find to be the most comfortable is right for you. Use your most comfortable hand movement, and don’t forget that you can turn your sketchbook around as you draw.
Most artists prefer to work from light to dark when adding shading to a drawing. By drawing your light values first, you can then layer your medium shading on top of your light shading. This layering creates a nice smooth transition between different values. The darkest values are then built in layers on top of the medium values.
Identifying the exterior three-dimensional forms of humans, as defined by bones, fat, and muscles, is more important than memorizing the names of different parts of the body.
Choose poses that are expressive, artistically pleasing, and comfortable for your model. When figure drawing from a live model, have snacks and beverages handy. Remember, modeling is very difficult. Use tape or chalk to mark the placement of his or her body on the surface on which he or she is sitting, standing, or lying. For example, by marking the outline of the model’s feet in a standing pose, he or she can easily find the correct pose again after a break.
Experiment with different drawing media such as conté, charcoal, or graphite sticks and use large sheets of paper. Take time to experiment with different media, techniques, and ways of drawing until you find the styles you are most comfortable with.
When drawing a figure, break the subject down into shapes and visually measure the proportions. Take note of the areas where parts of his body bend, twist, or are extended or outstretched.
When possible, tape the corners of your drawing paper to a large sheet of graph paper to help draw grid lines. Adjust the size of each square proportionate to the size you want the drawing to be.
Draw the grid on a photo with an ordinary ballpoint pen. It works well on most photos, doesn’t smudge as easily as markers, and can be seen more clearly than a pencil, which tends to just scratch the surface of the photo. Never draw a grid directly on a valuable photo! Make a photocopy, or scan and print it, and work from the copy.
Try taping a photograph in the center of a piece of grid paper to draw the grid lines. Rather than using a ruler to measure the squares, you only need to connect the lines on the opposite sides of the photo with the ruler. Voila! A very accurate grid!
Don’t press too hard with your pencils! No matter how careful you are, accidents do happen. If you draw some lines in the wrong grid squares, simply erase that section, redraw the grid lines, and keep on going! Lightly drawn lines are easy to erase!
Experiment with lots of different shading techniques until you find what works best for you. You are a unique individual with distinctive artistic needs. Stay true to yourself and continue developing your own vision and style. Draw in a way you really love. Styles are neither right nor wrong… they just are. With time, your style develops all by itself.
Drawing is an action word – you learn by doing! Drawing is a journey, not a destination. The day that you are totally happy with your drawings is the day you pack up your supplies and quit. Learning to draw is an infinite quest.
You can develop your drawing talent with hard work, patience, and dedication. Talent is the self-discovery that you possess the ability, and motivation needed to become exceptional. This acquired physical or mental aptitude is accessible to you.
Generally Speaking
Protecting Your Drawings
Drawing Portraits and People
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Composition
Perspective
Blending Shading
Values and Shading
Figure Drawing From Life
Drawing With a Grid
Warm Fuzzies
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Copyright to this article belongs to Brenda Hoddinott and may not be reproduced or used for any commercial purposes whatsoever without the written permission of Brenda Hoddinott.
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Brenda Hoddinott is a self-educated teacher, visual artist, portraitist, forensic artist (recently retired), writer, and illustrator. Her current art media include graphite, technical pen, colored pencil, chalk pastel, charcoal, conté crayon, and oil paints. Recent book publications by Brenda include Drawing for Dummies, March 4, 2003 (Wiley Publishing, Inc., New York, NY), and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Drawing People Illustrated, August 2004 (Alpha/Pearson Education/Macmillan, Indianapolis, IN). CD publications include Drawing Fusion, 2003, and Learn to Draw Animals – Level One 2004 (Hoddinott Fine Art Publishers, Halifax, NS). Diverse art lessons and articles are available on her art education website, www.finearteducation.com You may email Brenda at bhoddinott@hoddinott.com |
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