Drawing Tips

Here are some of the drawing tips I gathered from my experience as well as other artists:1. Go easy on the paper. Try not to press too hard on the paper with your media whether its a pencil or an eraser, especially during the early stages, as it can become very difficult when you want to make corrections or erase later on. Pressing too hard can also create unwanted glares. Sometimes you would feel the need to press harder to achieve the darkest darks. Instead of pressing very hard with the 2b pencil, try using softer/darker pencil, perhaps a 6b pencil, or a charcoal stick, which can achieve the very darks much easier.

2. Use the acid free papers if you want your drawing to last for a long time. Acid free papers wont discolor over time, whereas many other papers discolor orangish pretty fast.

3. The eraser can be a drawing tool as well, especially when you want to go from dark to light.

4. Sharpen your pencils. Keep them sharp.

5. Save your failed drawings Analyze and figure out what went wrong.

6. Study the master drawings Do copies.

7. Think simple, like rendering a sphere when rendering the human head. Simplify the forms.

8. When drawing from observation, it's more important to copy the value relationship rather than the actual value you see in front of you. For example: it is ok to make the very dark area of an object in front of you only a middle value on your drawing, as long as you make the other areas of your drawing lighter as well to match the value relationship.