FUNDAMENTALS OF DRAWING

Theme: Knowing Fundamentals of Pencil Drawing. Drawing Portraits of Celebrities. Portraits of Great Men. Figurative Pencil Drawing

Every form of art has its own beauty. While carrying the special beauty, every art requires certain basic fundamental principles to be observed while doing the same. So the art of drawing has also a set of fundamental principles. Along with the growing practice of doing practical training, it would be necessary to know these art fundamentals, too. Here are some drawing fundamentals.

Portrait of Rajiv Gandhi

SEEING THE SHAPES : Basically the visual art is matter of seeing. So an artist has to see very well the object to be drawn or painted. The shapes, yes, the shapes of the objects are of much importance. Once you identify the shape of an object well, you can think about its lining that would recreate the shape on paper or canvas. You can start drawing after getting exact idea of shapes.

THE LIGHT EFFECT : The intensity of light falling on an object indicates the areas of your operation. The light decides where to move your pencil or brush. Lighted area would take the lighter colours and the spaces getting lesser light would be darker. That is called the ‘value’ in the language of art. A good drawing would have the full range of the values, meaning all types of shades should be depicted as per their values.

Control and Consistency : Consistency is the maintaining of a particular style of drawing or painting. If you can do it, your artwork would be like your signature. People would see an artwork and they would recognize it immediately as yours. So to keep working on your own style is crucially important in the world of art. Moreover, if you have good control over the pencil, you can draw precise lining and shading. The structure of the objects drawn and their relative size would render an artwork aesthetically beautiful. At later stage, it would help in exploiting the fullest value of colours and creating rich textures.

No room for Deviation : This applies to the portrait drawing. When you are working under a commission and are required to draw or paint the portrait of a person, a slight variation would ruin your entire work. A slightly bigger eye or a lip thicker than the original one could displease the person being portrayed. In portrait drawing, there is room for artistic imagination, but you will have to honour the reality, too.

Get Together All the Helps : An artist uses various resources while doing his or her pencil drawing or a painting. You can use your sketchbook or the photographs of the object or the scene to be drawn. Instructions available in art books and on videos would be a great help for the beginners. Finally, if you can spare regular hours of time, thinking about to attend a painting or drawing course would be a great idea.

Pencil Drawing: Tricks and Tips for Budding Artists

Before going on the actual drawing work you would have to get the materials for it. Pencils of HB and B type in all the number would be your ready help and need, too. But you would require deciding about the paper wisely. The paper makes or breaks your pencil drawing.

THE MATERIALS : If the paper is pale, that would not do well either. Smoother the surface of the paper, it would not allow the pencil to put right amount of particles on it. It would not allow the artist to keep proper pressure on the tip of the pencil. In the beginning, you can use the ordinary paper that is used in photocopying. Take two or three papers and put it on a cardboard. That would give you more freedom to draw the linings and execute the darker and lighter parts of shading work.

DRAWING THE LIVE SUBJECTS : Do you know what the best way to improve your drawing is? Many of you would say that “keep practicing”. That is true. But keep practicing to draw from life. Live subjects mean whatever you see in front of your eyes. Look at an object that is nearest to you, or the thing that is available to your at any time. Use your eyes well, neatly, and catch the image into your mind. Then try transferring the image that you have stored in your mind. The live object would help you to correct whenever any deviation is there in drawing the actual shape.

KNOW ABOUT SHADING : For showing contrast of light the skilful use of pencil is required. In pencil drawing, the shading work is an aspect that could extract the best from an artist. Balanced shading of pencil would create an image as beautiful as we would have in other mediums like watercolour and oil colour. Colours have different tonal values. Shading in pencil drawing is just like putting different tonal values of these colours shown in black and white form. By selecting a proper colour and then applying the same in different tonal values, an artist recreates his or her mental images on canvas or on paper.

DEVELOPING YOUR OWN STYLE : It is a great experience to look at master artists’ work. It is pleasure to follow the basics of drawing and painting they apply doing their masterpieces. But to copy a style of painting or drawing of one of them would not be a great idea. Instead you should develop your own style. And it is not so difficult. Your painting or drawing need not like to Picasso or Renoir; your colours may not be skillfully placed on canvas as Van Gogh did. But you have your own caliber and instinct. Follow that instinct. You style would be unique as your handwriting.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, AND PRACTICE : Whenever you get chance to see or hear any interview given by a renowned artist just concentrate on that; hear him or her. Carefully note how he or she had climbed the steps of the ladder. And one thing is certain that they must have done much labour to be there where they are. And while you ask for any great tip for the new entrants in the field of arts, these artists would tell you three words. And these three words would be “Practice, Practice, and Practice”. Only the constant following of the passion of drawing and painting would make you an artist. [Images courtesy : Rajiva Gandhi By Saptarshighosh [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons, And The Dog By Pearson Scott Foresman[see page for license], from Wikimedia Commons ]

Learning Drawing Self-Portrait

As the writers are caught in the situation called as ‘The Writer’s block’; the painters, too, sometimes feel themselves in such a scenario. If you are an artist, the time will happen when you would feel going out of subjects to paints. It had happened to me when I was planning for my first exhibition in the year 1995.

EPHAMERON selfportrait, originally uploaded by AAAAA BOOKS SHOWING OUR LATEST BOOKS.

When you feel yourself going out of subjects, just look around you and feel free to draw anything you can see in the immediate vicinity. You can see a washer woman, a newspaper boy, your neighbouring lady or your spouse; if you are habituated to draw the figures. And still if you fail, just sit in front of the big mirror in your bedroom. Start drawing yourself. The self-portrait is an art of exploring the self. Almost all the great artists have tried their self-portraits.

Here in this pencil drawing, the artist Ephameron has made a very sensitive exploration of her own face. She has tried capturing everything that we can observe from a face: the apparent feelings, the thoughtful appearance and the lively features of the face. In this self portrait the artists has put additional figures of houses drawn with the portrait. If you are a beginner, then this pencil drawing can be taken as one of the best examples of learning line drawing.

Whenever I feel drawing a portrait, I take a printout of one of my friends and take the help of regular weaponry: the 3B and 4B pencil, eraser, and a bunch of A4 papers. You can try it drawing your self-portrait. Only you have to spare an hour and a room with the doors shut. Try it today.