HOW TO DRAW?#1| Introduction| - Basic tips to improve skills on freehand sketching.

artographer (64)Artist, Indiain WORLD OF XPILAR • 3 years ago (edited)

It has been two and half an year since I joined on Steemit block chain. Since then it was my greatst ambition to start a series about the drawing techniques and different artistic ways on creating art contents in various mediums - like oilpainting, watercolour painting, acrylic painting or even just pencil drawing etc...

So consider this a an introduction to bigger series explaining art related techniques that are used by most artists and related professionals.

The points I will be making here are taken fron huge references of great professional artists works and some of the skills that I earned from my own experiences of the past 10 years of field studies and intra researches on various areas.

so let's begin...

Introduction

Let's make it straight. Recently the members on steemit platform started increasing so much with respect to past years. Here in our fantastic community #worldofxpilar we saw a very interesting surge in members in last months. Now it has surpassed 10k sub too. Yeah, it is a great news to hear.

As we know these people subscribing in this community, most of them are professional photographers and artists. But from some of the recent posts I found on steemit, I realised that there are very good members who got great artistic skills. A little push for making their works easy and improving their skills would be so much beneficial for them.
I know there are masterclasses from great professional are carrying out in this community, but still I want do my part for the community too.
So by this series I am not giving advices for professionals eho got so much experience in this field. These are some tips from my own experiences and some from great books by good professionals too.

I, with all my heart and humbleness, hope that this would be helpful for at least one member in steemit. Even that would be great achievement for me.

Tips to improve freehand sketching skills.

A very basic information before starting.

PENCILS...
We may seen it before. When we use pencils these are differentiated into different grades which denoted by the letters H and B here the H stands for hardness and B is for boldness. These actually indicates how hard and soft they are.

If we talk about hardness, the leas used in those pencils are of good hardness and lighter in color. These help us to achive very narrow fine lines. Taking this as an advantage these are mostly used by professional designers and architects to achive accurate lines to get clear measurements. We may use it for making basic sketches. But when we use it apply it lightly. Because pressure may cause your sketching surface damage. Its hardness are represented a HB, H, 2H, 3H, 4H.....9H. the 9H would be hardest among these.

Same goes for Boldness. These are representing how soft and black they are. It goes like B, 2B, 3B....10B... These are very helpful for making different strokes textures and shaders. These are mostly used by artists.

WAYS OF HOLDING PENCILS
Usually there are two ways of holding pencils as you see here. First one the traditional way and the second one is holding it with tip of fingers.

We may all need both. Fist one foe making accurate drawings of least small measurements. But when we needed to make large drawings with pencil we may use the the second method as it would be helpful keeping our hands painless.

I woul like to start with some practicing tips. As all we know practice makes the job perfect. For freehand sketching - practicing with the tool is the best way for improvement.
This will help us to get more flexibility to our hands... Ultimately leads us more control over the drawing tool no matter if you use pencil or pen or even brushes.

These tips are more used by architects and designers for achieving drawing skills with more accuracy.

1. Drawing straight lines between dots.
Try to mark many dots on a paper. Then use a pen or pencils and join these dots of least distances as accurate as you can. Practicing with this help you in drawing more straight lines and also help you reach your target points with ease.

As you get more control over straight lines in short length try increasing distance between dots.

While you practicing it, try drawing to different directions other than hanging with the same left to right or top to bottom

2. Try making parallel straight lines.
Straight lines parallel to each other. This will help you while in freehand sketching especially when you need to make hatching textures and shades.

There is no need for these lines to be like drawn with scaling tools. These just for practicing. So don't get worried even if you straight lines become curved ones.

After trying parallel straight lines with small length try increasing the lengths.

Then try making parallel curves too...

3. Drawing basic shapes.
The next step is to make basic shapes. Like - squares, rectangles, triangles circles ...
This might help you bring confidence to your mind for drawing and might help you get more idea on the process.

After trying basic shapes then try some advancement like try drawing 3D shapes such as prism, cones, hyperbolas, hemisphere...

Now we almost done with today's tips.
These are not for one time trying.
When you get free time, or when you feel bored, or in middle of a class-when you strikes with pen on a paper try to make out these practicing methods possible.

One more thing is that when you making elliptical curves while you making 3D shapes of curved surfaces don't cross the side of the curve as in the figure below.

The curves always stays as curves without having any cross hatching - just keep in mind.

*So that's all for today. Practice these methods when you have free time. I am pretty sure that this will help you gaining

More control over your skills on drawing
More flexibility with your hands
More confidence on your skills.

Now try making freehand sketches of anything you find in front of your eyes.

Keep always a pen and paper. Sketch your world around you. Keep you busy in your free times.

Thanks for having time to visit my blog ❣️

A lot of hard work and research are behind this post. Every votes from you counts.
It would be so much encouraging for me to make more contents on this same series.

I invite and hope @art-venture, @axeman, @franyeligonzalez, @stef1, @xpilar, @steemcurator01, @steemcurator02, @steemcurator07, @booming01, @booming03, @booming04

And other curators would have a visit to my post.