5 Quick Tips About Pencils

Everyone seems to know something or other about art, so I devised my top 5 tips to get a great drawing...

These are based on the drawings of people, however these tips can be used generally for drawing too...

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1. Light to dark

First things first, always start with the lightest areas first. Most artists  find that not only does it make sense, but it makes your life easier to go from lighter to darker tones when drawing.

This is best as you can make adjustments as you go along without damaging the surface of your paper or creating ugly smudges where you've erased inaccurate lines.

Light from dark also means the building up of layers...

Ramirez Ricardo Garduno
http://www.ricardogarduno.com/RicardoGarduno/

2. Layers!

Don't press down hard straight away...
I find when people start drawing, they will press down on the paper with force to create darker tones. DO NOT DO THIS! Even if you know what you are doing, build up the layers to create darker and darker shades.
The building up of layers can also add more character to the drawing than perhaps originally intended.
For darker tones use a 6B, 5B, 4B, 3B, 2B and perhaps even a B pencil. Personally, I have not used anything more than a 6B pencil, but I found these brilliant for creating darker tones.
For a more mechanical and detailed drawing, use the H pencils which have a harder lead to give a more crisp drawing.

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3. Light

Getting lighting right is always tricky...

It may be easy when you have a photo in front of you to copy from, but you can get rather stuck when you're on your own.

Top tip with light: Always know which direction it is coming from! A nightmare would be shading that doesn't make sense.

If you get really stuck, look at someone near you to get the rough shading of the face.

Vitruvian Man
Leonardo Da Vinci

4. Draw guidelines and construction lines

Your drawing may start off looking like a bunch of lines and circles, however some drawings, especially the human face and animals, need guidelines.
I wouldn't tell you to use guidelines and construction lines unless I use them; I can personally say that they are brilliant and have been a life saver on more than one occasion.
Do these  guidelines very, very lightly because then they are easy to rub out, of even shade over later. Doing guidelines and construction lines darker will leave marks in the final drawing and would definitely cause your drawing to look a little strange.

Something I love
Imagine Dragons

5. Draw something that you love

When you draw something you love, you will always feel better about it because you loved it before you drew it. Try drawing it repeatedly and in different ways. If you do many different drawings of the same subject in different poses and arrangements, you will see a lot of improvement and fast.

Each time you draw it, you'll notice something new. The proportions will get better over time, you'll get the shading more accurate and you'll lay it out better.

Try it in different mediums too; don't just use sketching pencils. Try coloured pencils, pens, coloured pens, watercolours, acrylic paint, oil paint, or maybe even oil pastels.