By Lehara Edirisinghe
“Cause that’s your role, the work that stirred your soul, you can make for
someone else”
1.The“I can only drawn stick figures” mindset
Learning how to draw has probably been one of the most aggravating things I’ve had to do. I cannot even express in words the pure rage I’ve felt because of it. It’s usually because it's a skill that's painted out to be a God-given talent. Be an artist? You have to be blessed with
the hands of God for that? Or at least, that’s how it feels. Either you are able to discredit this idea or you’re a major narcissist (most artists are just major narcissists).
Learning how to draw first starts with removing this belief of some individuals being more artistically fluent than others. I highly recommend this video by Sinix, which explains something we don't usually think about when starting out → Tempo: The Overlooked Key to Improving at Art
Tempo! That's all it is. Some people already have good tempo when it comes to line strength, but it's totally something you can train and Cultivate. Sinix is my #1 favorite art youtuber. His content is incredibly insightful and beginner friendly.
2. Frequency of Practice
Everyday. Not even joking, every single day or you’ll get nowhere, to be fair it doesn't
have to be a whole piece everyday, either
1. Have a piece to work on everyday
2. Have a sketch per day, (this can be
anywhere from 10 minutes-1 hour)
The point is that any amount of drawing is better than no drawing. Either way, practice is the key element in this. Once you start drawing, you’ll be drawing till the day you die. So I hope you like commitment! Whenever you don’t feel like it, I highly suggest looking for some inspiration, looking at other artists will always provide a motivator.
3. Cultivating your art world
I suggest creating an entirely new account on Instagram/Pinterest just for this purpose, that way every time you log on to that account, you’ll be able to scroll through an exclusively art-related feed, and thus everything you consume on that account will be art-related. That way even subconsciously, you’re consuming all kinds of different ideas, perspectives and styles. (This same tactic works for a lot of things, especially fashion) The more art you consume, the better everything you create becomes.
4. Drawing things you actually want to draw
Your art styles and interests will change extremely quickly. So never feel trapped into drawing what you don’t want to. You’ll find in some situations you might have to draw things you don’t want to, but your sketchbook is our safe haven, and do not let anybody destroy that safe haven for you (especially not adults that think certain styles are more “artistic” than others). So, friends, if you’d rather draw anime girls over still-lifes, go draw anime girls. More power to you.
(My piece) ⤴
(Also my piece) ⤵
5. The Fundamentals
The way you learn, and what you learn is all up to you. But for some basic fundamentals here are some lovely, helpful videos. One piece of advice I will offer is, shapes over things. This means, instead of seeing an eye, see a bunch of shapes, otherwise your brain tries to fill in the gaps for you because it thinks “oh I’ve seen an eye before, I know what it looks like,” when, trust me, you don’t. Sinix's channel focuses quite a lot on drawing from imagination. This results in numerous anatomy videos such as the ‘Anatomy Quick Tips’ series, Design theory videos (covering some very fundamental theories, such as shape appeal and Visual Libraries) and one of my personal favorites, the ‘Paintover Pals’ series, which gives you some great examples for improving composition.
PAINTOVER PALS: ⤵
Anatomy Quick Tips: ⤵
Design Theory: ⤵
Marco Bucci has been extremely helpful in understanding core concepts. How light works, how shadows work, how colors work etc. The channel also gives some great pointers for what to think about when looking at other areas like character design. Bucci has playlists dedicated to 3D and 2D work as well. All in all, an extremely versatile channel in terms of use. He’s also pretty much an art youtuber veteran. (My favorite video on color)
Ambient Occlusion (and Ambient Light) ⤵
(Helps you understand shadows)
Understanding Shadow Colors ⤵
(Shapes)
Merging Shapes - 10 Minutes To Better Painting ⤵
(Other helpful things)
Character Design Mini-Series Pt. 1 ⤵
Turn a 2D painting into 3D environment ⤵
One for the masochists. Ethan Becker has a wonderfully simple way of explaining things, but his teaching style is perhaps, not for everyone. Becker uses a very playfully aggressive persona (but for the most part, has remained a positive and respectful member of the art community). Becker also is especially handy to anyone wanting to look into animation (he is a professional in the animation and film industry, and notably worked on ‘Voltron.’)
SAD-ist: 3 secret tips for BEGINNER animators ⤵
DON'T YOU EVER DRAW HANDS LIKE SINIX! EVER! ⤵
Proko, should admittedly be higher up on the list considering he's one of the biggest art channels out there. However, I'm not quite so familiar with his channel. Still, he has some interesting videos.
How to Digitally Paint in Grayscale ⤵
If you've felt that so far, the focus has been mainly on digital art, Proko has a playlist dedicated to traditional painting as well.
Gouache Painting Demo ⤵
Another very useful channel. Efe makes a lot of inspiring videos that are great for motivation.
How To ACTUALLY! Become A Better Artist ⤵
6. Comparison
Probably one of the hardest things not to do, is to compare yourself with other artists, especially at a technical level, where you feel the difference is so glaringly obvious. But understand that your art is, and always will be, uniquely different to someone else’s, that means the role light, color, shape and even technique play in your pieces is uniquely different to what role it plays in someone else’s drawings.
Tamara De Lempicka ⤵
Alphonse Mucha ⤴
Comments