How to Practice Drawing
- 1). Draw from real life, even if you want to be a cartoonist. The best subjects to study are those that are real, in front of you, and moving. Go to a park or any busy place with a lot of people or animals and try to sketch and copy what you see. Do "gesture drawings", which are drawings that try to capture the basic form, but no details, in about fifteen seconds.
- 2). Ask friends or family to pose for you or sneak up on sleeping pets when you want to practice drawing full detail. The eye can better grasp the true 3D form than it can get images from photos and videos, but if you find yourself without willing subjects, videos and photos will still help.
- 3). Copy your favorite artists. Keep the results purely to yourself; most artists don't appreciate their work being mimicked, but if you use it for your own practice rather than your own display, then it's okay. Try to mimic their use of line and color. Do not trace! Copy, freehand, with your eye, and learn the techniques they use to transfer images onto paper.
- 4). Don't forget to draw for fun. Sometimes practice can become tedious; draw something in a silly new style now and then or experiment with old styles. If you feel you haven't learned much, redraw an old picture you once drew and see the awesome results. This can also help you work on problem areas to practice further.
- 5). When you locate a problem area with drawing (buildings, hands, eyes-- whatever your weakness may be), find as many examples, videos, or photos and draw that thing 100 times. Afterward you will have learned something.
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