6 Tips to Improve Drawing Skills

All beginner artists want to know how to improve drawing skills as quickly as possible. Like all things, some will catch on quicker than others. Some have a natural inclination while others will really have to work at it. No matter where you fall on the scale, these 6 tips can help make your drawing efforts pay off.

1. Practice, practice, practice!

   

   Even a quick 10-15 minute daily sketch can help to improve your drawing skills. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 41801814 Copyright: Andrea De Martin)

   This is first on the list for a good reason. If you skip this tip, it becomes nearly impossible to improve drawing skills, or any other type of skills you’re after. In other words, if you want to improve in drawing…practice. If you want to get better at math…practice. If you want to learn how to play an instrument decently…practice. How can you possibly expect to improve if you’re not putting in the time and effort? And, if you want to learn how to draw so badly, this tip shouldn’t seem like a chore. It’s telling you to do more of what you say you want to do.

2. Learn how to see shapes.

   When you’re looking at a complex object, try to see the basic shapes involved. Sketching out the basic shapes lightly first, allows you to block in shapes and proportions before committing to anything. This step is the foundation. This should happen before any details go in. You wouldn’t build a house by putting in window and a roof before putting in a solid foundation, would you?

3. Draw lightly and loosely.

   

   Start sketching with light lines that are easy to erase. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 147546259 Copyright: Viacheslav Iakobchuk)

   This is a super simple step to improve drawing skills and it’s one most people don’t do. The mistake most beginners make is going in with a dark, heavy line. If you start off with a dark line, it makes it nearly impossible to erase. Take a minute to watch any seasoned artist and you’ll notice that they start plotting in the basic shapes and proportions with a very light line. They start sketching with lines light enough that they can easily be erased or covered over by the final drawing.

4. Learn to see and draw accurate values.

   
   Accurate values are crucial for realistic drawings. Values, otherwise known as shading, includes everything from highlights to the darkest of shadows. Beginners will often not go dark enough, or they transition from light to shadow too quickly. If you have a hard time judging things in the beginning, value scales can be a great help.

5. Educate yourself.

   You don’t need to put yourself in student loan debt. There are plenty of fantastic online classes for a fraction (of a fraction) of the price you would pay at an art school. Art schools these days cost as much as medical school. I’m being totally serious. An art degree literally costs as much as a medical degree.

   There’s no guarantee you’ll get work and even if you do get picked up at a big-name studio like Disney or Pixar, you’re not going to make as much as a doctor. In the art jobs I’ve had, no one has ever asked me for my diploma or transcripts. What they do want to see is your portfolio. It could be well worth it to check out some online courses or take a few classes at a community college. You could just as easily build up a solid body of work for hundreds of thousands of dollars less.

6. Use the right paper and pencils.

   A lot of the struggle that beginners are faced with is using improper materials. Your typical office variety printer paper is not going to help you at all. Yes, it’s cheap. But that’s about all it has going for it. Invest in a decent sketchbook, something that has a bit more tooth. Something that allows you to work with a bit more. In other words, printer paper has little to no tooth. It’s smooth and flimsy enough to go through a printer without jamming.

   
   If you tried to create an area where the value was black, you’d never get there. Printer toner is one thing, your pencil is another. And that paper wasn’t designed to handle pencil that way. Sketchbooks or other artist papers are much thicker. This allows you to press into it knocking some of the tooth (or thickness) down, allowing you to deposit much more graphite, which results in a much wider range of possible values.

   You would also do well to make the small investment of a basic set of artist pencils which vary in hardness. Your yellow Ticonderoga will only get you so far. (It’s doable but why not make life easier?) Learning to draw is hard enough, you don’t want to have to fight the materials too.

Trying to improve drawing skills isn’t rocket science. But it does take a lot of practice (see #1) and consistency. It can also be overwhelming. Start at the beginning and take one step at a time. Get proficient in recognizing and blocking in the basic shapes with correct proportions. Add in accurate values. Take lots of art courses (preferably inexpensive ones) and keep learning. You can never know too much! And use artist’s supplies.

Be patient and be persistent. Even the Old Masters were not masters on day one.