Drawing Tips Every Artist Can Learn From

No artist will ever tell you that they’ve truly perfected their drawing skills. There’s always something to be improved on, even for the pros. Aiming for steady progress instead of fixating on perfection is key to becoming a better artist with each stroke and shade of the pencil. Honing your drawing skills requires several factors to come together. It may be a combination of inspiration, practice, time, and even more practice for one artist. Identifying and understanding what can improve your drawing skills will allow you to become a better artist in a shorter time. While these drawing tips are not hard rules, they can certainly help any artist learn how to elevate their talents.

Drawing Is a Skill

While some people seem to have a flair for drawing earlier on in their careers as artists, nobody is innately born with the ability to draw. Skills can be taught and learned. If you’re somebody who wishes they could draw, then you can develop this skill to draw well. There is no such thing as not being able to draw.

Practice Makes Practice and More Practice

Remember, try not to aim for perfection. Focus on practicing instead, and then practicing some more. This is the only way you’ll improve your drawing skills. Draw everything that you see every day, and when you can’t draw, imagine how you would draw objects that you’re observing. Ask yourself what shapes are present in the object and how the shadows play off the light source. Consider the medium you would use, whether a pencil or a fine pen. Live and breathe drawing, and you will get better at it.

Half of Drawing Is Observing

Moving your pencil across a paper’s surface is only half the skill required to draw well. The other skill essential to good drawings is observation. Since you translate what you see into the medium, this is crucial for your drawings to represent the object or scene well. If you pay attention to other artists, then you might observe that about half their time is spent studying and observing the object or scene, and a minimal amount of time is spent sketching it out. Knowing how to translate what you observe onto paper gives your drawing life, so learn how to master it using good observation!

Identify Basic Shapes

When gathering art and design ideas to draw, it’s good to remember that fundamentals will always make your drawings better. Simplify the world into basic shapes and base your drawings on them. Look for circles, squares, oblongs, triangles, rectangles, and other shapes that you can easily use as a basis for the contours. This will also help you draw more quickly.

Make Use of Line Quality

Line pencil drawings will always benefit from differences in line thickness. A drawing with different line weights will have more dimensions than one that uses little to no variation in the thinness and thickness of the lines.

Find a Style and Stick With It

While you can experiment with different drawing styles depending on the intent of the piece you’re creating at the time, starting and ending each drawing with the same style is important in keeping things consistent. For example, if you start your drawings with sharp, angular lines, try not to venture into loose and gestural shapes on the way down. It should look like the same artist drew the piece rather than clashing.

The Bottom Line: Take the Tips and Loosen Up

Following these tips to a T will certainly help your drawing skills, but one thing to remember when drawing is to just loosen up and enjoy the process of creating your art. Try to relax and just let the pencil glide across the page. Perhaps try holding it differently than how you would when you write and experiment with different lines. This will allow you to develop your drawing beyond the confines of rules; the sky’s the limit!

Here at Artfixed, you’ll discover a website thriving with art and business where the creative process thrives. From drawing tutorials to hundreds of tips, we’re an excellent resource for making an artist’s life much more manageable. Elevate your art with us today!