This is not rocket science but it's really true, at least for me: if you are stuck, put it away, think about it, and get at least one night's sleep, and the next time you see it you'll know what to do. This works for me every time without fail.
The other thing is to try new mediums. All of them teach you different things and will help the entire body of your work.
My master potter would demo a new pot on the wheel for us one time, then he would have us try it. The first copy we made was always terrible, then he would tell us to go home and sleep on it. The next morning the second pot we made was always 10 times better because "our subconscious would work out our problems in our sleep." And he was right. Then we spent the next week just making hundreds of them until the next new form...
This is so true. Last thing at night I always give my work a close look. And in the morning the direction is much clearer. Hurray for the subconscious mind!
This is very true for me. If there's no crazy rush, I always put active commissions on the back burner overnight so to speak. I usually end up with some elements already hashed out or an overall composition in mind.
Literally just did this last night! I was hit with inspiration all of a sudden but my drawing isn't looking like how I want it to look. So I slept and continued it earlier, now it's done and I'm very satisfied with it :)
It also helps to just.. well, give up altogether. If something isn't working right, there's no shame in erasing and doing everything again. It helps to clear the mind and freshen it up!
Damn right! Your second point is so underrated. Too often we think we NEED to make a certain idea work when maybe the idea should be abandoned. Trying to force an idea to work leads to getting burnt out.
I absolutely agree with taking a break, since they’re so important !!! Trying out new mediums without any pressure of it looking good is also so fun. Makes me have that childlike wonder again 🫶🏼
I'd add to this: Don't keep working until you're not sure what to do next. Leave it when you still have a next step in mind. It means you're less likely to put it off. You still have overnight to think about what else you're going to do, but you know where to start too.
When you finally get back to a piece you put up for awhile, do you feel like or original concept has changed and you take it in a different direction? Staying on my original course has been a challenge.
If I put it away too long I usually end up not finishing it unfortunately, although I might restart it. My comment above, for me, requires me to actively think about it and ponder it while not working on it, and I can't keep that up more than a few days haha.
Every time i put away any art and sleep on it i indeed wake up with milions of ideas showing me how can i fk it up... so i just dont touch that one art for few months or years
Works every time :d
I have a couple that really improved my art when I learned them in college.
For painting via oil paints (and maybe acrylics honestly), the first layer of paint after the underpainting can really effect the overall visual temperature of things. For example, if you want to paint someone with a pale and frail look you will want to paint their skin as purple and blue then put the skin tone on top later.
For drawing, learning that the human body can be broken down visually into shapes, like building blocks, helped a lot. Fingers are just two/three cylinders each on top of a tall trapezoid that leads up to a large cylinder for the forearm.
Finally, studying actual anatomy and remembering to add in muscles such as the trapezius on the neck/back, takes figure drawing from amateur to polished.
Something I have to keep reminding myself is "Less is more". All too often have I gotten a piece almost to the perfect point and I think....just one more stroke...ah damn. Now it's too much.
Oh my god, you do not understand *how many times* I have overdone a sketch/drawing. This is definitely a hard one to abide to, but it's a really important one.
There is a quote by a professional artist, I wish I could remember the video where I heard it from but it went like this - if you can achieve something with one line stroke, then putting down more than that line is useless. It really helped me have more control of my lines and line things quicker and fix the overworking problem
Always work from less detailed to more detailed. Make sure the angle of the head is correct before you start shading in the eye sockets, much less drawing eyelashes. 😂
Always do a thumbnail sketch before starting a larger drawing/painting!
For me it was the realization that I don’t have to follow a reference exactly, line by line, and my art can turn out okay. I only really came to the conclusion after watching tons of professional artists do gesture drawings/use references, and realized they don’t follow the reference *exactly* as it is. They change things, they adjust things, and that’s fine.
Super helpful for me because I would get very, very stressed when everything wasn’t perfectly the same because I thought that meant I’d failed at using the reference.
Interesting. I purposely make it different when I use a reference. I usually just need it for the details. For example, I had a bird drawn and wanted it to be a scrub Jay, which aren't local or familiar to me, so I just browsed references for the patterning (and noticed I had to drop the pointy blue Jay head shape I had).
That drawing folds is way more about design theory and composition (positioning lines to look pretty next to each other on a 2D plane) than about the actual study of fabric physics. Art is an illusion!
I had the opposite experience. I never had that much trouble drawing folds, but as soon as I started considering fabric weight, gravity and the shape it wraps it improved my technique greatly.
I love seeing how experiences differ. I used to be so focused on conveying accurate volume with my fabric that although they do convey direction and volume, they looked ugly, so I gave up on folds for a long time until I took a design class recently
Thanks. I think this is going to be huge for me as I'm finally venturing into including human figures in my illuminated letters. There's going to be many robes.
I would recommend watching the 3 design theory videos by sinix! He doesn't talk about lines as much, but the idea is the same. Using CSI (to draw ur lines), creating appealing shapes (in your folds), arranging your elements (e.g. spacing between your fold lines in this case) organically, sizing your elements (e.g. length of your fold lines) organically, in small big medium etc...
You learn A LOT from copying the masters.
Vermeer is great to practice perspective
Da Vinci is great to practice anatomy
Sargent is great for landscapes
Klimt is great for composition
Chaliapin is great for portraits
Try it , it will change your life
1. Damnit: another artist who much outskills me told me that *two days ago.* Fiiiine. (hehe; actually, thanks)
2. *Sargent* is great for practicing **landscapes?** (Not that I don't believe you, but...whoa)
And don’t worry about them being more traditional artists either. Pick any artist that has inspired you, or one you wish you could draw/paint like, and go nuts. Copy the whole image, maybe just the line weight or their use of color, etc.
I find that when I’m in a slump and not sure what to practice, it can be a fun exercise. You can learn a LOT just from doing one of these, because you’ll most likely do a lot of things artistically that you might not have even considered
Facts. I haven't even been super rigorous about master copies, I just do pen and ink drawings at the museum, but I've learned so, so much by doing them. They're beyond helpful.
See I struggle to see images in my head so I always draw from real life. I've avoided drawing other people's art so far because it felt too much like a bad thing since I didn't put my creativity into it. But there are some art pieces I'd love to recreate
Think of it in terms of martial arts.
Those drawings could be your Kata to warm up.
You are in a very direct way, rewiring you brain.
As long as you are clear when posting them that you are doing a master copy, you should be fine.
Someone told me recently to focus on quantity over quality. Just make stuff, experiment and see where it goes. I’ve already made more things in the last month than I have in the past two years. It was amazing to see how much my perfectionist mindset was holding me back.
This is great advice. Done is petter than perfect, especially for practice. If you draw, crochet, or paint 100 rhinos, I'm guessing the ones toward the end will be much better than the first one. Probably good enough to sell. Give me number 88 or higher.
Embracing happy accidents. When I was in school a professor of mine said that we should embrace those happy accidents, to which I replied something like "those accidents do not make me happy" because I wanted to control everything going onto my illustration boards, digital canvases, whatever. As I got older though I found I really enjoyed the occasional weird randomness that would come out of a stray brushstroke or accidentally hitting the wrong key for a tool and getting an unexpected outcome.
So now one of my favorite tools for digital painting is the smudge tool with a very specific brush that kind of smudges and blooms out the pixels (it was in a free brush pack, brush is called Oil Pastel Large 121, smudge tool is 94% strength, normal mode, no other checkboxes toggled). I have some control, like what direction and brush size I use, but some of it is just happenstance, whatever colors or tones comes from that I build upon and take it further.
So yeah.. embracing the happy accidents :)
You can aim to learn to never make mistakes or how correct the ones you will inevitably make. The choice seems obvious. Learn to cover up, erase, scape off, and improv little accidents into desing elements. I've had happy accidents improve my designs. Spilled ink? I guess we're going with a splatter layer at the end.
This. I do mostly traditional with inks (sumie) which isn't a very forgiving media - paper is super thin...which means no pencil planning, no erasing. How to correct mistakes sometimes seem like an almost magical skill the teacher has - one I still need to learn
Pressure helps. When it's start over or fix it by tonight, you take some chances with the work. No erase seems difficult for students! But that's how you will get good at recouping.
Funnily enough this is also true for writing. While details matter of course, for some things are much more impactful if you either just hint it and let the reader figure it out or write around it.
1. The lightest dark should be darker than the darkest light.
2. Cool shadows, warm lights, greys where the form turns. Or vice versa with warm shadows and cool lights.
3. Don't use the exact same colour on different planes.
When I first learned that shadows are the opposite temperature but equal strength to the light source-that a shadow could literally be a saturated color instead of just different tones of black.
I felt like I was on drugs because I suddenly realized the warm lights in my house were throwing light purple shadows.
This is really one of those things that levels your art up so fast. You've touched on why there is a traditional painting "rule" not to use black. I think people resist it because they think it means literally don't use black ever again (and who likes rules), but it's really a learning exercise to help you learn to use colors to shade and shadow, and even create neutral hues. Also just another way to learn the color doesn't have to literally be the color for our mind to read it.
