Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 4: Buy what you need
• Method 2 of 4: Work on Your Skills
• Method 3 of 4: Lessons and Tips from the Professionals
• Method 4 of 4: Working in a related field and art
• Tips
• Warnings
• What do you need

Being an artist means constantly working on yourself, your technique and constantly developing. This is part of the growth of any artist, and a person can change technique several times during their entire professional career. Developing your skills is a long way to go, but the result can meet all expectations if you move slowly and patiently forward.

Steps

Method 1 of 4: Buy what you need

1. 1 Get the things you need for drawing and painting. Pencils, washings, notebook, pastels, paints, easel ... Buy what you see fit. New tools can inspire you. Buy starter kits because they are easier to use than cheaper art student kits.
   • Buy an inexpensive sketchbook with many pages and a sketching kit that includes a plastic eraser and several types of graphite pencils. This kit can also include charcoal pencils, charcoal sticks, graphite sticks, and brown, gray, or reddish sketch sticks. All of these tools are extremely useful and are cheaper to buy as a bundle.
   • "H" and 2H, 4H, etc. are hard pencils that can be sharpened finely. They leave faint marks and are easy to cover with paint or ink. These pencils are used for sketching. The "F" is a medium hard pencil. It is slightly stiffer than HB (HB is the hardness of a standard pencil). The letter "B" denotes soft pencils, and each successive degree of softness produces a darker line. Pencil 2B is good for sketching, pencil 4B is for shading, and pencils 6B and softer are already charcoal and easy to smudge and use to create shadows.
2. 2 Buy some books on the basics of drawing. There are books on how to draw animals, horses, seascapes, etc. Choose what interests you the most. Try to do at least one drawing a day. You can frame your art and hang it on the walls to encourage you to develop further and not forget about your daily workouts. You can flip through all the books in the bookstore to see what works for you. Do all the exercises in sequence and do not try to cover everything at once.

Method 2 of 4: Work on Your Skills

1. 1 Date all pictures. Sketching doesn't have to be complicated: spending five minutes sketching a facial expression will be more rewarding than spending half an hour trying to create a detailed image. If you have half an hour, it's best to do a few different sketches. Try to do everything right, but do not strive for perfect execution. You can achieve good technique if you practice regularly.
2. 2 Choose your favorite subject to paint. It can be a cat, a flower, a stone, a bottle through which sunlight passes. Any object that you would like to learn how to draw well and which is dear to you will do. Keep drawing this subject over and over again in different ways. Regularly working on one item or a group of similar items (for example, your cat, your neighbor's cat, the cats from the postcard, cat's paw, or cat's nose) will give you an idea of ​​the subject's anatomy and proportions. After you have made enough sketches of your cat, it will be much easier for you to portray a tiger the first time. If you draw small stones all the time, then it will be very easy to draw a mountain.
3. 3 Sketch everything you see. This can be a bum with an outstretched arm, or a little girl running down the street with a balloon in her hand. Sketch whatever you find interesting!
   • Beginners should start with still lifes, because drawing them is easier - objects don't move. First, choose the simplest objects: an unadorned vase, a few pebbles, a flower with a few petals, an empty bottle of an interesting shape, and so on. As a practice, draw each of the objects separately, then start combining them in different ways to see if they work well. The immobility of the subject is a big plus for still lifes, and if you paint indoors, the lighting does not change during the day.
   • You may like to draw animals. Start with your pets. Draw them when they sleep, even if the pose is not very interesting, because drawing a stationary object is easier. Draw animals from photographs. Go to the zoo and take pictures of every animal you like and use the pictures in your drawing. Search the internet for non-copyrighted animal photographs and other photographs that are not prohibited from drawing. You can even write to photographers who take good pictures of animals and post them on Facebook or Flickr and ask for their permission to use the pictures. Many will happily agree and want to see your drawings. When you learn how to quickly draw animals, start drawing in zoos or in the wild (for example, draw birds that flew to the feeder). Drawing from life is a good way to learn how to quickly capture movements and poses.
   • Draw buildings and other architectural structures. Explore perspective, because when working with buildings, perspective is responsible for the realism of the image. Find a book on perspective and do all the exercises. Be careful when drawing from photographs, as the lens can distort space, so to be able to draw from photographs, the photograph must first be corrected. This is one of those drawing objects that never loses its relevance. As with still lifes, you can draw an object from life without fear of getting up and leaving.
   • Landscapes is a classic drawing and painting theme. Make small sketches of your summer cottage, sometimes larger, sometimes a little wider. Go hiking, go to parks with a drawing pad. Take a few quick sketches to outline the main elements of the composition, and then choose the drawing you like and repeat it in detail. Do not start with small leaves, as it will take you an hour for the entire branch of the tree. Details are much easier to work out than generalities. Painting landscapes requires a knack for texture, shape and changeable light, so learn to paint quickly.First, fix the shapes and shadows, because in half an hour the lighting will be different, and because of this, everything will look different.
   • You can also draw people. Start with friends and family you could convince to sit still for at least half an hour while you draw. Paint portraits of people you care about. Sketch all the people that interest you. Here, too, try to sketch out the most important features in a few quick lines before the person goes on about their business. Sketching in a public place is a great way to meet someone, because people come up all the time and ask what you are doing. In this case, you always have a topic of conversation - art. This topic is loved by many, and it is not so confusing.

