Author name: kakkarjiya8@gmail.com

drawing skills

How to Draw Anything: practices to improve your drawing skills

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How to draw anything? Pick up your sketchbook and pencil, and let’s get started. 1. Train your eyes to notice the overall shape of things first In order for you to learn how to draw anything, you need to train your eyes to trace the overall shape of the objects you are willing to draw. Everything in nature is just a bunch of shapes put together. Once you have trained your eyes to extract the overall shape of an object, it will be very easy for you to draw anything you see. 2. Practice drawing shapes This will be a great warm-up exercise and a very efficient way to get used to sketching the objects you are willing to draw. My only advice here would be to do the practice at a moderate pace. Don’t go so slow that you overthink the shapes you’re drawing, and don’t go so fast that the shapes are sloppy or whatever. I personally like to practice oval and circular shapes, as well as 3D boxes, because I feel like these shapes are more common in everyday items. 3. Pick your desired object to draw and start tracing the basic shapes of it Whatever you are willing to draw, print a picture of it, or place a piece of paper on top of your screen and try finding the basic shapes in your object. 4. Measurements and proportions matter more than details The biggest mistake that beginners make is to get caught up in details when the proportions of their subjects are absolutely off. As a starter, you can trace your reference photo for the most accuracy and work your way up from there. 5. Value is the trickiest part about drawing and painting A value is how dark or light an object is. When looking at a picture, we can usually guess the light source only from the shadows on the different objects. The closer an object is to the light source, the lighter the value will be, and vice versa. 6. Experimenting is your best friend Experimenting with different materials, techniques, colors, etc. is such a shortcut to finding your area of mastery, what you enjoy the most, and what works best for you. Make sure you start with pencils and work your way up to colored pencils, pastels, acrylics, oil paint, and so on. The more you experiment, the more you figure out where your creative energy feels most at Home. Conclusion These are some of the tips I personally follow to create realistic drawings, either from photo references, from real life, or from my imagination. Leave me your concerns and questions in the comments section below for further insights on how to draw anything.

oil pastels

A Beginner’s Guide to Oil Pastels Drawing: Bonus Tips

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 What are oil pastels? Oil pastels come in sticks (mostly) or crayons. They are basically a mix of pigments, waxes, and mineral oils. Oil pastels are a great medium; they offer a similar greasy finish to that of oil paint; they can be applied to multiple surfaces; they have great color intensity; they add texture to the work of art; and they are easily blendable and ideal for larger surfaces.  Are oil pastels good alternatives to oil paint? In my humble opinion, nothing beats paint and a brush. But oil pastels are perfect for beginners, and here’s why: Oil painting requires so much more preparation and a lot more materials than oil pastels. The latter is quick, easy, and does not require any brushes or solvents.Therefore, oil pastels are ideal to travel with and make no mess. Oil pastels are also way more affordable than oil paint and its mediums. They also come with the possibility of being scratched off, built up, blended, used to look like wet paint, or used dry.  How do you use oil pastels in your art? Any painting or drawing technique is going to be tricky for a total beginner. How to draw with oil pastels as a beginner and how to blend them is something you need to practice and experiment with before you can move to create your desired artwork. Oil pastels, like every other medium, require some techniques and tips to make the art process easier. Tips for oil pastel drawing for beginners When learning to use oil pastels, it is always good to look for some tips as well as dos and don’ts of your medium. The following tips are ones that I found very helpful in my first experience with oil pastels. Oil pastel drawing for beginners: the don’ts

watercolor painting

Mastering watercolor painting: The power of values and contrast

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What is watercolor painting? Watercolor painting (also called aquarelle) is a method of painting in which the paint used is made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. What do you need for watercolor painting? First, we need watercolor paper. And I mean paper that is specially made to handle the flow of water and paint. You can choose between watercolor pads, books, or individual sheets. I recommend pads because, whether you use them for practice and studies or to paint actual creative artwork, they are easier to store, carry around, and keep all your progress in one place. Your second need will be watercolor paint. They come in tubes as individual colors or in palettes. Both are the same, but I prefer mixing my shades, so I would rather get individual paint tubes in a limited range of colors. Then, of course, you need to pick up your brushes. Your next supply is a spray bottle of water. You need to activate your watercolors before you start painting which is a common mistake among beginners that leads to pale washes of color. The extras will be a pencil, an eraser, some scotch tape, a cup with water to clean your brushes, and tissue paper for cleaning because watercolor painting is a bit messy. Time to get started with painting To get started with watercolor painting, you need to begin by getting used to the medium first. Spray your colors with water, take your brush, and get it filled up with the activated paint, then go ahead and start swatching your colors on the paper. Use the brush wet and dry, paint with both the tip of your brush in lighter and stronger pressure, and just see what the different achievable outcomes are with the supplies you have on hand. In watercolor painting, tonal values and contrast play a very fundamental role, because you do not use a specific color from the color wheel to make your colors lighter or darker, rather, you use water to change the tonal value of your colors. A lot of water with a bit of paint will result in a lighter tone, while a lot of paint with a tiny bit of water will give you a darker tone/value. Practice painting different values using watercolor Your first practice is quite simple but makes the most sense for watercolor color painting practice. You are going to grab a sheet of paper and draw a tonal value scale going from 1 to 5 as follows: Try this practice with different neutral shades such as gray or tan (I used red because it picks up better on camera) to understand the scale value better. Conclusion Remember that mastering any art technique or medium is an ongoing process. Feel free to create at your own pace. If you enjoyed this article and found it helpful, make sure you check my other articles about pencil drawing, colored pencil drawing, oil pastels, acrylic paint, oil paint, and many more relevant topics in art and creativity.