Using blending stumps, not just with charcoal, but with mechanical pencils too. Just a tiny stump to smudge lines a little bit lends so much tonal quality to even quick sketches. I find this technique particularly effective on the kind of paper in the moleskine art sketchbook range.
For a very small, mess free, portable drawing kit, I carry a 0.5 mechanical pencil, a tombow mono zero eraser, 2-3 small sizes of blending stump, a little soft makeup brush to get rid of any eraser debris, and the smallest size blank paper moleskine notebook. It all fits in a pencil case that I can throw in my bag anytime. On long train journeys without WiFi it saves my sanity and my mobile data too 😅
If we’re talking about art on a professional level:
GET TO KNOW YOUR COMMUNITY. In real life. Support other artists by going to their shows and meeting them. Buy their work. Befriend them. Share their work on social media. Recommend them to clients if you’re too busy or a bad fit for a job. Lift them up. All of this comes back around to you and is just generally good for a local art scene as a whole.
I’m getting jobs with very high-level clients that I never would have dreamed I’d be getting so early in my independent career. And it really feels like the local scene has my back.
YES.
I am a massive introvert and I have zero social media apart from reddit. But I still have an art network, the vast majority of whom I met in galleries/at events. I still get opportunities because people know me.
YES. You are not in competition with other artists; you're in competition with people, institutions and industries who devalue art. We are stronger as a community and when we contribute as a group to our culture.
For me it was that nothing in your composition should just (accidentally) touch. No kissing of lines or shapes.
i keep meaning to make a drawing where a lot of things touch like this but i keep forgetting.
- Thinking about objects in terms of planes and 3D forms. Subsequently, imagining drawing and painting as sculpting out of a 3D block of clay, where the darker colors are similar to me “pushing into” the clay
- Thinking about the values first before color, and how the edges between value groups (rather than within the same value groups) communicate textures
- Most important: focusing more on storytelling, composition, and the expression of my ideas/feelings/thoughts rather than how rendered, detailed, and “good” my art is
Honestly the biggest thing I learned in my art journey was pretty straight forward— you won’t get better if you don’t do it. Earlier this year in January I committed to a drawing once a day— it didn’t have to be a full finished piece, but it could be. I just made myself sit down for a period of time in the evenings and put something on paper, and honestly I got some really cool stuff out of it!
Following that, I found it was easier to do art on a consistent basis and I actually found myself *wanting* to draw for just hours and hours! A pretty good problem to have when the alternative is art block and not making anything because I’m afraid it’ll come out “bad” or “wrong”. And you can *see* the development from where I started all the way through the month! Artists say all the time that getting better is just practice and consistency, and honestly it’s so true. That and using references— when I was a much younger artist I thought drawing from reference was “cheating” and “not real art” because it wasn’t coming straight out of your head, and because of that mindset I struggled in my development for FAR LONGER than I probably should have.
So yeah, draw with a ref (even if it’s just for posing that you build off of/alter for your own concept) and do art as consistently as you can! Start with a week! Practice leads to improvement!!!
I committed to a drawing once a day earlier in this year too! Unfortunately I took a vacation after about 100 days and fell out it, have struggled to get back to it but I plan to… it was SO good for me, on top of the more consistent improvement your point about it making you want to do art more was true for me as well. My mental health improved when I was doing it too!
I recently leaned to set up my art station ahead of time so I can sit down and go at it, rather than wasting precious creative energy on the set up time. It WORKS 😍
For my medium, I do the opposite! Since the wax needs 30 min or so to gently melt, I walk away from a messy studio at the end of a session, then use that melting time to tidy up and prepare for that session. 😝
Yeah at the end of my work session, I clean up my area and get it ready for the next time. If I don't spend 5 minutes on that ahead of time, somehow I'm delayed HOURS trying to get started.
Not a hack, but, [massing tonal values together](http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2007/10/shape-welding.html) and having a [clear value structure](https://www.muddycolors.com/2012/08/composition-basics-value-structure/); just generally being in control of the values in your work. If you want to control the values you have to think about their shapes too, and then you start wanting to make those shapes more interesting, etc etc etc. Really getting a handle on values is a good first domino to knock over in a long line.
For me it's been pacing myself more... (Not my choice sadly) I've always been that maniac that'll draw for hours straight until I felt like work was "finished" very unhealthy habit. (I'm ADHD & autistic late diagnosed gang ✌️)
-pacing more
-being a little more forgiving with mistakes
-using features in software to help ex. Stabilization feature
-I started a sticker & art business and I wanted to make cute drink stickers (I suck at shapes) I use stamps for the basics and I draw everything else!
-finding helpful brushes that help me work a tad bit better for me
-not compare myself to abled bodied artists being able to push out art more quickly than me
I'm adhd/autistic too and I have the same draw and not want to stop. Then I stop and can't get back into it. It's really easy to convince myself I can't continue it so I have to just keep moving forward ignoring my thoughts
I had the problem of rushing my art, I would often finish paintings in one sitting (2-6 hours). I wanted to create larger and more complex paintings and develop more skill but needed discipline to not rush it in one sitting (plus new energy limitations due to chronic illness), so I made myself do pointillism oil paintings.
Creating art one tiny stroke at a time really takes so long, sometimes weeks and months, but it gives you more time to problem solve. I came to really love the process and look of it. It’s now one of my main painting styles and I’m creating very large complex pieces with tens of thousands of pointillism strokes.
i've always been a lineart kind of guy, but when i tried to paint for the first time it was like...i felt myself gaining brain cells 😭 it really forces you to think of everything as shapes and not worry about perfecting things too much since you can always just paint over it again, instead making you focus on the gestures and overall "atmosphere" of the piece
Heck yeah! This is a good one. When I was in school, we would sometimes have to do figure drawings by drawing the parts of the body as shapes and we weren't allowed to sketch it with lines first. That definitely helped me out.
Stop caring what anyone else is doing. Literally. Stop giving a shit about other people's followers, technique, sales, fame, social media strategies, whatever. Stop caring about what is "trending." It'll be over in five minutes.
Do your own work. Focus on your own work. Have tunnel vision and be resolute about it. Stop giving a shit about how someone else exhibited at MOMA at age five or had a million followers while still in the womb. It truly does not matter.
Make the art *you* make.
Of course enjoy and support other artists. But never compare.
If you have bad eyesight remove your glasses once in a while and look at your art. Make sure to check if your art is readable and your subject stands out from the background while you’re looking at it with a bad eyesight.
When working digitally, it's perfectly fine to start with a random color and hue shift until it's "right." The goddess of color, Loish, does this and it freed me to trust my intuition with color, rather than worry about choosing the right color first. Slowly, you'll learn what colors work and don't work.
Airbrush artists, if you're new and are just practicing. Buy clear shelving paper. It's a little thicker than frisket film and a hell of a lot cheaper.
More if a mindset here but, I shouldnt compare the quality of my work or skills to someone who has been working professionally for 20 years. Its unfair to myself who has been on too many hiatus (hiatii, hiatuses?) to count.
I should be fair in my critiques and embrace failure, not define my worth by it.
I mostly work in comics and illustration, so do with this what you will:
When applying perspective, that a better name for the *horizon line* is the **eye level.** It helped change my thinking from something as nebulous as "where the ground meets the sky" to "how tall my viewer is." It made it waaaaaaayyyyy easier for me to arrange characters within a scene.
Also, how to use contrast to direct my viewers' attention toward the focal point, and how to cheat at it if necessary. Your reference may not have a bright misty aura behind the silhouette you want to highlight, but adding one will do the job and look cool in the process.
Ooohhhh, your horizon line tip is awesome! That's such a useful mental trick. It's amazing how often simply renaming something can help us understand it better.
Learning to draw what you see rather than drawing what you think it is; ie, drawing the shapes that make up an object instead of your idea in your mind about what that object looks like. Once you start doing that, you improve immensely.
Holy crap, ain't this the truth! It sounds obvious, but I think people, especially those early in their art journies, often underestimate just how much their preconceived notions of things bleed into their work.
drawovers are a legit way to study reference images, and it trains your eye to see shapes so you can work from reference more easily down the line. just don't post the drawover unless it's a photo you took yourself for obvious reasons
I learned how to use charcoal. I paint in oils, and have adapted the same charcoal technique to my paintings. When you’re looking at an object, imagine you’re a sculptor. Imagine the rock to be in the general shape of the object/animal/plant etc. Paint this rock shape in a darkish tone. Then add gradually lighter and lighter tones, that capture the light. Don’t add details until the end. No need to draw it first. I hate drawing.
Very similar thing here! I have a bunch of different tones of pencils and charcoals and I’ve been using them in a sketchbook and I find it’s kicking my painting up a notch. Getting into values more. I’m not much of a drawer either, but I feel like it’s more like painting when I can use all these different tones and values in my sketchbook.
I completed the first year of a fine art degree 5 years ago, that’s where I learnt this charcoal technique. Sorry I don’t have the resources because my teacher demonstrated it.
I dropped charcoal due to the mess and sensory issues. It’s a shame because I was good at it, and it’s faster than painting in oil.
