Artists! Tell me your secrets!

[Ced]

I've always wanted to be able to draw/paint at least to a commendable degree; I feel like it's one of the only mainstream creative outlets I haven't explored yet (I do a lot of drama, writing and musical stuff, and find them all incredibly useful and therapeutic for specific things), and I've heard people say that art helps them a great deal with depression and anxiety.

I know one of my friends in real life suffers from very severe panic attacks and social anxiety and she finds that her art calms her down and helps her to think more clearly (she's phenomenal at it too... I'll pop some of her artwork down below as an example). The thing is, she doesn't have exercises/theoretical methods that she uses to do her art; she just starts drawing; doesn't do a first layer sketch or even map out basic shapes, so when she tried to give me lessons, we both quickly agreed that she had nothing to teach. I assume she is a natural and the way she's developed her art is purely instinctual.

Soooooo I was hoping that maybe some of the artists of this community could pop some advice for beginners below in this thread? I'd appreciate any shape or form; videos that you find useful, handy tricks that you wish you knew about when you started, or simple exercises that you find helps keep your sketching as gorgeous as it is.

This thread is inspired by my increasing desire to begin drawing and by drooling over everyones' creations in the art section here >..> Also it might help anyone else who wants to get into the hobby

 

[Ced]

My friend's artwork-

 

[dUMMY]

LINE WEIGHT. Drill it so deep into your brain that it'll never come back out. And always use it.

Edit: Effectively use line weight and the looks of everything you create will be 3-4x better. Line weight is the difference between amateur and professional.

 

[dUMMY]

I'll post some of my sketches here to better help illustrate line weight, when and where to use it and how to use it. The video I shared is great, but there is more to it.

But I'll have to post em later. I gotta go to class now :C

 

[Ced]

I'll post some of my sketches here to better help illustrate line weight, when and where to use it and how to use it. The video I shared is great, but there is more to it.

But I'll have to post em later. I gotta go to class now :C

That would be awesome

 

[bettemus99]

A good fif!
Fun, inspiration and fantasy I'd say.
And maaaybe a healthy critic to yourself, but please don't ever "hate" your art. <-< A mistake quite a lot of artists commit.
But yeah, always be prepared to -better- your art if you don't think it's good enough please ^w^ And fun. Lots of fun!

 

[dacoutts]

I'm happy to empty out some of the contents of my art reference and tutorial folder!

Here are some videos and links to tutorials:
-

(Understanding Colour)
-

(Character Design tips and stuff)
- http://octibbles.tumblr.com/post/97840622524/helpfulharrie-source-tracy-j-butler ( A whole heap of stuff on character expressions! )
-

( How to draw better in 2 minutes, actually quite helpful )

Some of my personal.. probably not very useful advice:
-Use a lot of references, using references doesn't make you any worse than anyone else (some people think it does, it doesn't)
-Experiment with different types of styles, try to learn from other artist's styles.
-Everyone says this heaps but just keep practising!

I've got tonnes of references saved too if you want any of those, hope some of this helps a little >_>

 

[lycana]

How To Art
To me it all depends what style your doing and experimenting with what works best. I often draw cartoonishly because that style can be messed around with alot and you can get some really cool outcomes.

 

[Gaby]

I went to art school, so I have the professional training under my belt.

unfortunately, it's really hard for me to just... summon that up when writing something.

something about human anatomy and animal anatomy,

OH!
there's book, "drawing on the right side of the brain,"
it has extremely effective exercises, which are really all focused on this common pitfall of really beginning artists:

they're always seeing an image, picking out the "things" from that image, then drawing a symbol of that thing.
which is how you get those really childlike drawings. so the exercises (things like blind contour, trying to copy an image with the image and the drawing turned upside-down, etc) are all meant to draw the thing as it really is, and get out of the mindset of drawing what you think it is.

also, values. I'm always forgetting values because im a sketch and color kind of person, but values r important. but I think other ppl's videos covered that.

 

[Sankera]

*sits down to learn more*

 

[Sybbyl]

I know it sounds like cheating, but if you want to know how /I/ learned how to draw... its kind of a cute story.
Ever since I was a kid, my sister has been able to draw /amazing/ things.

And when I was young, I would kidnap her sketches that she was throwing away, and I would trace them onto more paper and draw them over and over again, practicing on drawing more and more of it on my own without tracing any. I used her drawings to practice, in a sense, since she never wanted to teach me anything. I'll never be as good as her, since the drawing I posted is like, 4 years old, and shes way better now than she was then.
But hey, Im happy with where I am.

So- ... Tracing over other art and using it to practice, it's a good method

More from my sister :3

 

[Ced]

This is all awesome, you've given me loads of stuff to look at, thank you guys

 

[ForestRose]

I actually found this video this morning as I started looking more into colour theory and light-

I'd say looking into colour theory in general is a good place to go, it really is quite amazing to me anyway..

 

[TheMadDuckie]

If you're going to do line art, learn to make straight, smooth lines. Just get a piece of paper and draw lines until they actually start to look decent, and practice...a lot. I've been actively doing art for a year now, and while it's sometimes frustrating, I really have improved a lot. One thing that really helps though, especially when drawing people or animals is to use photo or real life reference. It not only teaches where each body part goes, but it also teaches me to do different poses. Sometimes I'll even experiment with style, and try doing the same pose in a different style. It's really interesting. But yeah, pretty much, just spend some time drawing every day and you'll eventually start to get better, as well as picking up tricks of your own.

 

[Ced]

The tablet arrived! Doodled something crappy. Not even going to try and do hands for a while, ugh.

 

[bettemus99]

Nice anatomy~ Assuming child? In that case, well done .w.
... You've hardly just started. That's not a newly started drawing for a newbie. Right?

 

[Ced]

Nice anatomy~ Assuming child? In that case, well done .w.
... You've hardly just started. That's not a newly started drawing for a newbie. Right?

Yeah it was a little girl, though I started by just making shapes (getting used to the tablet), and one of the shapes looked like it could be some bit of hair, so I tried to build off that. I did it while hanging out with a friend and it took me over 30 mins... Before this I had messed around with different brushes and scribbled some appalling eyes and random bits and bobs, on and off for about 30 mins. So yah it's a newbie drawing- I'm not into art at all, but this was fun and like I said in the first post, I've always wanted to improve.

 

[bettemus99]

o.o Seriously? It looks really good for a starter drawing, and in general!

 

[Ced]

o.o Seriously? It looks really good for a starter drawing, and in general!

You're too kind couldn't do hands or feet though at all, and I haven't even attempted a face, or colouring maybe in the future.

 

[dacoutts]

Keep it up! It looks so good for one of your very first drawings ;w;