Learn To Draw - Where Should I Start A Sketching?

By Author: Ruediger Schmidt
Total Articles: 35
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Recently I was asked a question that seems common among beginning artists who just start to learn drawing: " how and where to take the first step to drawing??" Don't be mislead into believing this is a too simple and silly question. Although the answer may seem obvious, I've observed too many artists that do not succeed because they don't follow these guidelines.

When artists conjure up a fresh drawing in a haphazard way their drawing may fail to create impressions. Not that I consider in much of structures and stern rules. Follow some really simple and obvious rules when starting a new drawing will make your work much easier.

What urges you to draw?

First ask yourself not only what you want to draw but also why do you desire to draw it? What is the idea you're trying to give the spectator? Knowing the communication you're trying to express to your viewers is a vital first step. For example, visualize that you wish to draw a picture of a dog then inquire yourself why? Is it to demonstrate how attractive he is? Is it to show how good hunter he is? To demonstrate how unsafe he is? Is it in reminiscence ...
... of him?

Having identified the message the next step is to consider how you can use the elements and techniques to convey it. You can employ perspective, dark and shadows, colors, composition, add various details, use diverse drawing techniques etc.

Next you should endeavor to find out where your picture is going by illustrating lots of small thumbnail sketches. Try various ways to create the drawing, see what actually looks good and what doesn't. Create these sketches swiftly. The initiative is to put the entire composition into place, so you don't need to waste time adding a lot of fine points to them.

It's from time to time very tricky, even for professional artists, not to jump ahead and start on the final picture before things are really thought through. But this situation often ends with that effort going into the drain once you've realized that your first idea didn't work the way you'd first thought. So it's an extremely good idea to use the initial steps when starting a drawing as you can avoid a lot of work in the long term.

Getting on track with drawing

You have finished sketching your artwork you like to translate in a full-blown drawing? Then it's time to move forward. This time it is not how fast you can draw but beauty you want to attempt for. And there are some tips that will help you to create the beautiful drawing you want to create-without too many attempts going into the bin.

It's all about the order in which to come up to the different parts of your drawing ideally. To sum up there are just two easy rules:

Begin with light tones, move to darker tones

This allows you to fix small mistakes you've made at the beginning as the darker tones can cover up any of your faults.

Begin with little details and get into more details later

In the majority of cases the drawings get waste by indistinct size, perspective and composition. So start first laying out the whole drawing without fine points just in faded lines. This makes sure you'll introduce all errors in perspective and proportions early in the procedure. If something goes really bad then, you can re-start without losing too much labor. And all lesser mistakes still can be fixed easily as there are only faint lines and no details in place.

Even if you are knowledgeable and sketching for years, it won't hurt to think about these tips once again. In fact I'm forgetting these guiding principles very often - and bringing in errors into my drawings that could have been prevented. And you'll see these guidelines are even more useful, if you've just started to learn drawing.
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