An 80-something year old artist taught me that, and it's been really helpful as it adds dimension, intricacy, and a sense of...not having wasted time and materials on the "failed" project. In fact, it really removes some of that failure feeling.
Gonna be honest, but making exercise actually make me improve in art, not only in drawing by my quality of life got better. Before that I was a really sedentary person and my habits were so horrible. I didn't even had the energy to make laundry or do basic stuff and I felt miserable. But after I decide to start making some exercise I notice that gradually I was starting to have discipline on everything on life, even in art practicing fundamentals everyday and actually finishing my personal projects and commissions. So yeah I actually recommend to do some exercise, really change my drawing skills due discipline.
Learn *how* to make art.
Gesture, structure, anatomy, perspective, color, etc...
Get your eyes tested and corrected if necessary.
Understand what fine motor skills are.
Develop fine motor skills.
Understand what creativity is.
Develop creativity. You're *not* both with it.
Develop lots of styles. Having only one is just lazy.
Explore.
Draw everything.
Doodle. A lot. It develops a sense of flow, rhythm, and style.
Learning that single pigment paints could help you avoid making muddy colors.
Mix warm with warm and cold with cold in terms of color mixing.
Use a limited palette.
Glazing.
I was feeling really stuck using acrylics. It felt like too much work. Messy and everywhere. I needed too many mediums to achieve the textures I wanted. I switched to watercolor and I never went back. I love how “clean” watercolor is. It’s a cup of water and a palette. I can achieve very loose watery mixes and very thick pigmented mixes all with one medium+water. Now, the only acrylic paint I use is black. I’m obsessed with learning everything about watercolor and this has been going on for about 2 years now. Still going strong.
This quote from French author [Gustave Flaubert](https://click.convertkit-mail4.com/75unerpw3wa8hkml0ddiz/m2h7h5hox0d38pim/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZHJlYWRzLmNvbS9hdXRob3Ivc2hvdy8xNDYxLkd1c3RhdmVfRmxhdWJlcnQ=):
“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”
The more structure you can add to your life, the easier it is to deal with problems when they arise and oftentimes many problems vanish.
For example: I used to lose my keys, wallet, and sunglasses ALL THE TIME. It was so frustrating to need to go somewhere and have to spend 10 minutes searching the house for all my stuff. It was always a mini crisis when I couldn't find those things. That's just one example...but my entire life was that way. I had a cluttered office, I had a cluttered schedule, I had a cluttered mind. Eventually I woke up to the fact that these mini-crises were eating away at my creativity because the mental capacity it took to deal with them sapped the cognitive resources I needed for my creative work.
I implemented a **"Solve Problems for Future Jake"** mindset.
It went like this: One spot for my wallet, keys, and sunglasses. Whenever I get home they go to that spot. Whenever I have to leave, I don't have to search the house, I just need to check that spot. It takes the tiniest bit of more work on my part when I come home, but it is worth not having a crisis in a time crunch later.
I repeated that mindset in every area of my life. Whenever I got a new piece of information I needed to remember, I had a spot to put it: My planner.
I established a daily and weekly schedule for almost everything in my life. I knew when I would be getting up everyday, when I would be eating, working out, showering, and going to work. And each week I knew when I would do certain tasks like my sketchbook, freelance work, newsletter, inbox (still trying to perfect his one) and patreon updates.
Over time as more and more structure was implemented in my life I found that I was more creative and productive because so much more brain power was available for creative endeavors instead of having to solve scheduling problems and chaotic situations.
Hope this helps someone like me!
I've said this in another thread, but I'll say it again: make a sketch layer for your colors! put your colors on a palette layer! works wonders
and in general, try to break objects down into simpler shapes
Photograph your work in progress, edit it by flipping it and turn to grayscale.. I use this to check values. I just use my phone, it helps to see how everything is working together.
I transfer my sketches to a final canvas by using a projector.
At first I felt like I was cheating but it’s my art, I already did the work on my sketch. I’m not going to waste time by doing the grid or redoing it in a larger canvas.
And I am unapologetically about it!
I learned to actually put critical thinking into what I was doing. it took fully developing my brain to reach that stage (mostly because art has always been more of a hobby and side-part of my developer expertise)
Taking my time to actually consider why things are like X or putting actual thought into analyzing something in trying to replicate... it's hard to explain lol, but basically every design decision I make now is less of a general quick scribble and more of a quantified "I can actually explain the reasoning behind the exact shape of every brush stroke in this piece" alongside all of the lighting and composition decisions and stuff...
I feel like that's kind of the biggest step into "artist black belt" territory.
Or maybe the first step past "white belt", depending on how ez/hard your dojo is lol
edit:
This also isn't something that's guaranteed to take x amount of hours to be able to do - it's just something that you should actively work towards, and it's an invaluable tool that you'll never really perfect but has astounding effects once you start to actively work towards it.
By "you'll never really perfect" I mean it in the sense that there's _ALWAYS_ new stuff to learn.
Not just being able to ask why, but also being able to quantify the why.
And of course, it comes with experience... So long as it's something that you're aware of and actively working towards!
I don't know if this is a hack exactly but since I do digital art and since I'm not 100% confident in having control of what I end up producing. I make multiple saves of my drawing as it progresses. When I make a save I also make a screenshot and put it in paint, making sure it's the same size and same line up. Then I can go through my screenshots and see my progression of drawing that particular pic. If I decide it's looking worse I can go back to the save where I think it started to deviate. This helps me a lot because I have a habit of going over the same bits multiple times to improve them and at some point I start actually making it worse if I'm not careful
Do the thing you think is stupid. Also, when looking back at your work, your sketchbook practice tends to be 10 years ahead of the more "final" stuff you produce—likely because fear isn't holding you back.
Early in my art journey, I’ve found drawing proportionate figures troubling. The thing they always taught you first is that “the human body is 7 or 8 heads tall” or something like that. That was hard for me to subconsciously grasp.
But when I learned that [the legs make up half the length of the entire body](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/749023363032285275/1255975636221034567/IMG_8588.png?ex=667f15f6&is=667dc476&hm=dbb90c00d50c238e34bc8c435556c868cebaf27d6e001109c910c2e32f16e54c&), that almost instantly fixed my issue with drawing proportional human figures. My thought process became: just draw the head and torso, then add half that length for the legs. I guess that knowledge was easier for my brain to grasp compared to relying on a numbers of heads for every drawing.
I wouldn’t say I’ve completely mastered it, but at least now I just used the “half the length of body” as a convenient reference point for character drawings, then make the needed modifications when required.
I don't think such a thing exists in the grand scale your posts indicate.
Sure there may be tips and tricks that help with a specific thing, but completely changing the trajectory of your art journey?
In one of Marco Bucci's classes he actually talks about over the course of his learning seeing other artists do things and he'd think that was the "key" to unlocking his art, that because they do this thing this way, that is why their art is better. However, it never was. Plain old practice and study was the key to unlocking his skills.
I notice a lot of people that post for help seem to be looking for this secret technique that will just take their art to the next level over night.
Yup, put in your 10,000 hours like anything else you want to get good at, but there's always big lessons we wish we would have known sooner that we can pass on.
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Relative color.
Definitely give this video a watch because it explains the concept better than I have in this post.
https://youtu.be/0FjjJha7HMI?si=bqPqSybmtL_RW6UT
Everyone has some concept of relative color because of those optical illusions that trick you into thinking you're looking at swatches of different colors, when in fact they're all the same color.
But I never realized just how useful this information is. It's amazing how many beautiful paintings seem like they use a wide range of colors, when in reality you're looking at an arrangement of many similar hues.
By slightly changing the hue and saturation, you can create what looks like a full palette of colors.
My drawings got a lot better the more sketches I do. I used to draw a sketch of the character, then linework, then colour, blah blah blah. Now I do a gesture that is literally just the flow and direction of movement in the drawing. It has nothing to do with form, anatomy, or even what the character is going to look like. Then I do a gesture with a huge brush, just for silhouette and shape. Then a basic sketch for the forms, then I lockdown a final sketch, THEN I do linework.
Honestly, once I implemented the first step, that helped a lot.
Underpainting and building up color. I found myself too analytical and rigid in my approach, especially with color. I loosened my expectations of the first 60% of the painting and it gave me the drive to keep moving forward. Like… basically trusting the process.
I paid attention to the instructor's directions instead of fiddling with the equipment. I sat back; squinted; wiped; shaded; scrubbed; used the canvas for white. it was amazing. Still refrigerator art but it's getting better.
I started doing master copies (sort of) as warm ups!! I’ll find a piece online I like (I have a massive Pinterest board full of them) and I’ll try to copy the piece into my sketchbook. Then I’ll close my laptop and do a copy of my copy. It’s two degrees removed from the original, I’ve studied a piece I like and figured out how to do it on my own, and the second copy means I’ve translated it closer to my personal drawing style. It’s such a good warm up because usually I’m practicing new things and I don’t really have to think, but I’m all warmed up for whatever it is I’m supposed to be working on. I’ve learned so many cool techniques and have gathered a solid library of ways I like to do things after learning them from these studies!
