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ART GUIDE: Dos and Don'ts for Beginners - Part 1 - "The importance of still life doodling" 🛼
🕑 Added 2022-04-11 20:58:52 +0000 UTCHi everyone!
With this post I'm starting a series based on observations of my students' exercises on Domestika. I had been giving them feedback on the forum regularly for half a year now.
✍🏼 Remember that my comments and observations usually apply to people who are just starting their adventure with drawing. Therefore, I refer to these tendencies as "mistakes". Not because there is only one way to do art. It's just worth knowing the rules first in order to be able to break them effectively and consciously later.
👾 When I complete a series of these posts, I will create a summary to make everything easy to find and follow 😉
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〰️ MISTAKE NO 1: IRREGULAR SHAPES AND WOBBLY LINES
Very often, when the task is to draw and shade simple shapes, such as spheres, squares or cubes - beginner artists focus only the main goal - shading. Their spheres aren't rounded, the squares don't have equal dimensions and the hatching lines are not parallel. If you want to have control over the drawing - focus on the simplest forms from the very beginning.
Keep the shapes as even as possible - rounded ovals, straight edges and smooth arches are essential. Practicing your hand in simple forms will help you control more complex shapes later. You can practice drawing just straight lines, circles, ovals or diamonds as a warm up exercise before actual drawing. It helps to relax your hand and practice muscle memory but also your eyes - to see better curves, angles or symmetry.
✏️ DO YOU DOODLE?
I know that such exercises can be boring, but they are extremely helpful in development of your skills. Just seeing if a given circle is actually a circle is a very important skill in drawing. You can try to play with this exercise to make it more fun - for example, draw funny faces in ovals or try to create robots from simple shapes. Whatever works!
Draw simple, geometrical objects from your surrounding. Draw characters made only from ovals or only from rectangular forms. It's a great way to fill your sketchbook by the way. The task is not difficult and does not require much preparation. You can exercise anywhere, anytime - during a break from work, in a cafeteria or on the bus. Remember - the correctness of the form in simple shapes allows you to have more control over the complicated ones.
If you'd like to practice with references you can collect them as I did. Here's my Pinterest board (Still life objects to Doodle) 📌 😊 Pick things that will be pleasant for you to draw. Practicing still life doesn't have to be boring 😉
Such exercises are also a great base and inspiration for character design! I can already see a person based just on this tiny mood board 😊 📸 🛼 🍋 🎶
〰️ MISTAKE NO 2: DRAWING AND SHADING FROM MEMORY
Another very common mistake that I noticed is drawing and particularly shading objects from memory or imagination. When the task is to shade a sphere, don't shade it as you think it should be shaded. These are very precisely defined geometrical rules. It is better to refer to the basic principles as well as place simple objects in front of you and carefully observe the light and shadow.
Our memory and imagination are not the same as reality - don't rely on them if you haven't drawn something many times before. Variations are of course possible and important in art, but to break the rules you must first be familiar with them - to know when it makes sense.
I emphasize again how important it is to study from still life objects. It does not necessarily have to be a bowl of fruits or other boring objects (for someone it may be interesting, for me it never was 😅). Choose objects that will charm you with shape, material or color. Study them - with different perspectives, surrounding and lighting. It may be your favorite mug or the fruit that you eat every day for lunch. Explore the beauty of simple forms 🧡
To be able to shade simple objects from memory - learn the basic principles of their geometry. These are just few key words, but learning about light in art is a very broad topic:
Learn about the principles of light to expand your possibilities more and more (there are different rules for natural and artificial light 💡).
Remember - there are some rules you need to know and there is training by observation. With these basics, you will avoid the trap of drawing what-you-think. The mind is tricky. Don't get fooled by it.
〰️ MISTAKE NO 3. INCORRECT PERSPECTIVE
Another fundamental rules that you can learn by still life drawing are the principles of perspective. Without it, objects seem unnatural, deformed or flat. It's essential in drawing to capture volume and form.
Learn the basic principles of perspective and study it by drawing simple objects. I often see drawings that are shaded, blended and perfectly finished but with incorrect perspective. It is usually quite visible when an artist plays with perspective but knows the rules, and when they just don't get the basics.
1 Point Perspective:
2 Point Perspective:
To practice perspective drawing it's great to doodle cubes - "floating" cubes from many points of view 👌
The principles of perspective are also visible in the drawing of simple objects - for example glasses, cups or vases. The ovals at their base and top edge should have specific shapes which you can practice by drawing ellipses:
THE IMPORTANCE OF STILL LIFE DOODLING
Still life studies are the foundation that help with general drawing skills. Drawing regular forms, learning about light, form, and proper perspective are basic exercises that will help train your hand and eyes. Otherwise it is very easy to make serious mistakes in drawing portraits, which, after all, are made of simple forms such as spheres, cones and cubes.
Everything can be simplified to basic forms and everything is made of them. Learn to appreciate their beautiful simplicity and possibilities they give:
(Hyperrealistic study of a vintage camera I made on the first year of college - 2008).
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📚 Here are some books you can learn from about perspective and rendering:
How to Render: the fundamentals of light, shadow and reflectivity
Perspective Made Easy
Perspective Drawing Handbook (Dover Art Instruction)
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter
Comments
So much good info here, Gaby! Thanks so much!
Yve - GraphiteDebris
What a great guide!