Method 3 of 4: Lessons and Tips from the Professionals

1. 1 Look for painting and drawing lessons. Now there are such lessons in many places. Remember that you will have to spend money on this, but it will be worth it.
   • Search the internet for tutorials, art videos, and painting and drawing DVDs. Many professional artists release video tutorials in different formats. On some sites like http://www.wetcanvas.com you can also find free lessons where volunteer teachers give assignments, evaluate the result, and help in every way. Sites like http://how-to-draw-and-paint.com have many free tutorials and e-books available for download. Before you buy lessons, read the reviews and watch the trial video to see if the presentation style is right for you and if you like the teacher.
2. 2 Subscribe to specialty magazines. There are magazines that publish articles on how to paint and paint. The more you read, the easier it will be for you to master different techniques. The accumulation effect is important here. It may seem that drawing is easy because it is easy for people to draw, but in fact it is a long process that requires effort, patience and constant learning. All this is included in the concept of talent, because talent is such a strong love for one's work that a person is ready to come to terms with mistakes in order to learn how to do everything well. People believe that a person has talent when they can recognize real objects in drawings.
3. 3 Learn composition and design. Read books on design and composition, and take design classes. Good composition distinguishes a real artist from an artist who makes copies of other images all his life. Learn to frame the image correctly, choose objects, direct the viewer's eyes to the most important details of the picture: to the eyes of the person being depicted, to a sunspot in a landscape, to an animal leaning over the water, to people on the beach. Some objects attract attention on their own (for example, cute kittens), but you can make a picture so that it will be difficult to take your eyes off it if you learn the rules of composition.

Method 4 of 4: Working in a related field and art

1. 1 Find a job (if your age already allows it). You can work in a shop that sells drawing and painting supplies, or as an assistant in a design office. Meet curators or gallery owners and offer to help organize exhibitions, and it is possible that over time you will be hired. You can sell your paintings on eBay or Etsy, paint custom portraits, show portfolios to galleries, sell paintings at special street exhibitions.
   • The kind of art you make will affect where your work sells best and your earnings. When you start doing something interesting that other artists are not interested in, earnings start to rise. You can draw original cats, dragons, animals and children in the manga style, or you can practice classical painting. Someone will always sell something, and someone will buy.Sell ​​your art and make people enjoy the purchase, even if you know you could draw something better. The connection with your painting that the person who bought it feels is real and lies in the realm of emotions. Your criticism of yourself as an artist has more to do with your desire to develop, and not with the real value of the work. More often than not, you will be the most biased critic of your work.
   • To start making money through art, learn to work for yourself. Many aspects of this form of employment are not primarily related to your talent, but to your ability to manage money and time. If you like to set your own work schedule, make all decisions, including financial ones; if you can work without a boss and are ready to do the planning, scheduling and manage all projects yourself, then this job may be for you. If not, it is better to make art your additional source of income and look for a stable main job related to creativity, where you will have a manager, regular earnings, bonuses and will not have excessive responsibility. The amount you need for complete happiness depends only on you. If you are completely healthy, you most likely do not need a lot of money in order to feel like a happy freelance artist, but if you have a family and children or any health problems, it is better to get a job somewhere for a steady income and do art in your spare time.