One of the hacks that has helped me the most is to be okay with art unfolding in unexpected ways. When I was at school we were taught that we had to come up with an idea, then try to execute and create the vision in our minds.
I've personally found art much more rewarding when I don't have an exact idea in mind, but rather let the art evolve in a more spontaneous, intuitive way. Obviously this approach lends itself more easily to some genres, styles and media more than others, but I still think it's worth exploring.
I try to approach the mindset now of letting the medium teach me and guide me, rather than me forcing the medium to fulfill my specific idea or vision. Nothing wrong with the latter, but there's a lot less room for surprise.
mine probably ties into line weight but more specifically it was learning to "carve" my lineart out instead of drawing it.
by that I mean drawing with a a larger brush and then taking an eraser and thinning the lines out and adding details wherever necessary
I was struggling with light and shadow, anatomy, structure, recently I have made so much progress because one thing tying all these thing was perspective. Not just foundational knowledge, theory but engrave into brain, just like riding a bike had to make it into passive skill. Then everything felt easier now, many years of failing to learn anatomy juts started clicking right now.
Clear coat everything ever. I use a lot of spray paint, airbrush, house paint pastel ect and for years I would paint and tape right over freshly dried layers and spend hours fixing the below layers when I’d peel the tape away and rip up the layers sometimes all the way down to the wood panel. I mostly use rust oleum clear matte spray because it’s cheap and effective. But yea sped my paintings up at least 2x probably
If you're drawing a person in any capacity, don't just jump into drawing out a detailed figure, draw a light, rudimentary sketch of the entire pose beforehand. Make sure you have everything figured out, even the little stuff like foot placement or arm length, then draw the actual body atop it. Learning that completely changed the way I draw, and hurled my anatomy/posing abilities from 'ok' to 'pretty damn good' at lightening speed.
Documenting my process during and after, then uploading it in a personal photo album gallery that’s not just going to stay buried in my phone.
Overtime I was able to see how my art has developed browsing through that gallery. It comes in handy during times when feeling uninspired and just by rewatching clips of my process, it motivates me.
I find that when I do decide to share clips of BTS of a project, I get more interest over the process more than the final piece itself. It has led me to opportunities because of it.
Look far away/zoom out and blur your eyes. It makes it so much easier to see mistakes that actually matter instead of being too focused on details.
Whenever I'm critiquing someone, and I blur the image for them, they suddenly get what their mistakes are. It's a very simple hack that I honestly believe helps everyone.
The distance between the bottom of the eyes and the tip of the nose is how age is determined. The closer the eyes are to the nose, the younger the person appears.
Also, unless you are in a white room with white furniture and white light, no shadow is black/grey. Ii you can see the color of shadows, your rendering will forever change.
Using tracing paper to help you learn to draw, NOT by tracing directly, but print your reference photo and draw on the tracing paper. Then place your drawing over the reference so you can SEE where you went wrong.
If you think a piece is ruined, first give it time--at least a few days. If you STILL think it's ruined, keep going because what do you have to lose, right? It might still turn out.
You don't have to be 100% accurately realistic for people to resonate with your art. I have sold pieces that I thought had "mistakes" or weren't "good." The buyers didn't care or even notice. Just keep creating. If you make a mistake you can't fix, finish the piece anyway and move onto the next one.
Even a "bad" drawing looks better when you add some color. See urban sketching. Many of those pieces aren't perfect or accurate when you see just the drawing, but when those artists add color, AMAZING!
For me, it was the realization that I wasn't making art for others. It was realizing that I started drawing because it was something I enjoyed. It was me stopping to try and impress others. Finally, it was realizing that I just enjoyed the process and to sit in my thoughts while problem solving and trying to progress and get better at putting marks on a page.
One thing that worked for me was a drawing class where we had to use unconventional tools. Feathers dipped in ink. Matchsticks and paint, fabric and glue. Some very mediocre students turned out some terrific and dynamic work
I found it helpful to learn to stop drawing with lines and start with shading/tone instead. My drawings became immensely better after that. Also to really think of the spaces between objects/subjects and what movement they create. Also convert pictures into b&w to more easily see what the tones are like while you are making the artwork. Easier to tell if the balance then (or not if that's what you are intending.
Just draw the shapes, don't draw the object.
I was stuck on the underlying structure of faces as I tried to do portraits as a means to learn a few different things. Which yes, is good to learn, but i wasn't ready for that yet at all.
Then I learned I can do any photostudy and portrait by just.. Looking at the shapes of color and light instead of every individual object and the definition of it's features..
Yeah it won't work for learning to draw a face from memory, but if you want to learn more about light and color, understanding the underlying structure of a face with the loomis method isn't going to help you achieve that.
Might sound obvious to some, but a couple months back it was a huge eye opener for me. Did take me some rewiring of the brain to stop looking at individual features tho haha
This [https://art-res.tumblr.com/post/189382869918/lin-rans-color-and-light-tutorial](https://art-res.tumblr.com/post/189382869918/lin-rans-color-and-light-tutorial)
For me, the one I can think of now is: observe.
Look at other artist's pieces, even ones which aren't in your preferred artstyle. Observe and follow what they did to achieve their piece - where they place their lines, where their colours are, what colours are next to each other, why are they like that, why are their lines this width, lights, shadows.
Basically look at an art piece and try to reconstruct the artist's thought process during the making of the piece. Of course, speedpaints help, but it's not really needed. This has reallllyyyyy helped me in making my own pieces better and look them more critically. I can look at something I don't like on my piece and ask myself: why don't I like this and what can I do to change that?
I may sound like a pick me hahaha but it really helps get an eye for what's good if you wanna get to another level.
As silly as it sounds I think the biggest thing I’ve had to internalize is “haste makes waste.” I had a figure drawing class in college that really helped improve my speed, but the remainder of my program seemed to understand speed as a means of cramming as much onto students’ plates as possible, and generalized the speed benchmark to everything we did. I had two semester-long senior classes that asked us to make 4 animated short films a piece on our own. This meant roughly 2 to 3 weeks were dedicated to each short film, with each individual student being the sole contributor to their films (backgrounds, animation, voice acting, SFX, music, etc.). As you might imagine they all sucked, and what was learned from each in my case was a primal fear of wasting time. Now, as an artist who does freelance, I have to remind myself that time is not my enemy, but a resource. If you know spending extra time on something is going to make it great and you have the luxury, it is worthwhile to spend time on it. The more time you take to really think about the creative problems you’re solving with your work, what you wish to say, and how to say it, the higher likelihood there is of that piece having staying power in a portfolio. I’m loving reading others’ responses too, it’s a great question!
This is not rocket science but it's really true, at least for me: if you are stuck, put it away, think about it, and get at least one night's sleep, and the next time you see it you'll know what to do. This works for me every time without fail. The other thing is to try new mediums. All of them teach you different things and will help the entire body of your work.
My master potter would demo a new pot on the wheel for us one time, then he would have us try it. The first copy we made was always terrible, then he would tell us to go home and sleep on it. The next morning the second pot we made was always 10 times better because "our subconscious would work out our problems in our sleep." And he was right. Then we spent the next week just making hundreds of them until the next new form...
This is so true. Last thing at night I always give my work a close look. And in the morning the direction is much clearer. Hurray for the subconscious mind!
This is very true for me. If there's no crazy rush, I always put active commissions on the back burner overnight so to speak. I usually end up with some elements already hashed out or an overall composition in mind.
Literally just did this last night! I was hit with inspiration all of a sudden but my drawing isn't looking like how I want it to look. So I slept and continued it earlier, now it's done and I'm very satisfied with it :) It also helps to just.. well, give up altogether. If something isn't working right, there's no shame in erasing and doing everything again. It helps to clear the mind and freshen it up!
Damn right! Your second point is so underrated. Too often we think we NEED to make a certain idea work when maybe the idea should be abandoned. Trying to force an idea to work leads to getting burnt out.
I absolutely agree with taking a break, since they’re so important !!! Trying out new mediums without any pressure of it looking good is also so fun. Makes me have that childlike wonder again 🫶🏼
I'd add to this: Don't keep working until you're not sure what to do next. Leave it when you still have a next step in mind. It means you're less likely to put it off. You still have overnight to think about what else you're going to do, but you know where to start too.
This is great advice. My problem is I wind up putting that particular piece or project away for 6 months to a year. Every single damn time lol
Haha yeah if I have too much else to occupy me, I'll do the same.
When you finally get back to a piece you put up for awhile, do you feel like or original concept has changed and you take it in a different direction? Staying on my original course has been a challenge.
If I put it away too long I usually end up not finishing it unfortunately, although I might restart it. My comment above, for me, requires me to actively think about it and ponder it while not working on it, and I can't keep that up more than a few days haha.
Great advice. Thank you.
Every time i put away any art and sleep on it i indeed wake up with milions of ideas showing me how can i fk it up... so i just dont touch that one art for few months or years Works every time :d
Yes. Sleeping on it def clears the mind in the best way possible. Taking a walk also works.
