“I can’t draw!” is no excuse. Everybody can learn drawing at any age. There is no guarantee he or she will become world famous artist, but just about everybody can learn to make beautiful pictures if he is only willing to put some effort in learning. Serious learning involves a teacher who can not only draw, but can also explain some basics of using the pencil and paper to produce satisfactory results.
If you want to start the adventure in the amazing world of graphic arts, try to focus on next areas:
1. Observation
Draw by observation of objects and people, not by the pictures of objects and people. Having a chance to touch the object, to follow the lines around it and than repeat the same moves with a pencil on the paper can be great practice. The most common mistake at drawing is, believe it or not, if we don’t look at object of drawing. Our brain is designed in the way we actually tend to draw the things as we think they look, not as they actually look.
Great exercise is drawing lines without watching at the paper while the pencil is still moving. With draw completely new things you can avoid ‘prejudices’ you brain already has on many everyday objects. After a while you will learn to observe known objects in completely new light.
2. Imagination
Encourage drawing of imaginary beings and events. Ability to draw is closely related with ability to observe. If you can’t notice the details, you really can’t draw them. This can be trained really well, but don’t forget the iamginary part without which a drawing can’t become an art piece. This means drawing from imagination, experimenting with shades and colors, using different drawing techniques …
Show great examples of the work only after practice. If you do that before, our mind is designed to copy and this will not help to imaginary part of the brain.
3. Use proper tools
There are many drawing tools available and some of them are designed to make the process of drawing as easy as possible. But you should never skip the basics. This means graphite pencils grade B (B stands for soft, H for hard pencils), soft white plastic eraser and white paper.
Charcoal, chalk, water colors, crayons, markers, color pencils are all great, all can serve different purposes, but learning in general starts with a graphite pencil. It is as simple as that.
When you master the basics, the world is your oyster. You may even try yourself at silverpoint technique!
4. Help
Good teacher will help pupils with asking questions, not giving explicit instructions. Children who acquired skills through answering the questions (which should not be too direct), will improve faster and become much more self confident.
It is of course absolutely clear there will be no progress without some criticism. Good critic will always find a way to praise at least some aspect of the work before he draw attention to mistakes. Devastating criticism in never constructive, it can only demoralize the student.
5. Practice
More is still better. But you should always make it fun, never boring. Practice details, every great picture is made of tiny details, so there is always a way to find small, doable projects, where improvement can be visible and useful in relatively short time.
Don’t spend too much time on correcting mistakes. Try to use them as a source of inspiration. Errors initiated many great inventions!