In this post, I will discuss how observation and practice help your sketching skills.
how tracing trains your eye and brain to draw better
paying close attention to detail
I think most children love to draw. It's a creative, learning experience with no judgments attached. We either grow out of it or keep up the practice because we want to. And as with anything we practice, we become better.
That is what I believe the number one way to learn to draw. Practice your skill. No amount of book reading and watching will get your hand creating beautiful things.
Every time you draw, you will see improvement, and then you can move on to bigger and more challenging things. That is exactly how I started and my sketches were by no means amazing.
Observation
At a young age, I used to observe the animals I was surrounded with. There were a lot of horses, dogs, cats, and the usual farm animals. Growing up on a farm, you get to know the characters of specific animals. The noises they make, how their muscles move differently than ours, the basic shapes of them.
So just from observation, you can study the shape of something, how the light hits it. Where the darkest and lightest points are and if it moves, where the muscles come from. It's basic anatomy.
I did this with horses since there were many always around, pigs and dogs. If ur not into that, try something simple like decoration, an apple. Trust me you can draw a better apple than the last one.
Pay attention to details
One thing that always helps me draw better is whatever it is I'm sketching, I am doing multiple things in my head while drawing. I am observing the subject., paying close attention to many details, how the light hits it, where the shadows are, what are the shapes that I see, the size of it, and how I will place it on my piece of paper.
If you aren't looking at something and you want to draw straight out of your head go for it. you can make up these things as you go. You pick where you want the lightest part to be. Where the subject will go, the shadow and perspective.
let me discuss shapes and copying other images. of course, you can copy anything you want as long as it's just for you and you're not trying to claim it as your own. This is a great way to practice drawing. here's why.
I will use an example of my early copying days, attempting to copy freehand a picture of one of my dogs. It's looking straight at the camera ( which is harder to do in my opinion). I start off real nice and feeling pretty good. My head is bent down for a long long time. I got the basic outline shapes looking pretty good. I lift my head up and put the sketch out in front of me. One of the eyes is so misshapen and deformed-looking from the other and the nose starts looking like a pig's snout.
Maybe this is familiar to some people?
let me take you to another amazing story. I had this cool learn to draw sketchbook when I was young. There was one exercise in the book which explained something along the lines of- anyone can draw a masterpiece and ... here's proof.
There was a box filling the page with tiny little boxes inside it. Each box was labeled with numbers on them. On the lefthand side were all the numbers listed and tiny markings next to them.
Similar to paint by numbers but with random lines and shapes. Your job was to fill the boxes in with their instructive shape.
As I went along I had no idea what I was drawing but I filled out half the page before something clicked. Something jumped out at me. I turned the book upside down and a beautiful portrait of a man was there. I was so impressed by this little trick they played on me.
The big lesson I learned from that experience, as you are only drawing shapes. Your drawing what's really there, not what you think should be there.
Tracing
Here's where tracing can help your drawing. You can even do this exercise with tracing paper, just like I did with the portrait of the man from the book.
Pick an image and get your tracing paper. Get a ruler and divide tracing paper into multiple squares. After that trace the basic outline of the object.
Now keeping the tracing paper over the object, start with the first box and only look at the shape inside that box. Draw it and continue with every small box.
The point of this exercise is to train your mind to only see small shapes and what's really there. By only focusing on the shape inside the small box, you can practice.
The more you do this the less you will need tracing paper at all. You will be able to look at something and zone in on just a section of it.
Your mind will go ok there's a squiggle there and a weird triangle shape there. you won't question it.
Here I am drawing Disney characters from a printout picture freehanded using the same techniques I explained above. I hardly ever paint Disney characters, not to mention the size they are on the paper in relation to the size they are on the wall. I'm not gonna lie, this takes a lot of practice but I promise you it can be done.
The last part is very important. Practice!
I will keep saying it because it's that simple. you must keep it up. It only gets better and better.
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