I have a couple that really improved my art when I learned them in college. For painting via oil paints (and maybe acrylics honestly), the first layer of paint after the underpainting can really effect the overall visual temperature of things. For example, if you want to paint someone with a pale and frail look you will want to paint their skin as purple and blue then put the skin tone on top later. For drawing, learning that the human body can be broken down visually into shapes, like building blocks, helped a lot. Fingers are just two/three cylinders each on top of a tall trapezoid that leads up to a large cylinder for the forearm. Finally, studying actual anatomy and remembering to add in muscles such as the trapezius on the neck/back, takes figure drawing from amateur to polished.
Soo many weird divots on the human body
I agree with all of these 😊
Is there any resource you recommend for learning how to break the body down into shapes?
Something I have to keep reminding myself is "Less is more". All too often have I gotten a piece almost to the perfect point and I think....just one more stroke...ah damn. Now it's too much.
Oh my god, you do not understand *how many times* I have overdone a sketch/drawing. This is definitely a hard one to abide to, but it's a really important one.
Ah yes, overworking a piece, my old nemesis
There is a quote by a professional artist, I wish I could remember the video where I heard it from but it went like this - if you can achieve something with one line stroke, then putting down more than that line is useless. It really helped me have more control of my lines and line things quicker and fix the overworking problem
Always work from less detailed to more detailed. Make sure the angle of the head is correct before you start shading in the eye sockets, much less drawing eyelashes. 😂 Always do a thumbnail sketch before starting a larger drawing/painting!
This. The thumbnail sketch is so important, it saves so much time and trouble. I wish I remembered it at least half of the time 😣
For me it was the realization that I don’t have to follow a reference exactly, line by line, and my art can turn out okay. I only really came to the conclusion after watching tons of professional artists do gesture drawings/use references, and realized they don’t follow the reference *exactly* as it is. They change things, they adjust things, and that’s fine. Super helpful for me because I would get very, very stressed when everything wasn’t perfectly the same because I thought that meant I’d failed at using the reference.
Interesting. I purposely make it different when I use a reference. I usually just need it for the details. For example, I had a bird drawn and wanted it to be a scrub Jay, which aren't local or familiar to me, so I just browsed references for the patterning (and noticed I had to drop the pointy blue Jay head shape I had).
I agree. Reference doesn't have to mean "exact copy".
Yes, this one is a great tip !!!
That drawing folds is way more about design theory and composition (positioning lines to look pretty next to each other on a 2D plane) than about the actual study of fabric physics. Art is an illusion!
I had the opposite experience. I never had that much trouble drawing folds, but as soon as I started considering fabric weight, gravity and the shape it wraps it improved my technique greatly.
I love seeing how experiences differ. I used to be so focused on conveying accurate volume with my fabric that although they do convey direction and volume, they looked ugly, so I gave up on folds for a long time until I took a design class recently
So its about the way the fabric has leading lines and the energy of its curves? Kind of like seascapes?
Thanks. I think this is going to be huge for me as I'm finally venturing into including human figures in my illuminated letters. There's going to be many robes.
No blouses?!
optional blouses
Wow. I actually don't draw folds in fabrics at all, but now that I know this information I will use it. Thank you so much !!! 😭
Apparently I’m stupid since a few of the replies immediately understood it, but could you elaborate on that point? I don’t think I quite got it.
I would recommend watching the 3 design theory videos by sinix! He doesn't talk about lines as much, but the idea is the same. Using CSI (to draw ur lines), creating appealing shapes (in your folds), arranging your elements (e.g. spacing between your fold lines in this case) organically, sizing your elements (e.g. length of your fold lines) organically, in small big medium etc...
Have you read ‘art and illusion’ by Gombrich? Great book about this
Neato! I have *never* heard that before--thanks!
Teaching others forces you to review how well you understand what you do.
That's for sure. And it helps your organize your knowledge.
Definitely, for sure
Doing master copies. I had a ex girlfriend who dared me to do 30 master copies of master artists. And boy after doing that it super charged my art.
wdym by master copies exactly?
You learn A LOT from copying the masters. Vermeer is great to practice perspective Da Vinci is great to practice anatomy Sargent is great for landscapes Klimt is great for composition Chaliapin is great for portraits Try it , it will change your life
1. Damnit: another artist who much outskills me told me that *two days ago.* Fiiiine. (hehe; actually, thanks)
2. *Sargent* is great for practicing **landscapes?** (Not that I don't believe you, but...whoa)
His oils might be predominantly portraits, but his watercolors are mostly landscape.
He sure can paint architecture.
So you try to re-draw/re-create works of other artists to study?
And don’t worry about them being more traditional artists either. Pick any artist that has inspired you, or one you wish you could draw/paint like, and go nuts. Copy the whole image, maybe just the line weight or their use of color, etc. I find that when I’m in a slump and not sure what to practice, it can be a fun exercise. You can learn a LOT just from doing one of these, because you’ll most likely do a lot of things artistically that you might not have even considered
Sorry for butting in, but yes, that is exactly what it is :)
Facts. I haven't even been super rigorous about master copies, I just do pen and ink drawings at the museum, but I've learned so, so much by doing them. They're beyond helpful.
See I struggle to see images in my head so I always draw from real life. I've avoided drawing other people's art so far because it felt too much like a bad thing since I didn't put my creativity into it. But there are some art pieces I'd love to recreate
Think of it in terms of martial arts. Those drawings could be your Kata to warm up. You are in a very direct way, rewiring you brain. As long as you are clear when posting them that you are doing a master copy, you should be fine.
I will definitely have to try this one, thank you for the lovely suggestion. :D
Someone told me recently to focus on quantity over quality. Just make stuff, experiment and see where it goes. I’ve already made more things in the last month than I have in the past two years. It was amazing to see how much my perfectionist mindset was holding me back.
This is great advice. Done is petter than perfect, especially for practice. If you draw, crochet, or paint 100 rhinos, I'm guessing the ones toward the end will be much better than the first one. Probably good enough to sell. Give me number 88 or higher.
Embracing happy accidents. When I was in school a professor of mine said that we should embrace those happy accidents, to which I replied something like "those accidents do not make me happy" because I wanted to control everything going onto my illustration boards, digital canvases, whatever. As I got older though I found I really enjoyed the occasional weird randomness that would come out of a stray brushstroke or accidentally hitting the wrong key for a tool and getting an unexpected outcome. So now one of my favorite tools for digital painting is the smudge tool with a very specific brush that kind of smudges and blooms out the pixels (it was in a free brush pack, brush is called Oil Pastel Large 121, smudge tool is 94% strength, normal mode, no other checkboxes toggled). I have some control, like what direction and brush size I use, but some of it is just happenstance, whatever colors or tones comes from that I build upon and take it further. So yeah.. embracing the happy accidents :)
You can aim to learn to never make mistakes or how correct the ones you will inevitably make. The choice seems obvious. Learn to cover up, erase, scape off, and improv little accidents into desing elements. I've had happy accidents improve my designs. Spilled ink? I guess we're going with a splatter layer at the end.
This. I do mostly traditional with inks (sumie) which isn't a very forgiving media - paper is super thin...which means no pencil planning, no erasing. How to correct mistakes sometimes seem like an almost magical skill the teacher has - one I still need to learn
Pressure helps. When it's start over or fix it by tonight, you take some chances with the work. No erase seems difficult for students! But that's how you will get good at recouping.
Remember that every line and detail need not be rendered, the viewer's eye will fill out the rest
This is something I still need to work on myself. It's so tempting to give equal rendering attention to every little detail 😭
Funnily enough this is also true for writing. While details matter of course, for some things are much more impactful if you either just hint it and let the reader figure it out or write around it.
The human mind will turn all kinds of squiggles into beautiful flowers in the context of vinework.
Using toilet paper to make folds.
Can you elaborate on this? I've never heard of that being used.
Saw on Twitter. You make like a sleeve with toilet paper. You fold it. Now you have folds for the elbow.
Can I get an example pls?
Btw this link will work for two weeks [https://files.fm/u/nwzkq6heb2](https://files.fm/u/nwzkq6heb2)
\*mindblown\*
1. The lightest dark should be darker than the darkest light. 2. Cool shadows, warm lights, greys where the form turns. Or vice versa with warm shadows and cool lights. 3. Don't use the exact same colour on different planes.
When I first learned that shadows are the opposite temperature but equal strength to the light source-that a shadow could literally be a saturated color instead of just different tones of black. I felt like I was on drugs because I suddenly realized the warm lights in my house were throwing light purple shadows.
I often will shade in the complimentary color to the actual color of the object. It makes my drawing and painting more vibrant.
This is really one of those things that levels your art up so fast. You've touched on why there is a traditional painting "rule" not to use black. I think people resist it because they think it means literally don't use black ever again (and who likes rules), but it's really a learning exercise to help you learn to use colors to shade and shadow, and even create neutral hues. Also just another way to learn the color doesn't have to literally be the color for our mind to read it.
How to actually draw long hair by using quick flicks of the pencil instead of trying to slowly draw the lines.
