Tag: Learning Drawing

5 Tips for creating incredible illustrations

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Here are a few important tips that will help you sail smoothly in the world of illustrations.

Design for the User: One might lose himself trying to make stunning visuals. But it might become too unrelatable for the audience or the end-user. In this case, it will be better to start illustrating a basic sketch and add visual details to satisfy you as well as the user.

Avoid complex symbols: It is crucial to avoid any sort of symbolism that pertains to any culture or language in your illustrations. It is also wise to avoid any colors that may be offensive to your target. Do a brief study on the audience.

Follow color hierarchy: Use a minimal color palette of two to three colors. It helps the user to understand the hierarchy in the illustration better.

Spacing: Ensure that there is plenty of breathing space and as few elements as possible in your design. Remember that less is always more.

Use Grids: It gives you more control. It can help in abolishing the vagueness in your work.

Understand all these rules well as you learn and break them once you master them.

Drawing textures using pencil: What You Need To Know

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The smoothness or roughness of a surface is called texture. The type and amount of texture determine how much light reflects off it.

A hard and smooth surface like metal or glass reflects all the light. As a result, it creates sharp, crisp edges and contrasting highlights and shadows.

A soft surface like cloth, absorb the light, and create smooth transitions between light and dark values.

On a rough surface, the light hits only less area, which creates a softer range of highlights and shadows. Ridges on the surface catch all the light creating dark shadows.

Here are some tips to draw common textures.

Clouds appear in the smooth sky. First, lightly crosshatch with a pencil. Blend smooth with the cotton to create the sky. Erase out the sky with the white eraser to form clouds.

The water surface is reflective with ripples on it. Use a side-to-side rocking motion to draw this. Small parallel gaps between the lines act as the reflection in the water.

To draw foliage, work in layers. Scribble random lines to create the leaves. Draw the branches that are not hidden. Then add more layers. Use an eraser to lift off highlights.

Keep these tips in mind before you draw your next picture.

All you need to know about Pastels

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Pastel drawings

If you like to experiment with mediums, you must try using pastels. The best advantage of painting with pastels is that they are cleaner and easier to use when compared to paint.

The different types of pastels are oil pastels, soft pastels, pan pastels, and pastel pencils.

Soft pastels are the most commonly used form of pastels. They are finely powdered pigments held together by binders. With a fragile consistency and intense colors, they are well suited for blending but not quite so for adding details.

Oil pastels, on the other hand, are pigments held together by oil. They are waxy but smooth in texture and allows a considerable amount of blending when compared to crayons. They produce bright and intense colors. They are available in several shades and can be used for paintings that closely resemble oil paintings.

Pan pastels are compacted soft pastels in a pan. They are applied to the canvas using soft tools. It reduces wastage of pigment powder.

Lastly, Pastel pencils are used to add details to your pastel paintings. Hard pastels contain more binder and less pigment and hence, are not fragile. They are easier to transport when compared to soft pastels.

Explore the world of pastels now and let your creativity run wild.

5 Tips for drawing cloth folds and wrinkles

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cloth folds and wrinkles

Clothing is hard to draw as it has a number of odd folds and wrinkles. It can take random shapes depending on the form on which it falls. So, a few factors are to be kept in your mind while drawing clothes.

The material of clothing: Thicker material and thinner materials results in lesser folds and more folds respectively. Stiff material clothing would have triangular folds, whereas softer material produces rounded folds.

Cut and fitting of clothing: Loose fitting clothes are influenced by gravity. Tight cut clothes, however, wrap around the form.

Movement of the subject: When in rest, the shape of drapes depends on gravity. But during motion, folds are influenced by the direction of the force and external factors like wind and rain.

Pulling point, or point of tension: Folds are mainly formed due to points of tension. These are mostly joints of the human body, like shoulders, elbows, knees among others.

Shadows and highlights: Depending on the direction of light and the type of material, the reflection of light varies. Smoother clothes have brighter highlights.

Follow the above steps to visualize the cloth folds and wrinkles in your imagination and give life to them.

How to draw landscapes: Tips You Should Know

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The major challenge while drawing landscapes is that you have to illustrate several different textures and compositions in your drawing. 

Today, let’s see the different steps to draw a perfect landscape composition.

To begin with, observe your references closely. Draw and practice different textures you see in it. As a second step, plan your drawing. Choose an angle that will give depth to it.

