The secret to improving your drawing

The Secret to Getting Better at Drawing:

Improving your drawing skills may seem like a daunting task, but there’s a straightforward path to achieving success. Often I find students will admire the beautiful, gestural mark making of a loose drawing and want to imitate that style. But we can’t loosen up and push the boundaries of drawing before we have a foundation. We must learn the principles of good drawing first.

Loose, expressive drawing comes natural when we become confident in our drawing.

Confidence comes from experience and knowledge.

If you’re just starting out, refining your ability to capture what you see accurately is the cornerstone of producing a good drawing. Here, we’ll explore three key areas that will help you elevate your skills: size and shape, tones, and techniques.

lifework drawings are a great place to start to learn accurate shape. We like to start our beginner drawing classes with lifework drawings as it takes all the hard elements out of the equation so students can just focus on accurate shape and angles without the distraction of tone and technique.

1. Accuracy in Size and Shape

The foundation of any great drawing is accurate proportions. Here’s how to get it right:

• Measure distances: Use simple tools like a pencil or ruler to compare sizes and distances. For example, observe how the width of one part of your subject relates to its height or to other elements.

• Simplify forms: Break complex objects into basic shapes, such as circles, rectangles, and triangles. Once you’ve placed these forms correctly, you can refine them into more detailed structures.

• Check and adjust: Take a step back periodically to compare your drawing with the subject. Identifying and correcting discrepancies early on helps train your eye for future projects.

• Use a grid: The grid is an extremely useful tool to break a complex drawing into smaller shapes, so the distances the eye has to measure are much smaller and therefore, easier to capture accurately. It also helps to match angles, one of the trickiest things to do in art. And it is a real here when it comes to drawing complex curves like circles and ellipses.

  Of course, all of these ideas are taught in our Kingscliff drawing classes. If you’re not local to us, you could try googling “drawing classes near me for adults” or try our drawing course online.

A perfect example of tone, drawing in charcoal by Anne Smerdon. You’ll find a similar charcoal exercise to this in the Artory Drawing Course Online

2. Mastering Tones

Light and shadow bring depth and life to your drawings. Achieving tonal accuracy involves careful observation and gradual refinement. It is one of the hardest elements to capture correctly in art:

• Identify extremes: Start by pinpointing the darkest and lightest parts of your subject. These anchor points will guide the mid-tones in your drawing.

• Simplify values: Squinting can help you focus on large areas of light and shadow, making it easier to distinguish between them.

• Build up gradually: Begin with lighter shading and progressively deepen the tones. This method allows for corrections before committing to darker values.

• Use drawing tools to pull out and put in tones: It can be easy to only think of drawing as adding tone. But a drawing can come from both adding and taking away tone. You can start on mid-toned paper and add the darks and highlights. Or you can use tools like a kneadable eraser or an electric eraser to pull out tones in distinct shapes and areas.

  Of course, this may be a little confusing when you’re reading this in text and not seeing it demonstrated in person. If you’re local to us, you’ll see firsthand all of these tips in our Kingscliff drawing classes. If you’re not local to us, you could try googling “drawing classes near me for adults” or try our drawing course online.

3. Perfecting Techniques

The marks you make play a vital role in bringing your drawing to life. Developing strong techniques ensures a polished result:

• Blend for smoothness: Achieve seamless transitions between light and dark areas by using tools like blending stumps, tissues, brushes or even your fingers.

• Add texture last: It can be easy to jump to drawing texture in straight away, but without getting the accurate shading of the volume of a firm first, the texture on top will look unrealistic and lifeless. Establish your base tones first, then you can focus on details like hair, fabric, or wood grain.

• Practice control: Whether you’re working with graphite, charcoal, or another medium, experiment with varying pressure and stroke types to create different effects.

  Again, you’ll find these explained in depth in our drawing course online, in our Kingscliff drawing classes.

Take Your Drawing to the Next Level

If that all sounds too complex, too confusing or too overwhelming, don’t fear! Being tought these drawing skills by a mentor can fast track your path to better drawing.

But how do you find the right drawing teacher? Well, you can google “drawing classes near me for adults” or you can simply explore our Artory art course online. This includes both our drawing course online and our range of watercolour courses.