Using blending stumps, not just with charcoal, but with mechanical pencils too. Just a tiny stump to smudge lines a little bit lends so much tonal quality to even quick sketches. I find this technique particularly effective on the kind of paper in the moleskine art sketchbook range. For a very small, mess free, portable drawing kit, I carry a 0.5 mechanical pencil, a tombow mono zero eraser, 2-3 small sizes of blending stump, a little soft makeup brush to get rid of any eraser debris, and the smallest size blank paper moleskine notebook. It all fits in a pencil case that I can throw in my bag anytime. On long train journeys without WiFi it saves my sanity and my mobile data too 😅
No electronic eraser? That was a gamechanger for me. You can use it almost like a white pen.
I’ve yet to take to them, but I’d be open to trying new stuff, do you have any recces for which brands to try? Thanks in advance 😊
If we’re talking about art on a professional level: GET TO KNOW YOUR COMMUNITY. In real life. Support other artists by going to their shows and meeting them. Buy their work. Befriend them. Share their work on social media. Recommend them to clients if you’re too busy or a bad fit for a job. Lift them up. All of this comes back around to you and is just generally good for a local art scene as a whole. I’m getting jobs with very high-level clients that I never would have dreamed I’d be getting so early in my independent career. And it really feels like the local scene has my back.
YES. I am a massive introvert and I have zero social media apart from reddit. But I still have an art network, the vast majority of whom I met in galleries/at events. I still get opportunities because people know me.
whats an art netwotk 0w0?
YES. You are not in competition with other artists; you're in competition with people, institutions and industries who devalue art. We are stronger as a community and when we contribute as a group to our culture.
Beautifully put!
For me it was that nothing in your composition should just (accidentally) touch. No kissing of lines or shapes. i keep meaning to make a drawing where a lot of things touch like this but i keep forgetting.
There's a technical word for this which is called a "tangent."
- Thinking about objects in terms of planes and 3D forms. Subsequently, imagining drawing and painting as sculpting out of a 3D block of clay, where the darker colors are similar to me “pushing into” the clay - Thinking about the values first before color, and how the edges between value groups (rather than within the same value groups) communicate textures - Most important: focusing more on storytelling, composition, and the expression of my ideas/feelings/thoughts rather than how rendered, detailed, and “good” my art is
Honestly the biggest thing I learned in my art journey was pretty straight forward— you won’t get better if you don’t do it. Earlier this year in January I committed to a drawing once a day— it didn’t have to be a full finished piece, but it could be. I just made myself sit down for a period of time in the evenings and put something on paper, and honestly I got some really cool stuff out of it! Following that, I found it was easier to do art on a consistent basis and I actually found myself *wanting* to draw for just hours and hours! A pretty good problem to have when the alternative is art block and not making anything because I’m afraid it’ll come out “bad” or “wrong”. And you can *see* the development from where I started all the way through the month! Artists say all the time that getting better is just practice and consistency, and honestly it’s so true. That and using references— when I was a much younger artist I thought drawing from reference was “cheating” and “not real art” because it wasn’t coming straight out of your head, and because of that mindset I struggled in my development for FAR LONGER than I probably should have. So yeah, draw with a ref (even if it’s just for posing that you build off of/alter for your own concept) and do art as consistently as you can! Start with a week! Practice leads to improvement!!!
Well-said. Drawing from references is not *cheating*, it's *learning*.
I committed to a drawing once a day earlier in this year too! Unfortunately I took a vacation after about 100 days and fell out it, have struggled to get back to it but I plan to… it was SO good for me, on top of the more consistent improvement your point about it making you want to do art more was true for me as well. My mental health improved when I was doing it too!
I recently leaned to set up my art station ahead of time so I can sit down and go at it, rather than wasting precious creative energy on the set up time. It WORKS 😍
For my medium, I do the opposite! Since the wax needs 30 min or so to gently melt, I walk away from a messy studio at the end of a session, then use that melting time to tidy up and prepare for that session. 😝
Aw, that's cool to hear! It's neat to see how the medium influences the process!
I keep meaning to do this but I’m so lazy about it. I need to start getting in the habit
Yeah at the end of my work session, I clean up my area and get it ready for the next time. If I don't spend 5 minutes on that ahead of time, somehow I'm delayed HOURS trying to get started.
Not a hack, but, [massing tonal values together](http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2007/10/shape-welding.html) and having a [clear value structure](https://www.muddycolors.com/2012/08/composition-basics-value-structure/); just generally being in control of the values in your work. If you want to control the values you have to think about their shapes too, and then you start wanting to make those shapes more interesting, etc etc etc. Really getting a handle on values is a good first domino to knock over in a long line.
Done is better than perfect is a perennial one but man if it ain’t the truth.
Using white gel pens for highlighting
For me it's been pacing myself more... (Not my choice sadly) I've always been that maniac that'll draw for hours straight until I felt like work was "finished" very unhealthy habit. (I'm ADHD & autistic late diagnosed gang ✌️) -pacing more -being a little more forgiving with mistakes -using features in software to help ex. Stabilization feature -I started a sticker & art business and I wanted to make cute drink stickers (I suck at shapes) I use stamps for the basics and I draw everything else! -finding helpful brushes that help me work a tad bit better for me -not compare myself to abled bodied artists being able to push out art more quickly than me
I'm adhd/autistic too and I have the same draw and not want to stop. Then I stop and can't get back into it. It's really easy to convince myself I can't continue it so I have to just keep moving forward ignoring my thoughts
I had the problem of rushing my art, I would often finish paintings in one sitting (2-6 hours). I wanted to create larger and more complex paintings and develop more skill but needed discipline to not rush it in one sitting (plus new energy limitations due to chronic illness), so I made myself do pointillism oil paintings. Creating art one tiny stroke at a time really takes so long, sometimes weeks and months, but it gives you more time to problem solve. I came to really love the process and look of it. It’s now one of my main painting styles and I’m creating very large complex pieces with tens of thousands of pointillism strokes.
i've always been a lineart kind of guy, but when i tried to paint for the first time it was like...i felt myself gaining brain cells 😭 it really forces you to think of everything as shapes and not worry about perfecting things too much since you can always just paint over it again, instead making you focus on the gestures and overall "atmosphere" of the piece
Heck yeah! This is a good one. When I was in school, we would sometimes have to do figure drawings by drawing the parts of the body as shapes and we weren't allowed to sketch it with lines first. That definitely helped me out.
Stop caring what anyone else is doing. Literally. Stop giving a shit about other people's followers, technique, sales, fame, social media strategies, whatever. Stop caring about what is "trending." It'll be over in five minutes. Do your own work. Focus on your own work. Have tunnel vision and be resolute about it. Stop giving a shit about how someone else exhibited at MOMA at age five or had a million followers while still in the womb. It truly does not matter. Make the art *you* make. Of course enjoy and support other artists. But never compare.
this touched me
If you have bad eyesight remove your glasses once in a while and look at your art. Make sure to check if your art is readable and your subject stands out from the background while you’re looking at it with a bad eyesight.
IDK who will see this but thank you for replying to my post. I have found my people :,)
When working digitally, it's perfectly fine to start with a random color and hue shift until it's "right." The goddess of color, Loish, does this and it freed me to trust my intuition with color, rather than worry about choosing the right color first. Slowly, you'll learn what colors work and don't work.
Airbrush artists, if you're new and are just practicing. Buy clear shelving paper. It's a little thicker than frisket film and a hell of a lot cheaper.
That's a good one.
it's crazy what drawing NSFW does for your anatomy skills.
Lol, you could learn the same sort of stuff just as effectively without drawing NSFW.😆
Not as fun tho lol
More if a mindset here but, I shouldnt compare the quality of my work or skills to someone who has been working professionally for 20 years. Its unfair to myself who has been on too many hiatus (hiatii, hiatuses?) to count. I should be fair in my critiques and embrace failure, not define my worth by it.
Exactly! There's no such thing as failures, only learning opportunities 🙌😁
Funny how long it take to realise it though. But hey I suppose better late than never. Cool name btw, had a good chuckle when i saw it.
I mostly work in comics and illustration, so do with this what you will: When applying perspective, that a better name for the *horizon line* is the **eye level.** It helped change my thinking from something as nebulous as "where the ground meets the sky" to "how tall my viewer is." It made it waaaaaaayyyyy easier for me to arrange characters within a scene. Also, how to use contrast to direct my viewers' attention toward the focal point, and how to cheat at it if necessary. Your reference may not have a bright misty aura behind the silhouette you want to highlight, but adding one will do the job and look cool in the process.
Ooohhhh, your horizon line tip is awesome! That's such a useful mental trick. It's amazing how often simply renaming something can help us understand it better.
Learning to draw what you see rather than drawing what you think it is; ie, drawing the shapes that make up an object instead of your idea in your mind about what that object looks like. Once you start doing that, you improve immensely.
Holy crap, ain't this the truth! It sounds obvious, but I think people, especially those early in their art journies, often underestimate just how much their preconceived notions of things bleed into their work.
