Learn To Draw

Learn How to Draw - Top 20 Drawing Tips for Beginners

Learning any new form of art is always a challenge, and as a beginner, I am certain you have many questions about drawing. We all need a helping hand when just starting out, so I put together this list of handy tips to help you on your way to becoming a better artist.. I hope you enjoy!

1 - If at all possible, always draw from life and not photographs.

2 - When drawing, less is sometimes better. Do not attempt to draw every line and detail that you see or you will give your viewer too much information to absorb.

3 - Do not try and get all of the information in your drawing completed at one sitting. Drawing is a process. Layout the general idea of your drawing and then slowly add in your details.

4 - Do not be overly judgmental about your drawing before it is completed. This may cause you to become discouraged and give up.

5 - Do not take on subjects that are too complicated at first. This will certainly cause you to become discouraged if the drawing isn't as good as you expected it to be. Start with simple subjects that you know you can complete and then progress to more complicated ones.

6 - Forget everything you already know about a particular subject before you start drawing it. Draw what you see in front of you and not what you know already about that subject.

7 - Make sure you have excellent lighting. Nothing is more frustrating to an artist than poor lighting. If you can't see you can't draw. If you do not have a well lit room with natural sunlight to work in, then check your local art supply store or search online for full spectrum lighting products that mimic natural sunlight.

8 - Get yourself a pad of newsprint paper. Its very cheap and great for practice and doing preliminary sketches.

9 - Keep your pencils

sharp. There are drawing techniques that require a blunt pencil point , but for the most part, you should keep your pencil points sharpened.

10 - Vary the weight of your lines. Use a variety of different lines in your drawing by pressing harder or by lifting your pencil. This may seem like an obvious thing, but when an artist becomes deeply focused in a drawing, they can sometimes forget to use this simple technique.

11- Keep a sketchbook with you wherever you go. Whenever you have a free moment, practice your drawing. It doesn't matter if the subject is a light post, an insect or a garbage pail. The more often you draw, the more observant you will become.

12 - Do not over use smudging and blending techniques to achieve values in your drawings.

13 - Never throw out any of your drawings. Keep a neat portfolio of everything you draw. This is an excellent way to see your progress over time.

14 - Avoid looking at your drawing too often. Make sure you are constantly focusing on the subject and only glancing at your drawing. By doing so, you won't constantly judge your drawing, or think something is wrong or out of place. Focus on the subject and draw what you see.

15 - How to hold your drawing instrument - Hold your pencil in a way that is most comfortable for you. Some hold the pencil just as you would hold a pen or pencil if you were writing. Others hold a pencil with the pencil between the thumb and index finger, with the rest of the pencil resting under the palm of your hand. Whichever method you use for holding your pencil, make certain that you do not hold the pencil too tightly.

16 - Practice the contour drawing technique - This very basic technique is simply drawing the outline of your subject without any shading to indicate form.

17 - Practice the hatching technique - This drawing technique uses a series of parallel lines drawn close together, in the same direction, which gives the appearance of value.

18 - Practice tonal or value drawing - In this approach to drawing we are indicating the various changes of light and shade in our picture without the use of strong edges and lines.

19 - Practice the blind contour drawing technique - Similar to contour drawing, only you do not look at the paper. The point of this exercise is to force you to better observe what it is you are drawing. You should have no concern over the outcome of your drawing so it is important not to peek.

20 - Practice the upside down drawing technique - Drawing upside down is a wonderful exercise to awaken the right side of your brain. When you turn an image upside down, you are making it somewhat abstract and unrecognizable. This forces you to draw what you see as opposed to relying on your memory to draw something.

Ralph Serpe is an artist and webmaster of two fantastic websites for beginner artists. Follow the links that follow for more information: Follow this link now to learn how to improve your drawing with free lessons and tips at CreativeSpotlite.Com... Follow this link now to learn how to draw online at the Creative Spotlite Art Instruction Blog....

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/visual-art-articles/learn-how-to-draw-top-20-drawing-tips-for-beginners-511752.html

Cartoon Drawing Tips For Kids

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Cartoons are fun. Well almost. If you are like me you certainly love to watch cartoon figures. But drawing cartoons is another story particularly if you are not aware of the basics.

If the thought of creating beautiful cartoon characters gives you high, read on, here you will find some tips that you can readily use to improve your skills and reduce the time taken to create beautiful cartoon characters.

There are certain things that are same for every style of drawing, be it realistic drawing or cartoony, now we will go quickly through the basics before getting specific to cartoony style.

1. Select your tools wisely. Clean your hands before starting your drawing. The paper you use for your work should be of good quality. Low grade, off colored paper will make your drawing look pale. Your first sketch should be made with light lines and for finalizing you should use deep-colored and prominent lines --so choose your pencils carefully.

2. Many times beginners find drawing a smooth line difficult. Remember drawing smooth lines will be easier if you do not support your hand on your wrist like we are used to do while writing. Doodling and drawing some circular shapes just before you start will also help you to draw smoothly.

