Drawing Comes First

It Really Is The First Step

Drawing comes first. Literally. Do you have dreams of being a digital artist or a painter? Then you must learn to draw. Many people have the misconception that they can skip this step. They’re under the impression that the medium will somehow give them the ability to create wonderful works of art. Guess what?

It doesn’t.

(Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright: Dmitriy Shironosov)

Drawing comes first, plain and simple. Think of drawing like the foundation, or the skeleton. The paint is the flesh. Drawing is the framework for everything else. You can’t put a roof or walls on a house without the framework. Study any of the great masters and it won’t take you long to discover that each and every one of them knew how to draw. They did countless studies and sketched out their paintings before applying paint.

Drawing teaches you proportion, perspective, value, tone, and all of the other things you need to make paintings and digital art believable (even if it’s animated). Animation artist Aaron Blaise does the bulk of his work digitally, but it’s clear that he has a solid grasp of drawing and that’s what makes his movies like Brother Bear so fantastic.

(Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright: neftali77)

Even Picasso knew how to draw, and draw well. He wasn’t always a cubist.

Unless you plan to be an abstract artist, you must learn to draw first. Not only will it make you a much more solid artist, it will allow you to experiment with any medium you want. It’s why someone who is a marker artist can switch to digital or paints without too much of a problem. The foundation is there.

So don’t do yourself a disservice by skipping the step of learning how to draw. There are no shortcuts with learning to draw, but in the long run it will save you countless hours trying to make a painting look good without the skills to back it up. It will also save you lots of money in art supplies!