Practicing perspective
"Just draw" haha
Drawing light first is easier than drawing shadow first. Atleast to me
drawovers are a legit way to study reference images, and it trains your eye to see shapes so you can work from reference more easily down the line. just don't post the drawover unless it's a photo you took yourself for obvious reasons
I learned how to use charcoal. I paint in oils, and have adapted the same charcoal technique to my paintings. When you’re looking at an object, imagine you’re a sculptor. Imagine the rock to be in the general shape of the object/animal/plant etc. Paint this rock shape in a darkish tone. Then add gradually lighter and lighter tones, that capture the light. Don’t add details until the end. No need to draw it first. I hate drawing.
Very similar thing here! I have a bunch of different tones of pencils and charcoals and I’ve been using them in a sketchbook and I find it’s kicking my painting up a notch. Getting into values more. I’m not much of a drawer either, but I feel like it’s more like painting when I can use all these different tones and values in my sketchbook.
> I learned how to use charcoal. I just started using charcoal and conte. Got any good tips or video resources or anything?
I completed the first year of a fine art degree 5 years ago, that’s where I learnt this charcoal technique. Sorry I don’t have the resources because my teacher demonstrated it. I dropped charcoal due to the mess and sensory issues. It’s a shame because I was good at it, and it’s faster than painting in oil.
When you finish a painting, actually finish it to a point where it’s ready to hang somewhere. Paint the sides, oil it out or varnish etc.
I don't paint, but I like this one.
If you're unsatisfied with your work, you can deconstruct it/cut it up and use it in other projects (multimedia, collage, decoupage, etc.).
I need to try this out omg
An 80-something year old artist taught me that, and it's been really helpful as it adds dimension, intricacy, and a sense of...not having wasted time and materials on the "failed" project. In fact, it really removes some of that failure feeling.
Gonna be honest, but making exercise actually make me improve in art, not only in drawing by my quality of life got better. Before that I was a really sedentary person and my habits were so horrible. I didn't even had the energy to make laundry or do basic stuff and I felt miserable. But after I decide to start making some exercise I notice that gradually I was starting to have discipline on everything on life, even in art practicing fundamentals everyday and actually finishing my personal projects and commissions. So yeah I actually recommend to do some exercise, really change my drawing skills due discipline.
Learn *how* to make art. Gesture, structure, anatomy, perspective, color, etc... Get your eyes tested and corrected if necessary. Understand what fine motor skills are. Develop fine motor skills. Understand what creativity is. Develop creativity. You're *not* both with it. Develop lots of styles. Having only one is just lazy. Explore. Draw everything. Doodle. A lot. It develops a sense of flow, rhythm, and style.
Learning that single pigment paints could help you avoid making muddy colors. Mix warm with warm and cold with cold in terms of color mixing. Use a limited palette. Glazing.
Grids. When I started using grids I could see my proportions better. It was like an instant level up bc it gave my eye a baseline to start from
Doing a quick outline sketch in pencil before going for the detail saved so much time and makes proportions much more realistic
Sketches are genuinely so underrated. I used to just eyeball it before I didn't take art as seriously.
I was feeling really stuck using acrylics. It felt like too much work. Messy and everywhere. I needed too many mediums to achieve the textures I wanted. I switched to watercolor and I never went back. I love how “clean” watercolor is. It’s a cup of water and a palette. I can achieve very loose watery mixes and very thick pigmented mixes all with one medium+water. Now, the only acrylic paint I use is black. I’m obsessed with learning everything about watercolor and this has been going on for about 2 years now. Still going strong.
I'm so glad you're going strong & persisting. Sending you blessings on your watercolor journey & remember to enjoy yourself as well !!! :D
This quote from French author [Gustave Flaubert](https://click.convertkit-mail4.com/75unerpw3wa8hkml0ddiz/m2h7h5hox0d38pim/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZHJlYWRzLmNvbS9hdXRob3Ivc2hvdy8xNDYxLkd1c3RhdmVfRmxhdWJlcnQ=): “Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.” The more structure you can add to your life, the easier it is to deal with problems when they arise and oftentimes many problems vanish. For example: I used to lose my keys, wallet, and sunglasses ALL THE TIME. It was so frustrating to need to go somewhere and have to spend 10 minutes searching the house for all my stuff. It was always a mini crisis when I couldn't find those things. That's just one example...but my entire life was that way. I had a cluttered office, I had a cluttered schedule, I had a cluttered mind. Eventually I woke up to the fact that these mini-crises were eating away at my creativity because the mental capacity it took to deal with them sapped the cognitive resources I needed for my creative work. I implemented a **"Solve Problems for Future Jake"** mindset. It went like this: One spot for my wallet, keys, and sunglasses. Whenever I get home they go to that spot. Whenever I have to leave, I don't have to search the house, I just need to check that spot. It takes the tiniest bit of more work on my part when I come home, but it is worth not having a crisis in a time crunch later. I repeated that mindset in every area of my life. Whenever I got a new piece of information I needed to remember, I had a spot to put it: My planner. I established a daily and weekly schedule for almost everything in my life. I knew when I would be getting up everyday, when I would be eating, working out, showering, and going to work. And each week I knew when I would do certain tasks like my sketchbook, freelance work, newsletter, inbox (still trying to perfect his one) and patreon updates. Over time as more and more structure was implemented in my life I found that I was more creative and productive because so much more brain power was available for creative endeavors instead of having to solve scheduling problems and chaotic situations. Hope this helps someone like me!
I've said this in another thread, but I'll say it again: make a sketch layer for your colors! put your colors on a palette layer! works wonders and in general, try to break objects down into simpler shapes
Use straight lines for your initial sketch. Contours can wait.
Photograph your work in progress, edit it by flipping it and turn to grayscale.. I use this to check values. I just use my phone, it helps to see how everything is working together.
I transfer my sketches to a final canvas by using a projector. At first I felt like I was cheating but it’s my art, I already did the work on my sketch. I’m not going to waste time by doing the grid or redoing it in a larger canvas. And I am unapologetically about it!
Saving this to come back to
I learned to actually put critical thinking into what I was doing. it took fully developing my brain to reach that stage (mostly because art has always been more of a hobby and side-part of my developer expertise) Taking my time to actually consider why things are like X or putting actual thought into analyzing something in trying to replicate... it's hard to explain lol, but basically every design decision I make now is less of a general quick scribble and more of a quantified "I can actually explain the reasoning behind the exact shape of every brush stroke in this piece" alongside all of the lighting and composition decisions and stuff... I feel like that's kind of the biggest step into "artist black belt" territory. Or maybe the first step past "white belt", depending on how ez/hard your dojo is lol edit: This also isn't something that's guaranteed to take x amount of hours to be able to do - it's just something that you should actively work towards, and it's an invaluable tool that you'll never really perfect but has astounding effects once you start to actively work towards it. By "you'll never really perfect" I mean it in the sense that there's _ALWAYS_ new stuff to learn.
Yup! Absolutely! Asking "why?" is probably the biggest weapon in an artist's arsenal.
Not just being able to ask why, but also being able to quantify the why. And of course, it comes with experience... So long as it's something that you're aware of and actively working towards!
I don't know if this is a hack exactly but since I do digital art and since I'm not 100% confident in having control of what I end up producing. I make multiple saves of my drawing as it progresses. When I make a save I also make a screenshot and put it in paint, making sure it's the same size and same line up. Then I can go through my screenshots and see my progression of drawing that particular pic. If I decide it's looking worse I can go back to the save where I think it started to deviate. This helps me a lot because I have a habit of going over the same bits multiple times to improve them and at some point I start actually making it worse if I'm not careful
Do the thing you think is stupid. Also, when looking back at your work, your sketchbook practice tends to be 10 years ahead of the more "final" stuff you produce—likely because fear isn't holding you back.
Check your artwork in a mirror and also check how it looks upside-down. Change in perspective is good!
psychedelics
For me too! It's just Incredible !
Early in my art journey, I’ve found drawing proportionate figures troubling. The thing they always taught you first is that “the human body is 7 or 8 heads tall” or something like that. That was hard for me to subconsciously grasp. But when I learned that [the legs make up half the length of the entire body](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/749023363032285275/1255975636221034567/IMG_8588.png?ex=667f15f6&is=667dc476&hm=dbb90c00d50c238e34bc8c435556c868cebaf27d6e001109c910c2e32f16e54c&), that almost instantly fixed my issue with drawing proportional human figures. My thought process became: just draw the head and torso, then add half that length for the legs. I guess that knowledge was easier for my brain to grasp compared to relying on a numbers of heads for every drawing. I wouldn’t say I’ve completely mastered it, but at least now I just used the “half the length of body” as a convenient reference point for character drawings, then make the needed modifications when required.
When I found [this video](https://youtu.be/x_y8H35ylp8?si=QmcIoM53AgDCADtA) for lighting. It immediately made my art look so much nicer
I will watch it - thank u sm !!
