Drawing Pad Tips
Drawing pads, or sketchbooks, are a great way to get your ideas onto paper and practice your techniques. Whether you're a landscape artist, a figure artist or just like to draw from your imagination, sketchbooks help you to channel your creativity. However, it can be hard to know where to start, so follow a few guidelines to help you get sketching.
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Warm-Ups
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Warm-up activities help you switch your brain into drawing mode. You can warm up by drawing simple shapes, like circles and squares, in one confident clean stroke. This is harder than it sounds, and takes practice. Another way to warm up is to draw two points on the page and join them with a straight line. If you repeat this exercise on a daily basis, it can greatly improve your line quality.
Tutorials & Exercises
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Following step-by-step tutorials from either online or literary sources can give your drawing sessions direction and highlight skills you need to work on. Look for lessons that interest you or that cover an area in which you need to improve. Engage in tutorials on a regular basis to make sure that you are constantly improving.
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Quick Gestural Drawings
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It can be hard to find models in everyday life, as people are often reluctant to sit still for any length of time. One way around this is to make quick "gestural" sketches in your drawing pad of people you see in the street, on the train, or just out and about. The aim of gestural drawings is to get as much information about the subject onto the page in as short a time as possible. With this exercise, you do not need to worry about accuracy; just focus on getting the main points of the subject onto the page.
Tube Form or Stick People
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Tube form or stick people help you learn the human figure by simplifying it into basic shapes. Look up anatomical drawings of the human body and proportion guides online and simplify sketches of people down to lines and shapes, such as cylinders for the legs or a barrel shape for the chest. Practice drawing these figures in different positions you find in comics, other people's artwork or from life.
Thumbnails
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A good way to plan a drawing is to draw a miniature, low-detail version of it. These are called thumbnails, and can help you to plan your composition carefully and ensure you know what you're doing before you begin your final drawing.
Studies
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Perform studies of anything that interests you, such as hands, faces, fabrics or flowers. Draw each subject over and over again from every possible angle until you know it by heart. As you perform more and more studies and your drawing skills improve, you will find yourself becoming interested in subjects you never thought you would. This is often called "finding your artist's eyes."
Finished Pieces
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Sketchbooks are not just for sketches. You can put your final drawings in there, too. Perform studies and draw thumbnails prior to any detailed drawing. This will ensure that you know what you are doing when you finally draw the piece.
Repetition
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Repeat these exercises as much as possible. The more you practice, the better you will become. You will, for example, only become good at drawing hands if you draw hands repeatedly over a length of time.
Always a Pleasure, Never a Chore
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Drawing in your pad should be a pleasure you enjoy, not something you have to force yourself to do. Look forward to the free time you have to enjoy sketching.
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References
Resources
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