Every artist strives to improve their artistic skills in order to draw better. This time, I’m going to share with you some weird and slightly silly ideas that really help improve the quality of your drawings.
Fix your mistakes.
When I draw, I make many mistakes and inaccuracies. Even the most professional artist in the process of working on a drawing draws lines, then erases them and draws new ones in their place. It is very difficult for a novice artist to come to terms with the fact that he is mistaken at every step. I want to immediately draw perfectly, and if it doesn’t work out, it seems that you are mediocre and incapable of anything. But it’s not! Start with a sketch, even if it is as wrong as possible. And gradually, step by step, make changes, adjust your lines.
Change the point of view of the drawing.
When you work on a drawing or painting for a long time, the brain gets used to looking up close and begins to allow cognitive distortions. It becomes extremely difficult to understand what the proportions of the image are and how well the shades are chosen. It is worth moving away from work (several meters), changing the viewing angle, squinting (to blur the image) and looking at the drawing upside down or at an angle of 90 degrees. If you draw on a computer, you can sometimes mirror your drawing to look at it with fresh eyes. In the studio, you can put a mirror behind you and look at the drawing through the mirror to see your work in a new way. You can also look at the picture through the lens of your phone or camera, take a photo or video.
Use the black mirror.
To evaluate the ratio of tones in the work, you can use the screen of a turned off mobile phone or a monitor from a computer (also turned off). Look at your picture in the reflection of a black mirror and it will be much easier for you to see if you have chosen the right colors and their shades, how harmonious the tonal range is. Also, a black mirror helps you “step back” from the usual view of colors and shapes, and what you see in a black reflection will be a more objective picture for your creative brain. You can make a black mirror yourself by buying two photo frames, take two pieces of glass from there – and put black paper between the glasses, gluing it all with black tape around the edges.
Take a break from work.
Over time, we get tired and our brain begins to be lazy, it is worse looking for inaccuracies and errors in the drawing. If at the very beginning of drawing, you can quickly correct lines and colors, then after a couple of hours of hard work, you will start to get distracted and miss even obvious oversights. We get used to everything pretty quickly, and the artist begins to get used to his work if he looks at it for a long time. It may seem that the drawing is quite good, if you look at it for hours, a “new normal” is being formed, which may not quite correspond to your original preferences. Leave the painting until the evening or you can continue working the next day, re-evaluating the drawing will help achieve even better results.
Draw every day.
If you really want to learn how to draw, then there is only one way to do it – draw daily, take a blank sheet or empty canvas and fill it with your drawings, make mistakes and then correct them. Drawing is a skill close to playing a musical instrument, it is necessary to combine the work of hands and mental activity. Even if you read a lot of books on the theory of drawing, but you “didn’t fill your hand”, then the drawings will turn out clumsy. Experience and daily “training” is the only way to become an artist. Draw always, draw everywhere. Set a goal for yourself and move towards its realization.