acrylic paint

8 Ultimate Best Acrylic Paint Tips for Beginners

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As many of you may already know, I have painted using acrylics for over 7 years. It’s one of my top recommended paint mediums for beginners because it’s so easy, much cheaper compared to oil paint, dries a lot faster, and is super practical for long practice hours as it is scent-free and most brands contain no dangerous chemicals. In this article, I will share with you my 9 ultimate best acrylic paint tips for beginners that will change your painting sessions and elevate your paintings. Let’s move on to the acrylic paint tips for beginners 1- Keep track of the color combos you mixed to avoid mixing big amounts of paint Beginners usually forget that acrylic paint is so fast drying, if you mix a color today, you won’t be able to use it tomorrow. It will dry in a maximum of 4 hours (if the layer is thick). For that reason, I always recommend my readers mix an as little amount of paint as needed for the session and keep track of the colors and amount needed of each hue to obtain the color mix. I keep swatches of the shades I mixed on my sketchbook alongside the colors I used and an approximate percentage of the amount used. 2- Mix lighter shades of your paint because acrylic paint dries darker Another reason to avoid buying cheap acrylic paint is the fact that the cheaper it is, the more filler and less pigment it has. So try your paint on a surface and let it dry completely, then compare the outcome to the initial color. You will be making colors way more accurately. 3- Use a damp brush to blend your paint Acrylics are super easy to blend, but because of their dry nature, once blended, they could come off as patchy and streaky. To avoid that, I recommend you mix your transitional shades, and put them on your canvas, then come with a dump, soft yet stiff brush to blend the edges of your elements and achieve a soft coherent look. 4- Use the lifting method to create softer backgrounds and paint clouds Just like any other water-based paint, acrylics could be lifted for you to achieve soft effects. Let’s say you want to paint clouds. You start with painting the background, then instead of adding white paint on top of it, you take a rug, a dry towel (or a wet one for a little lifting), and dab on the areas where you want your clouds to go. That way you are erasing, removing, or lifting the paint from those areas which will leave you with a soft stained surface that looks so much more realistic. 5- If you like clean edges, use masking art tape Masking tape is definitely a great hack for those of you painting architecture or landscape as well as those who like perfectly clean edges. 6- Allow your layers to dry before moving on to details Details are best added with a wet detail brush on a fully dry surface. The bristles on a wet brush hold together, creating a sharp point for you to add your details. Keep in mind that the lighter your touch on the canvas, the thinner your lines will be. 7- Muted colors improve your paintings Muted colors are subtle colors or colors that have been subdued, dulled, or grayed. The opposite of a muted color is a bright, vivid, saturated color. When you use bright colors everywhere in your painting, then nothing can really stand out, as the entire painting will be bright. This washes out your focal point with its surrounding colors that have the same brightness level. Think of it like a competition. You never want your focal point to compete with other parts of the painting. 8- Cover your palette with plastic wrap if you want to take a break It will still need to be a brief break, but it helps if you want to take a pause or take care of a different task. However, never leave the caps off your acrylic paints or leave your brushes loaded with paint. Conclusion These are some acrylic paint tips for beginners that create a big difference in your process of painting with acrylics as a beginner.

paint brush

How to know the right Paintbrush to pick as an artist?

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How to know the right paintbrush to pick as an artist? A few weeks ago,  How to know the right paintbrush to pick as an artist? A few weeks ago,  How to know the right paintbrush to pick as an artist? A few weeks ago, I made a Beginner’s Guide for the different art paints that exist out there and what makes each one of them suitable for a different project.  My readers seemed to enjoy that article and found it very helpful, and that made me write this article about different art brushes and the ones you really need in your collection.  So the way I mentioned in the art paint article, every paint is suitable for a different project. You need to know that paint brushes too, depend on the paint you are using and the desired shapes and lines to paint.  For this article, I will share with you a detailed response to How to know the right paintbrush to pick as an artist as well as brushes I have personally used for reference.

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