Four Drawing Techniques To Practice

Four Drawing Techniques To Practice

As you know every Monday I film video critiques for members of Drawing Tutorials online. I have been filming video critiques for ten years now. It’s really important that you get into the habit of receiving feedback on your artwork.

The key element with the weekly critiques is context. I’m able to give you specific guidance on the artwork you’ve posted in relation to a certain course. I also answer questions that you ask. Again it’s all about context.

The other really cool thing with the critiques within the member’s area of DTO, is consistency. it’s one thing to get feedback once. It’s another to get contextual feedback on your work on an ongoing basis.

I trust the four drawing techniques taught in the video tutorial below will help you. They are simple yet hard drawing techniques to implement. They are hard because they take a lot of practice. The practice can become tedious. However, if you are looking to draw accurate portraits they are a must.

 

 

Don’t forget to sign up for my free drawing course right below. Thanks so much for watching, let me know what you think.

 

Drawing Facial Features In An Impressionistic Way

Drawing Facial Features In An Impressionistic Way

Drawing a small head on a figure it can be pretty daunting. However when it comes to drawing facial features that are mainly on the shadow side of the head, that can be even more daunting.

The key to drawing facial features that are mainly on the shadow side of the face is to draw them in an impressionistic way. I’m a big believer of drawing shadow shapes, not facial features. Think of them as one in the same. Getting a likeness is about seeing the shadow shapes within the features, then drawing them accurately.

You also want to think and draw in layers. Start off with blocking in light tone. Feel your way through the facial features with very soft light tone. This is where you want to practice your light touch. Diving into drawing the features with heavy dark tone at first will only create a mess.

Especially if you are struggling with measurements.

There are three key takeaways from this lesson. First, work from light to dark when applying tone. Second, don’t draw facial features, draw soft accurate shadow shapes. Third, think layers, build up the dark tone and detail gradually.

These initial soft layers of tone are a foundation for the detail that will come later.

 

 

To watch the course in it’s entirety consider a membership to Drawing Tutorials Online. Not only will you learn many new drawing techniques, you can also get your figure drawings critiqued weekly.

 

Fitting The Head Onto The Body

Fitting The Head Onto The Body

In this very short figure drawing lesson I’d like to share with you how I begin to fit the head onto the shoulders. The two key words are short and begin.

In case you have not noticed I am a big believer in repetition in the mother of skill. I tend to teach the same things over and over again because they work for me. I have also seen these techniques work in the classroom on a weekly basis.

The main crux is to use targets to start fitting the head onto the shoulders. There are few other little techniques you can incorporate into the mix.

One, do your best to gesture into the head. In the video you can see How I use a gesture line from the side of the breast into the side of the face. Use long gesture lines whens fitting the head.

Two after the first few lines stop and get up off of your chair. Reset your eyes, looking out the window at something far away is a great way to do this. After you have reset your eyes come back to the drawing. You will immediately see what is working and what is not.

When we sit down for long period of time we loose site of the drawing in terms of proportions.

So the three keys, use some light target lines to start placing the head onto the shoulders. Incorporate one or two gesture lines to flow into the head as well. Within a minute or two of placing these initial lines get up and look at your drawing from far away.

Try these three techniques the next time you are working on a figure drawing.

 

 

If this technique helps you please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear anything you can add to conversation. If you have tried this technique and are still having issues with fitting the head onto the body I would like to help.

I would be happy to critique your work each and every Monday in our members Critique Gallery. It’s a cool place to get feedback on your work without all of the negative commentary you find on social media.

 

Mapping Out Proportions

Mapping Out Proportions

With this particular figure drawing I started with an abstract shape. It’s definitely a different way to start. Now what I’d like to share with you is how to branch out from the legs into drawing the torso.

That is drawing the torso with correct proportions. On paper it sounds easy. But executing this is somewhat difficult. It takes good eye hand coordination.

The concept is to use targets to branch out. What are targets you ask? They are little marks that you place on the paper to estimate where the edge of an item would be. The edge of the torso, the edge of the arm etc.

You’ll also want to look at abstract negative space between the torso and the legs. Take it slow and do not rush this step. Look and study more than you draw.

Lastly you’ll want to take measurements. Common sense stuff like what is directly opposite the model’s breast? What is right below the model’s navel. Not very romantic but these techniques work.

Like I said on paper this all sounds very boring and simple. But this really does take quite of lot of eye hand coordination. How to you get that, you draw everyday. 

 

 

If this technique helps you please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear anything you can add to conversation. If you have tried this technique and are still having issues with getting correct proportions I would like to help.

I would be happy to critique your work each and every Monday in our members Critique Gallery. It’s a cool place to get feedback on your work without all of the negative commentary.

 

Get Your Ideas Onto Paper Fast

Get Your Ideas Onto Paper Fast

I’m still amazed by the fact that many artists do absolutely no prep work before starting on their final illustration. Seriously. They just sit down and start working on their final piece with no concept concerning the structure of their image.

Ultimately as they continue to work, the flaws in their image making start to creep in. That’s why I’m creating this “Illustration Process” course at Drawing Tutorials Online. This new course is all about having you take a step back, analyzing your image making process. It’s about making sure you have a system.

System is not really an artistic type of word. However if you want to create consistently good artwork you need a system, or process.

Getting your ideas out onto the paper is a very important step in the image making process. That is where thumbnail sketches come into play.

Thumbnail sketches are meant to be created in five minutes for less. Personally I love to draw them in an impressionistic tonal sort of way. I like to block in big areas of tone with a really soft pencil drawing more like a painter.

Consider thumbnail sketches a visual brain dump.

It’s important that you take some time to draw your concepts out on paper before you start to work on your final illustration. With your first thumbnail drawn you immediately start to question it. Wait maybe if I draw another, this way, it will make more sense. That’s the beauty of creating thumbnail sketches.

They are a no risk way to loosely compose an image with tone, perspective and texture.

 

 

I highly recommend that you start to incorporate using thumbnail sketches in your image making process. Remember they are not for drawing details. As you can see in my thumbnail sketches there are not many details at all. Just big shapes of tone placed within the scene.

Do your best to incorporate a dark, middle tone and light into the mix. Placing a horizon line is a good habit to get into as well.

Thumbail sketches work well when combined with your inpirational sentence or image. Try a few, you’ll find they are start to becomne addicting. In short they provide you with many options visually right out of the gate.