Use basic shapes like ellipses and polygons to make a rough sketch first. Arrange the lighting and shadows in your rough sketch to have a clear idea about the same in your final work.

Recreate your rough sketch on a canvas. Start with rough linework using lighter pencils when you do this. 

Then add details with textures. If you’re using pencils, cut the lead at an angle to get the perfect tool for texturing. If you’re using paints, using a variety of brushes at different angles can do the trick.

If you’re using pencils, pens, or watercolors, build the drawing from lighter shades to darker shades. However, if you’re using a bit more opaque medium, feel free to accentuate the highlights at last.

Art Block: How to Get Over It

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Art Block

Anyone who has experienced an art block would know how badly it affects their creativity. Art block is essentially a lack of inspiration to create art. Let’s see some ways to overcome the art block.

Keep drawing: No matter how small or imperfect it feels like, it can stimulate your creativity to make something bigger and better.

Change your media: Try using new media. For example, try oil paints if you usually use acrylic. Be adventurous.

Try a different style: Find new artists and explore their art style. Try to follow their art style for a change.

Visit a new place: Go somewhere you have never been before. Unfamiliar sceneries and people can always inspire to create new art.

Keep a journal: Writing a daily art journal can help you be consistent with your works. Jot your ideas down in the book so that you can refer to it later when you need the inspiration to make a new piece of art.

Art block is almost unavoidable at times. But, following the above steps can help you to get through them relatively better.

Drawing Pen Art: Tips That You Should Know

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pen sketches

While drawing with a pen, even a small wrong stroke can create undesirable blobs and marks that could ruin the whole drawing.

The common mistakes committed while working with pen and ink are detailed below.

Lack of control over the medium when compared to other mediums: Instead of anticipating an error in each step, learn to convert that error into a unique feature. When drawing realistically, the wrong values can make the picture look unpleasant. To solve it, practice consistently. Draw from observation and train your eyes to absorb each detail.

Prevent mistakes at all costs: It’s hard to correct mistakes and even harder to maintain workflow when errors happen. Prevent possible mistakes using a pencil underlining. 

Smearing is never a happy accident: Make sure your ink is dry before moving your drawing around. Using waterproof ink is also ideal for preserving the work.

In case any of the said mistakes happen, it can be corrected in the following ways:

  • Try to make the mistakes a part of your drawing.
  • Use inks, gouache, or acrylics to cover your mistakes.
  • Use gel pens for correcting smaller mistakes.
  • Remove the mistakes with a blade.
  • Avoid this mistakes to master pen art.

Keep these tips in mind before you start with your work.

Here are 3 Tips you can use to improve creativity

Renjith RavindranLeave a comment

Having a wild imagination and high creativity are keys to becoming a good artist. And unlike many of us believe, these things can be actually developed through practice and constant efforts.

There are some tips with which you can improve your creativity and we will be listing down three of them below.

  • Unplug: Disconnecting yourself from the social media and giving your brain some rest can do wonders to your creativity. Your mind will be allowed to wander in such scenarios which in turn can result in great ideas.
  • Have a walk: A recent study have found out that people who take part in walking meetings are more creative and productive. Considering that an average person sits for 7 to 15 hours, it is highly recommended that you take a walk to improve your brain activity.
  • Collaborate: Collaboration is often underrated. It can bombard you with many ideas and thought processes that you might not even imagine in your wildest dreams.

Try these tips and understand the differences yourselves.

Digital Drawing: 3 Reasons why you should be doing it

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People are often split when it comes to traditional drawing and digital drawing. While a lot of people argue about the merits of traditional drawing, there are some major benefits of digital drawing that cannot be overlooked.

We will be listing down three reasons why you should be trying digital drawing.

  • The availability of countless tools: One of the biggest advantages of digital drawing is the availability of countless tools. You can experiment with a lot of things which you might not have access to in real life.
  • Eco-friendly: Digital drawing enables you to learn drawing without the wastage of paper. Considering the climate changes and environmental issues that are rising, it is a big contribution indeed.
  • The undo button: If you make a mistake on the paper, you might end up ruining your whole work till that point. Digital drawing, on the other hand, gives you the undo button which reduces the pressure.

So if you are still not trying out the digital platforms for drawing, you should really give it a thought.