Just finished writing this up on my blog, thought it'd be worth posting it here really ^^' It's a bit long, I had quite a lot to say, so... yeah. Hope this helps someone somewhat ^^'
I always get people saying to me "wow, I wish I could draw like that!" (I personally don't think I'm that great just yet and have a long way to go before I'm anywhere close to where I want to be, but I still get it.) And the thing is, they can! Given the time and effort, they probably could. The simple fact you WANT to is why. The problem starts in the lack of self-belief.
I call this unconventional because when someone asks for an art tutorial, they're mostly asking "how do I draw a head?" "How do you colour?" "How do you shade?" And then they get angry when all you can really say is "practise." There are things I can tell you, but I can only say so much before it has to become your own personal experience. I can tell you "start with a circle," "use complimenting colours," "think about the light source." But, with the exception of the head, that's not me telling you precisely where things go. I can't tell you "make that red!" because you might want it something else. If I told you that, that's not teaching you the fundamentals. That's just telling you what to do. Which is not what you want. And something people don't seem to understand is you need to begin with the fundamentals. I can show you what my drawings of, say, a fox look like and you could say "yeah, ok, I think I can draw that now" and draw my drawing. But did you learn its fundamental form? Probably not. Art is not maths, it doesn't have a set routine. You learn the skeleton, and the rest you must build yourself. "I can show you the door, but you must take the steps" comes to mind here really.
So, with that in mind, I felt a need to write this out. I'm gonna make some subtitles and explain each one. I'll use digital art as my main medium to talk about, simply because it's the one I work with most nowadays, along with pen/pencil and paper. But this applies to all mediums. And, in some ways, can apply to all professions, not just art related.
So let's begin.
Dedication
Leonardo Da Vinci spent 4 years painting the Mona Lisa. It took 150 people five years to make GTA IV. Vincent Van Gogh spent his life trying to sell his works. Myself, like every other artist, like most of those on my course, like most of us across the world, have dedicated ourselves to one thing. In my case, art. This doesn't mean throw away what you've had the ambition to do for years - it just means putting in some time to learn. Sit down at an hour a day or something and draw stuff. Draw your room. Draw your reflection. Draw your hand. Whatever you can see, draw it. And if you're a bit more serious, go out and find somewhere to draw. Find a crowd and see how quickly you can draw the area with the crowd in it. Draw a building - see if you can pick out the tiny details in the churches. Which actually brings me on to my next point.
If you're going to make it your life, it doesn't just need to be a hobby. You don't just need dedication. It needs to be an obsession.
Patience
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is skill. Like I said before, it takes years upon years to become good at art, or any profession in fact. Drawn something that you don't like? Don't rage quit and throw it in a bin! Keep it. Then draw it again. And again. And again, and again, and again. Until it looks right. Be patient and don't give up. And be an optimist about it. Thomas Edison didn't fail 1,000 times in making the light bulb, he just found a thousand ways it doesn't work. Over the past few days, I've found several ways in which my methods in drawing heads that didn't work before finally finding one that does.
Study!
Sounds obvious. But most people seem to take this as "copy your favourite artist". Read some textbooks about different theories, how to use your brush effectively, mixing paints and the like. And look at a variety of artists. And I don't mean copy their works. It's all well and good you can recreate someone's art piece, but did you really learn anything? Did you learn how they used light? Why stuff is that colour? Yes, you can look like this artist. But when it comes to making your own, it turns out horrible again because you didn't learn. Don't copy, but learn. Learn the anatomy, the form, the colours, the light. Once you learn the fundamentals and start applying them, your quality will take much further leaps than just going "yay, I can draw a pokemon now!" You can draw these characters if you like, but try doing it in your own style.
Light and colour theory are very important. Study the hell out of it. Look at stuff. That radiator isn't white. Even if it's brand new. It's got light from the floor and the wall reflecting off of it. Find the complimenting and contrasting colours. Find what colours not to use. Use warm colours together, then contrast with some cool colours. Learn it all and you'll notice a definitive improvement in how you use colour. It's not just "I want this Pikachu to be yellow" anymore, he's got a little bit of orange in there. So add in a tiny bit of red. You don't add shadows to colours just by making them darker. You need to increase the saturation as the value decreases (the value being how bright/dark the colour is in the black-to-white scale, saturation is how much of orange is in there. Search it up, it's hard to explain without pictures.) Try going to classes too, if you can of course. Life drawing sessions are a great place to start. The tutors can teach you about every part of the body, how it's shaped, how the form fits together. And don't be objective in their either. Got a wrinkly old man? Suck it up. And actually, as I recently discovered, it's probably actually better to have a wrinkly old man because the skin has more detail in it than that fair-skinned lady you were hoping to have. Either way you have it, you're there to learn, not to get dreamy.
Learn your tools and experiment
Learn how to use your tools. All of them. You may be sat there forever on Photoshop looking at an artist thinking "how did he do that?!" and find out that the answer was sitting in your tool bar the whole time. Find out what each of these tools do and how you can utilise them. Mess about with their settings a little too, and see what you can come up with. Custom brushes and the like. One such example of this was I was using Paint Tool SAI the other day (a great program for digital painting, much more simple than Photoshop, sensitivity levels are more accurate, very fluid and much less demanding on your system, give it a try) and I'd been trying to create one particular effect for ages using the pen and watercolour tools. No matter how hard I tried, it didn't come out quite the same as the artist I was looking at. And just the other day, I was messing about with a few of the other tools that I don't use often enough. Wait... is this marker tool doing what I think it is? It is! Wow! Doing exactly what this artist was doing! So yeah, learn your tools and experiment. Not just with the tools and settings, but with other programs too. Photoshop is pretty damn good for digital painting. And as so many internet artists have found out in the past year or so, Paint Tool SAI is a God send. Don't be afraid to poke about a little and see what else there is.
Your workspace
Art isn't just about how you're making it, but also where. Working outside can have some really calming effects that add to the therapy many artists experience when painting. Helps you to focus. Set out your workspace into something you really like, something that helps to keep you focused and comfortable and inspired. On my desk, I have my computer set up with two screens, one is a monitor I bought and the other is my TV that I'm using as a second screen when I'm not playing my Xbox. On my main screen, I'm drawing, and on the other I have Spotify loaded, or Youtube, or a video - something that I can play as ambience. Also have Firefox open if I need to do any browsing. May also have my laptop on if I want to be on Skype too. I have a nice little drawing I bought from DeviantArt set just next to my screen and my desktop background is always an inspiring image. Just by coincidence, my room is pointing South so it always has the sun in it during daytime (when Britain's poor weather permits). It's a nice little spot that helps me keep calm and relaxed, whether I'm painting or 3D modelling or animating or doing anything else that I need to do. Set up a little space in your room you can do these things, or your spare room or whatever. Make a little workspace somewhere.
Find something you enjoy
Pretty obvious really. But, if you don't enjoy drawing vehicles, or people or something, then why are you trying? Draw some landscapes instead. Find what you enjoy making, what inspires you. For me, it's colours and light, it's characters of the human, animal and in-between, and landscapes. Vivid colours, using light well, it all attracts me and makes me really want to do better. Combining these points makes me want to create something wonderful. (Just, whatever you do, don't hang up three blank canvases and call it art... That's just... No.)
Drawing doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be a chore. It doesn't have to be something to throw about after getting your line art wrong. Time, patience and study is what will make you skillful. Not jealousy, raging and tracing.
In fact, on the point of jealousy, try using your green-eyed vision to be inspired by what you're envious of and let it make yourself more determined to become better.
