Those small drawing tips

 As much as I love coloring and painting, drawing is something I dread. It's definitely my weakest spot as an artist. Drawing is a difficult skill in that it requires constant practice. And not just blind, random practice but actual constructed practice where you pay attention to techniques and how things work. Everyone is different and learns in their own way but here are a few general tips that have helped me.

1. Just draw

As much as it annoys you when better artists keep telling you this but it really is the truth. You won't get better if you don't actually draw. If you follow your drawing patterns for, say, a month, and write down the hours you spend drawing how big of a total do you get? Could it be more? I know I personally draw far too little. Reading about drawing won't give you those 'oooooh so this is how it works' - moments that the actual doing it in practice does. Buy a sketchbook and just draw in it. You don't have to show your drawings to anyone.

2. Don't stick to just one subject

We all specialize in something but sometimes it's worth it to reset yourself and try something else. I've never drawn humans myself but I felt very frustrated about my art and drawing skills so I decided to completely shake things up and started to learn how to draw a human faces from photos. Next I might try my hand at landscapes as I've been wanting to get better at backgrounds for the longest of time but have never really focused solely on drawing environments.

Still-life drawing can be a great change from drawing living subjects like humans or animals. Still-life drawing improves your accuracy and the ability to measure angles, distances, proportions etc. Reference image is from WetCanvas Reference Image Library.

3. Whip out those references

Despite of what you keep hearing online from people who supposedly 'know stuff', using references is not cheating. Seriously, it is not cheating.

Professional artists use references all the time. The human mind is very limited and unless you have some magical, photographic memory, you can't possibly remember everything you've ever seen in enough detail to replicate it through drawing or painting. Also, when you draw from your mind, you're drawing your idea of the given subject. The idea in your head might be completely different than what the subject actually is in real life. People often use a tree drawing as an example of this. If you're given a task to draw a tree from your mind, you have a tendency to draw a straight line for the trunk and then a piece of cotton candy for the leaves. This is the symbol of a tree.

However, if someone makes you sit in front of a real tree and asks you to draw it, the task becomes far more daunting. But at the same time your drawing will be more accurate because instead of thinking you're going to draw the symbol of a tree, you're actually drawing the tree itself, right there in front of you.

Your drawing of that particular tree will be your interpretation of the reality you see before you. And that's art. If you want your interpretation to grow more accurate, you need to study the reality more. There's no real way around this.

Do keep in mind that whenever you publish referenced work, you should give credit to the person who provided the reference. Also, before making an actual artwork out of a reference, make sure you have the permission to use the image to begin with!

Some long-tailed tit studies I made for a card design. I was trying to feel out the general shape of the birds and figuring out what their main characteristics are. And yes I write my notes in English. It just flows better.

4. Measure, check and double check

When we want to draw accurately and are using references to do so we have to be able to see what it is that we're drawing. This is more mathematical than one would think. Angles, distances, proportions and measurements are important when drawing a likeness.

First things first, it's good to think about a composition and the size of your drawing. I used to overlook the size but once I started to get better at art I also started to do greeting cards a lot. It quickly dawned on me that I can't just do them blindly in random sizes. They have to fit the envelopes and if I do folded cards then I have to make sure the paper size is big enough so the sides will be of equal size. Framing is another thing to keep in mind.

When you have a composition and size in mind, it's far easier to design and draw. It also eliminates a part of the fear of blank paper. At least you have a frame to work on.

After this you'll want to measure the main parts of the composition. The horizon line, the placement of the most important objects etc. Once you've placed the biggest main shapes you can start to measure the elements and details inside them.

For the human face this could be the guidelines to define the angle of the head, the placement of the center line, placing guidelines for eyebrows, eyes, nose tip, mouth etc. Although no face is 100% symmetrical, there are basic guidelines and parts that relate to one another. Ears tend to align with the eyes with slightly angled lines. The brow and the eyes are connected and move together. Eyes are nestled atop of your cheekbones and the movement of cheekbones also affects the shape of your eyes. The nose is nestled between the cheekbones and the ridge of the nose starts from between the eyes. If you don't measure the width of the nose in relation to the eyes, things will look off.

The height of the lips aligns with the part of the jaw where it starts to slope inward because if you think about it: What is inside your jawbone? Your mouth, naturally. It might seem a bit of a 'doh!' fact when I say it like this but with drawing things might not always appear so clear. You try and try and you try to get a thing right and keep thinking, 'why does this look so weird?!' until you realize the reality behind putting stuff on paper. And this only comes with practice.

Of course, these rules are there for you to play with. But when you're just learning, becoming aware of these guidelines is important. You can't break the rules if you don't even know them yet.

A face drawing practice. It's not perfect but I tried to focus on getting things accurate. I carefully measured everything and tried to keep in mind how the different elements relate to one another. Once I had finished, I realized that the eyes are far too much at an upward angle. An old habit from drawing elves as a kid. Reference photo by blackpoolstudio at DeviantArt.

Also, when you've been hacking at a drawing for a long time, you tend to become blind to it. This is where checking the correctness becomes important. If drawing digitally, you can just flip the drawing horizontally whenever you want. With traditional drawing however, you need to turn your drawing around against a light source or then view it from a mirror to check for errors. I prefer the mirror as it also shows my drawing from a bit further away.

5. Don't be afraid to start messy

A clean finish is something that I obsess about. I want my finished artwork to have this smooth, soft finish to the point of trying to make things almost pristine. However this doesn't translate well to drawing. Especially when starting out.

When planning a drawing, you most likely don't have a clear idea in your head from the get-go. So you need to plan. Do thumbnail sketches, feel the shapes and the gesture and the overall composition with your pencil. I sometimes like to use a pure graphite stick for this as they give out looser strokes.

Your drawing will be full of messy strokes, ugly lines and will most likely smudge with graphite. This is OK. Really, it is. If you try to start super clean and with as little strokes as possible, chances are that your drawing will be incredibly stiff and lifeless if you even manage to whip out a drawing.

Relax and choose a paper you can mess around with. Don't do the first draft on your super expensive sheet of Arches. Once you arrive at a draft you're happy with, you can trace it onto your paper of choice later. Yes, this is a slow and arduous process. However when you have several drafts, you can never really mess up. You can always go back.

I've started to use scanning and Photoshop to my advantage. I scan in my first draft, adjust the size to my needs, adjust the Levels so the lines are darker and then print it out with my laser printer. Then I can use my light table to trace it onto different papers as many times as I want. Because of this method, I can also do color studies before I actually get to work.

It does take a long time to work like this but in traditional art we don't have the undo button so this really helps with relieving stress.

A first draft for a kitten birthday card. The reference photo is from Pexels.

I shrunk the draft a bit in Photoshop to fit it into A5 size. The I printed it out and traced it onto cheap watercolor paper in order to do a color study. The result is messy but now I have a better idea of the colors I want to use.

And that's it. As I said at the beginning, everyone learns differently. But those of us who aren't super confident and tend to obsess over the end result, a little help goes a long way. My method of drawing is sloooooow. But I like to think of it as a safety net. Maybe these points can help you in creating your own method of working.