Drawing Exercises

Practice and exercises?

I am 16 and I am am really into art, but , i am still a beginner. I draw and paint. What are some exercises or somthing that i could do to help improve with my art?

Public Comments

1. Developing an eye for precision and refined lines are only a matter of practice. It is called an art because the meaning of it is an abstract of the imagination. One might say it is an art and another might say it is junk. I find the best exercise is to take a pencil and paper and draw. Show the results to a trained eye for critic and opinions are always welcome. Also, you may want to visit museums and commercial art places to get inspired and learn the history.
2. there is a book titled "Drawing form the right side of the Brain" it has exercises and guides in it and it is tons of use, i recommend you get it (borders books or such as that) you won't be disappointed
3. the best thing you can do is sketching. draw anything you want (people, inanimate objects, whatever). By sketching a variety of things, you really get an eye for form (how something is shaped, kind of like a skeleton of that object). just keep on sketching and drawing will become easier and you might improve.
4. I totally agree with the person who mentioned the book "Drawing with the right side of your brain" - very practical, and written in an easy to understand way. Extremely helpful book !!
5. There are lots of different things you can do to improve your work. Sketching from life is one of the best. Carry a sketchbook with you and a pen- or variety of pens and when ever you have a bit of time draw what ever or who ever is in front of you. Try to include a variety of subjects, but all from life. Draw what you see. Try to keep things simple, using basic shapes to describe what your looking at. Don't get too caught up in details just thing of gesture and proportions. Also Practice perspective and basic shape drawings. Draw boxes in different positions, looking down at it, looking up at it. do the same for cylinders and other forms. as you start to get good at it use harder and harder forms. The human body is a great example of a complex form- your arm can be described as a cylinder, your wrist as a box, and your hand as another box with a thumb attached. When you think of what your drawing as a form, rather then an outline your drawings will look more 3 dimentional. A good exercize to practice line quality are blind contour drawings. Get a subject- old boots and leather bags are pretty good, sit down in front of it and without looking at your paper slowly draw what your looking at. Think of how each form wraps around your subject. Try to describe the material using your lines, for a harder heel you might use a sharper hard line, for old warn leather a softer fuzzy line. For painting particularly in oils a fun way to paint is to carefully plan your whole piece lightly and then paint spot by spot. Start with the darkest spot and the lightest, Then choose another spot and comparing it to the first two paint it. keep comparing your new spot to the ones you've already painted, comparing color and how dark or light it is. It turns out really neat if you go by the colors you think you see, rather then what you expect to see. For a lemon, you might use green purple and blue as well as alot of yellows and oranges and when you stand back- it will look like a lemon, because all the colors will blend together. This really helps with thinking abstractly. If you had mentioned what type of thing your interested in I could probably come up with more specific ideas, but these are some good general starters.