3. Learn to draw facial features and hand carefully. Hands are more difficult. Experts often judge a person's drawing ability from how well he can draw human hands. So practice drawing hands with care.

4. Study about basic forms and proportions of human body. Learn about basics of human anatomy and various ratios of human figures.

As a cartoon creator you will have certain liberties, you do not need to bind yourself with strict body proportions rules. You can draw four fingered (Thumb + Three) hand that makes your work a bit easier.

But one challenge you will face while drawing cartoons --cartoon characters needs to be more expressive and certainly you have to create this expressiveness with some lines drawn with your pencil.

Keep in mind that three areas of human face that play major role to express emotions are

1. Eyelids (wide open, half closed, almost fully closed etc.),

2. Eyebrows (raised, normal, crooked etc.) and

3. Lips (forming downward bow, upward bow etc.).

Other than these you can also use, hair (properly combed or ruffled), garments (well kept or torn) to create characters that tells a story.

Hope you find this tips useful. Coupled with some practice these tips will help you to take your cartoon drawing skills to a new level. Enjoy the fun of drawing beautiful and expressive cartoon characters.

Article Source:http://www.articles321.com

If you are interested to start drawing beautiful cartoons like experts visit http://pwrinfo.com/cartoon-drawing-course/

How to Draw Pokemon

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How it Started!

Learning how to draw Pokemon is very simple and works off of basic geometric shapes. Pokemon hit the television airwaves in the 90s and with the interesting characters that were developed, many people began to want to learn how to draw Pokemon.

Keep it Simple for Poliwag!

Poliwag is one of the simplest Pokemon characters to draw. Begin with a large, egg-like shape that will be the basis of his body. You want this circle to be large enough that will allow you to add in all of the detail without a problem.

Draw another circle slightly to the bottom of the circle. This will allow you enough space to draw the face. These two circles should be similar to an egg with a yolk in the middle. Now you will want to add eyes and nose at the top of the second circle. The eyes should be half ovals that drop down for the top of the large circle. Now you can simply add a tail, feet and the spiral on the body. Add lips to the little nose circle and you have a Poliwag to color how you wish.

Popular Pikachu!

Pikachu is one of the most popular Pokemon characters and to learn how to draw Pokemon Pikachu is very simple. It takes less than ten steps to draw this character. Begin by drawing a basic outline for the head. Make one arched line for the top of the head and then two disjointed lines for the side of the head. The ears will be drawn where you have left spaces. Next, draw two long lines down from the two side headlines. Arch these lines out slightly to form the body.

Give Pikachu Feet!

Add the feet to Pikachu by making simple jagged toes and then connect the feet with a curved line that arches upwards slightly. Next, draw two long and pointed ears with a small line near the points of the ears. Draw two simple cartoon eyes with pupils, a small upside down triangle nose and a mouth. Add two arms to the front of the body with several pointed fingers. Finally draw a zig-zagged tail with a small zig-zag near the base of the tail, and add in the two semi-circles on his cheeks.

As you can see, learning how to draw Pokemon is very simple and the characters are very basic.

Karen MacLean is a consultant and writer for online and offline businesses. Karen resides in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. http://www.how-to-draw-now.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Karen_MacLean

How to Draw Naruto

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Naruto is a popular manga by Masash Kishimoto and many artists are aspiring to learn how to draw Naruto. The character of Naruto can be described as a loud and hyperactive adolescent ninja. He is constantly searching for approval and recognition of his skills. In order to learn how to draw Naruto an understanding of the character will help, because the character itself is very important in all Japanese cartoons.

The Basic Outline!

To draw Naruto you want to start with a basic outline of a face with a circle, cheekbones and chin.

Next, you will want to draw the guidelines for his eyes and other facial features.

Draw a line down the center of the face and an eye line across.

The eyes should be relatively large and anime shape.

Draw them centered on your horizontal line and centered between the side of the head.

The ears should be placed just under the horizontal line and should be slightly large.

The nose is a small curved line, because in the shows his nose is just color shades.

Give Naruto Some Lip and Get Away With it!

The bottom lip should jut out slightly and there should be a small mark between the chin and lip. Now you can begin adding his bandana, collar, eyes with pupils and thickened eyelashes and eyebrows. Naruto’s hair is very clumpy and random, as is most hair in the anime style. The hair droops down behind his head and comes out of the bandana. Finally, draw on the whiskers and his "Leave Village" symbol.

Now you can expand from Naruto!

There are several different characters that you can learn how to draw from Naruto. They will all have a similar basis and you can begin to draw them the same way you would any face of a person or cartoon character. Practice makes perfect and as you perfect the head of the character you can begin to practice on the body as well.

Karen MacLean is a consultant and writer for online and offline businesses. Karen resides in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. http://www.how-to-draw-now.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Karen_MacLeana