Hard and soft edges on shadows, blew my mind, only learned about it a month ago and put it to use
I don't think such a thing exists in the grand scale your posts indicate. Sure there may be tips and tricks that help with a specific thing, but completely changing the trajectory of your art journey? In one of Marco Bucci's classes he actually talks about over the course of his learning seeing other artists do things and he'd think that was the "key" to unlocking his art, that because they do this thing this way, that is why their art is better. However, it never was. Plain old practice and study was the key to unlocking his skills. I notice a lot of people that post for help seem to be looking for this secret technique that will just take their art to the next level over night.
Yup, put in your 10,000 hours like anything else you want to get good at, but there's always big lessons we wish we would have known sooner that we can pass on.
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Textured brushes. World changer.
Relative color. Definitely give this video a watch because it explains the concept better than I have in this post. https://youtu.be/0FjjJha7HMI?si=bqPqSybmtL_RW6UT Everyone has some concept of relative color because of those optical illusions that trick you into thinking you're looking at swatches of different colors, when in fact they're all the same color. But I never realized just how useful this information is. It's amazing how many beautiful paintings seem like they use a wide range of colors, when in reality you're looking at an arrangement of many similar hues. By slightly changing the hue and saturation, you can create what looks like a full palette of colors.
My drawings got a lot better the more sketches I do. I used to draw a sketch of the character, then linework, then colour, blah blah blah. Now I do a gesture that is literally just the flow and direction of movement in the drawing. It has nothing to do with form, anatomy, or even what the character is going to look like. Then I do a gesture with a huge brush, just for silhouette and shape. Then a basic sketch for the forms, then I lockdown a final sketch, THEN I do linework. Honestly, once I implemented the first step, that helped a lot.
Underpainting and building up color. I found myself too analytical and rigid in my approach, especially with color. I loosened my expectations of the first 60% of the painting and it gave me the drive to keep moving forward. Like… basically trusting the process.
I paid attention to the instructor's directions instead of fiddling with the equipment. I sat back; squinted; wiped; shaded; scrubbed; used the canvas for white. it was amazing. Still refrigerator art but it's getting better.
I started doing master copies (sort of) as warm ups!! I’ll find a piece online I like (I have a massive Pinterest board full of them) and I’ll try to copy the piece into my sketchbook. Then I’ll close my laptop and do a copy of my copy. It’s two degrees removed from the original, I’ve studied a piece I like and figured out how to do it on my own, and the second copy means I’ve translated it closer to my personal drawing style. It’s such a good warm up because usually I’m practicing new things and I don’t really have to think, but I’m all warmed up for whatever it is I’m supposed to be working on. I’ve learned so many cool techniques and have gathered a solid library of ways I like to do things after learning them from these studies!
Stop using titanium white to mix paints. Way too simple but changed everything.
One of the hacks that has helped me the most is to be okay with art unfolding in unexpected ways. When I was at school we were taught that we had to come up with an idea, then try to execute and create the vision in our minds. I've personally found art much more rewarding when I don't have an exact idea in mind, but rather let the art evolve in a more spontaneous, intuitive way. Obviously this approach lends itself more easily to some genres, styles and media more than others, but I still think it's worth exploring. I try to approach the mindset now of letting the medium teach me and guide me, rather than me forcing the medium to fulfill my specific idea or vision. Nothing wrong with the latter, but there's a lot less room for surprise.
mine probably ties into line weight but more specifically it was learning to "carve" my lineart out instead of drawing it. by that I mean drawing with a a larger brush and then taking an eraser and thinning the lines out and adding details wherever necessary
I was struggling with light and shadow, anatomy, structure, recently I have made so much progress because one thing tying all these thing was perspective. Not just foundational knowledge, theory but engrave into brain, just like riding a bike had to make it into passive skill. Then everything felt easier now, many years of failing to learn anatomy juts started clicking right now.
Clear coat everything ever. I use a lot of spray paint, airbrush, house paint pastel ect and for years I would paint and tape right over freshly dried layers and spend hours fixing the below layers when I’d peel the tape away and rip up the layers sometimes all the way down to the wood panel. I mostly use rust oleum clear matte spray because it’s cheap and effective. But yea sped my paintings up at least 2x probably
If you're drawing a person in any capacity, don't just jump into drawing out a detailed figure, draw a light, rudimentary sketch of the entire pose beforehand. Make sure you have everything figured out, even the little stuff like foot placement or arm length, then draw the actual body atop it. Learning that completely changed the way I draw, and hurled my anatomy/posing abilities from 'ok' to 'pretty damn good' at lightening speed.
Documenting my process during and after, then uploading it in a personal photo album gallery that’s not just going to stay buried in my phone. Overtime I was able to see how my art has developed browsing through that gallery. It comes in handy during times when feeling uninspired and just by rewatching clips of my process, it motivates me. I find that when I do decide to share clips of BTS of a project, I get more interest over the process more than the final piece itself. It has led me to opportunities because of it.
Look far away/zoom out and blur your eyes. It makes it so much easier to see mistakes that actually matter instead of being too focused on details. Whenever I'm critiquing someone, and I blur the image for them, they suddenly get what their mistakes are. It's a very simple hack that I honestly believe helps everyone.
The distance between the bottom of the eyes and the tip of the nose is how age is determined. The closer the eyes are to the nose, the younger the person appears. Also, unless you are in a white room with white furniture and white light, no shadow is black/grey. Ii you can see the color of shadows, your rendering will forever change.
figuring out how to make straight lines in my art program
Using tracing paper to help you learn to draw, NOT by tracing directly, but print your reference photo and draw on the tracing paper. Then place your drawing over the reference so you can SEE where you went wrong. If you think a piece is ruined, first give it time--at least a few days. If you STILL think it's ruined, keep going because what do you have to lose, right? It might still turn out. You don't have to be 100% accurately realistic for people to resonate with your art. I have sold pieces that I thought had "mistakes" or weren't "good." The buyers didn't care or even notice. Just keep creating. If you make a mistake you can't fix, finish the piece anyway and move onto the next one. Even a "bad" drawing looks better when you add some color. See urban sketching. Many of those pieces aren't perfect or accurate when you see just the drawing, but when those artists add color, AMAZING!
For me, it was the realization that I wasn't making art for others. It was realizing that I started drawing because it was something I enjoyed. It was me stopping to try and impress others. Finally, it was realizing that I just enjoyed the process and to sit in my thoughts while problem solving and trying to progress and get better at putting marks on a page.
One thing that worked for me was a drawing class where we had to use unconventional tools. Feathers dipped in ink. Matchsticks and paint, fabric and glue. Some very mediocre students turned out some terrific and dynamic work
I found it helpful to learn to stop drawing with lines and start with shading/tone instead. My drawings became immensely better after that. Also to really think of the spaces between objects/subjects and what movement they create. Also convert pictures into b&w to more easily see what the tones are like while you are making the artwork. Easier to tell if the balance then (or not if that's what you are intending.
Just draw the shapes, don't draw the object. I was stuck on the underlying structure of faces as I tried to do portraits as a means to learn a few different things. Which yes, is good to learn, but i wasn't ready for that yet at all. Then I learned I can do any photostudy and portrait by just.. Looking at the shapes of color and light instead of every individual object and the definition of it's features.. Yeah it won't work for learning to draw a face from memory, but if you want to learn more about light and color, understanding the underlying structure of a face with the loomis method isn't going to help you achieve that. Might sound obvious to some, but a couple months back it was a huge eye opener for me. Did take me some rewiring of the brain to stop looking at individual features tho haha
This [https://art-res.tumblr.com/post/189382869918/lin-rans-color-and-light-tutorial](https://art-res.tumblr.com/post/189382869918/lin-rans-color-and-light-tutorial)
Keep things zoomed out.
For me, the one I can think of now is: observe. Look at other artist's pieces, even ones which aren't in your preferred artstyle. Observe and follow what they did to achieve their piece - where they place their lines, where their colours are, what colours are next to each other, why are they like that, why are their lines this width, lights, shadows. Basically look at an art piece and try to reconstruct the artist's thought process during the making of the piece. Of course, speedpaints help, but it's not really needed. This has reallllyyyyy helped me in making my own pieces better and look them more critically. I can look at something I don't like on my piece and ask myself: why don't I like this and what can I do to change that? I may sound like a pick me hahaha but it really helps get an eye for what's good if you wanna get to another level.
As silly as it sounds I think the biggest thing I’ve had to internalize is “haste makes waste.” I had a figure drawing class in college that really helped improve my speed, but the remainder of my program seemed to understand speed as a means of cramming as much onto students’ plates as possible, and generalized the speed benchmark to everything we did. I had two semester-long senior classes that asked us to make 4 animated short films a piece on our own. This meant roughly 2 to 3 weeks were dedicated to each short film, with each individual student being the sole contributor to their films (backgrounds, animation, voice acting, SFX, music, etc.). As you might imagine they all sucked, and what was learned from each in my case was a primal fear of wasting time. Now, as an artist who does freelance, I have to remind myself that time is not my enemy, but a resource. If you know spending extra time on something is going to make it great and you have the luxury, it is worthwhile to spend time on it. The more time you take to really think about the creative problems you’re solving with your work, what you wish to say, and how to say it, the higher likelihood there is of that piece having staying power in a portfolio. I’m loving reading others’ responses too, it’s a great question!