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Tips on Sketching, Lighting, and Color - Develop Your Style!
🕑 Added 2025-11-10 17:19:03 +0000 UTCHi there, many artists are so focused on developing their own style that they completely avoid studying reality. If you have studied art in the traditional way, perhaps you practiced this a little bit, but most people, I think, have not covered this phase, and it might feel intimidating. But trust me when I tell you that it can help your style development down the line. Today I want to share with you three practicing steps you can use to develop your style from reality. Subscribe and let's dive in!
So, reality is something we used to tackle very early in our learning process when studying art in schools or academies. There we focus on anatomic drawing, shadows and lights (values), colors, and so on. You know, the classic still life paintings or life drawing, among other things. If you have not done any of this, don't worry... among the many things they teach, I've shared with you the fundamental ones I've found useful to master.
1. Observational Sketching:
- Step 1: Pick a simple real object or a picture of a real object (e.g., fruit).
- Step 2: Observe basic shapes and proportions; noticing features that make the object distinctive, pick one or two of those features, sketch outlines or silhouette lightly.
- Step 3: Add details like textures and shadows in one focal point, not the whole thing; just aim to catch a small spot of the reality. This will keep things light and quick.
- Step 4: Repeat daily, then exaggerate features to stylize.
2. Value and Light Studies:
- Step 1: Choose a lit scene or object.
- Step 2: Squint to see light/dark areas; map in grayscale. The more contrasted, the better, so you can spot right away the light shapes and shadow shapes.
- Step 3: Render tones with pencil or digital tools using hard or soft edge brushes with simple geometric shapes. Try to avoid complex textured brushes as they might trouble your shape definition; that can come up later down the process.
- Step 4: Adapt values to your style by simplifying the number of shadows and lights or contrasting extremes, making light lighter and dark darker. If you get to understand how values behave through volume, you can also change the light and shadow position on the object. This is a bit tough, but it's also related to style.
3. Color Matching from Life:
- Step 1: Select a real-life subject with varied colors.
- Step 2: Isolate hues; mix paints or use color picker to match. I suggest you try to guess the color and then use the color picker to confirm how far you are from the original tone, not the other way around.
- Step 3: Apply to a drawing, noting relationships (warm/cool). Color is a variation of values; depending on the light, the object will show different colors. I suggest you start by choosing subjects that are most common when making art, like human skin, cloth or costume, and then go with others.
- Step 4: Experiment by shifting colors slightly for personal instinct. You can try to change the color of the light source or the color of the object. Start with simple subjects like one object with one light source, for instance, so you don't get overwhelmed.
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You might ask "but how or what do I exaggerate, push, and change during steps 4?" There's no rule of thumb; it's a playing process, literally. For example:
If you draw an apple a couple of times, try to distort that apple shape a bit more in one of those attempts.
If the light comes from the right, try to paint the light coming from the left after having painted the apple a couple of times.
If you are painting apple colors during a sunset, try to slowly turn the color light in the next attempt into a different time of the day, like night, shifting from warm to cold tones.
The playful exploration is what will push your understanding from reality towards something unique.
Welcome and thanks to new patrons! Please let me know if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to help!.
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Remember you can now pre-order my book Life in Every Sketch on the 3DTotal shop.
https://rebrand.ly/The-Art-of-RamonN90
Have a terrific week!
