How to Improve Your Drawing Skills

Whether you enjoy realist representation of detail or more abstract renderings of space and form, the key to better drawing is in how you look at your subject, imagined or actual. Like anything else, achieving mastery requires a lot of practice.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 1 large sketch pad (made from thinner, recycled paper)
• 1 medium-sized sketch pad (made from medium stock)
• 1 notebook (small enough so you can carry it with you for quick sketches and notes)
• 1 set of graphite pencils with varying lead types (from soft to hard)
• 1 tin of charcoal sticks (as alternative to pencil for quick, large-format drawings)
• 1 stopwatch or timer

1. The first way to break bad habits in drawing and to get closer to the thing you are trying to represent is complete some timed exercises. Set up a relatively simple object in a room and open your large sketch pad. Set your timer on 10 second, 15 second, and 30 second intervals and complete 2 sets of drawings with each time frame. This will be difficult, but stick with it. After a while, open up the time to 1 or 2 minutes.

2. When beginning to draw an object, don’t focus on the whole object but break it down into lines and parts. For example, if you are drawing the curve of the handlebars. Don’t worry about proportions so much, that will come. Don’t worry about rendering either, just focus on your line quality.

3. Instead of drawing the object itself, try drawing the space around the object. This is called negative space. A great way to practice this is to jumble up a set of chairs and draw all the spaces between the legs. If it feels strange, this is because you are using a different part of your brain than usual.

4. Line thickness is very important. A thicker line brings a surface or plane to the foreground while a thinner line makes it recede further away in the pictorial space. Accurate line thickness is often much more effective than rendering.

5. Try out a large variety of subjects. If they are available, attend open figure study sessions or plant yourself on a park bench and draw people in different environments. The human body is challenging not only for its complexity, but for the “character” inherent to every difference.

Tips & Warnings

• Really stick to the time constraints and try to set up a daily regiment where you are drawing everyday.
• When traveling or going to your job, carry your notebook. You will find many chances to complete quick sketches that can serve as foundations for later drawings.

[Colonna]

on 1/5/2009 nice tips.the key to improving your drawing skills is basically repetition...keep drawing. Also, it pays to watch another artist work- you get a different perspective ( no pun intended) of work habits, time management and their own sense of focus. By employing n open mind and taking in either the similarities or the differences you pick up on, you can hopefully re-tune your own work habits to a point where you become more focused and perhaps, more confident.
Thanks-MIKE
5 star rating!!