Tips

• If you get annoyed that you can't draw everything exactly as it looks, take a deep breath, count to 10, and take a short break. Then try to draw something simple that you already know how. If you are an aspiring artist, try to paint very quickly and at fixed times. Select a stationary object as an object: an eraser or a beverage can without a sticker. Sketch in 2 minutes and move on to the next one. Realistic drawings begin to be obtained only through constant work. In the same way comes a sense of perspective, skills in black-and-white drawing, a sense of proportions, etc.
• To achieve excellence, you need to train. Better yet, abandon the idea of ​​perfection and replace it with the idea of ​​beauty. Errors can lead to unexpected results. Even the most experienced artists sometimes make mistakes and are always happy about them, so they learn from mistakes. Ridiculous accidents can create a masterpiece, and this happens often. Perfectionism stifles art, so abandon this approach. Try to enjoy the process and perceive everything as an artist. You will find that when you learn to draw objects realistically, you will be able to see the world in a new way, even if you are not drawing. Learn to paint portraits, and you will begin to see beauty in every face, and in the faces of people who are considered perfectly beautiful, you will notice minor flaws - that is, what makes a face memorable.
• Do not hurry. It takes years to become a professional.
• Landscapes are easier to work with. If you make a mistake (for example, depict the mountain too high or place the tree too far from the foreground), you don't have to worry. If the big picture looks good, then you intuitively tweaked the view. A painting is not a photograph. It does not have to be very accurate in rendering all the smallest details, unless you want to capture a famous place or statue, but even then you can change the appearance of bushes or clouds. Perhaps you could more accurately convey something if you came closer or sat down. In any case, don't worry if something doesn't work out the way it actually looked.
• Buy cheap baby toys: solid colored bricks, balls and cylinders without pictures. It is very useful to practice drawing such shapes, as it allows you to learn to see more complex designs as a combination of geometric shapes.Place them on a table so that the light falls from above or from the side, and draw them. This will help you train your black and white drawing skill and understand what lighting does to these shapes. There is such an exercise in almost all drawing textbooks, but drawing from life is much more useful. Draw in color with pencils or watercolors to understand what reflected color looks like and how color interacts with light. When you later paint complex still lifes with silver, lace or glass, you will be able to dilute the drawing with brighter shades. If there is no room for colored figures in the composition, you can always put some bright figure next to it so that the color is reflected on the silver side of the decanter.
• Draw a piece of paper into squares, and then do the same for the printout of the picture you want to sketch. Draw in each square of a blank sheet of paper what you see in the squares of the printout, millimeter by millimeter. This will allow you to get a very accurate image on the first try. Make the mesh very thin so you can erase it if necessary. Renaissance artists used this technique by placing mesh glass between themselves and the model. This method allows you to achieve clear and correct lines.
• You can also draw point by point if you want precision. Measure the distances between important points on the object you want to depict, for example, between the corners of the eyes, from the chin to the hairline on the forehead, etc. Mark everything up on paper with these measurements in mind. You can scale up or down using the ruler. Fix the most important parts of the face so that the eyes are in the right place in comparison with the nose, chin, cheeks, hair and shoulders. Use as many points as you see fit. The more dots, the more accurate the image. Then connect the dots as smoothly and neatly as possible. Over time, this will start to turn out faster and easier, and then you will only need a few points to indicate the upper and lower parts of the face, cheeks, corners of the eyes, nose and corners of the mouth. This method can be used to depict any object - here we give a portrait only as an example.
• Try transferring the image from your photo to the paper using a grid. Try to convey the shadows in each of the cells as accurately as possible and do not worry if the outline is not entirely correct. Once you learn this, it will be easier for you to draw from life.

Warnings

• Do not use for copying photos that do not belong to you, without the permission of the copyright holder. Choose images that are not copyrighted or ask the photographer for permission. Obey the law and always cite the source when asked about it. If a photographer forbids you from selling an image copied from his photograph, do not argue. It is better to practice on your own photographs and learn to draw from them. So you will take photographs in order to paint later, and not so that the photograph itself acquires significant artistic value. Of course, you can combine different pictures and change them beyond recognition on paper or canvas, but this requires certain skills and experience. Don't use magazine photos if you don't know how to do it yet.

What do you need

• Painting and drawing supplies
• Painting and drawing lessons (optional)
• Books and textbooks