Drawing: For Beginners! : The Ultimate Crash Course to Learning the Basics of How to Draw In No Time

112 Pages·2014·2.32 MB·English

by  Taggart

Drawing
For
Beginners

The Ultimate Crash Course to Learning the Basics of How to Draw In No
Time

By Amy Taggart
© Copyright 2014

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced -mechanically,
electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying-without the
permission of the publisher.

Disclaimer The information provided in this book is designed to provide helpful
information on the subjects discussed. The author's books are only meant to
provide the reader with the basics knowledge of the topic in question, without
any warranties regarding whether the reader will, or will not, be able to
incorporate and apply all the information provided. Although the writer will
make his best effort share her insights, the topic in question is a complex one,
and each person needs a different timeframe to fully incorporate new
information. Neither this book, nor any of the author's books constitute a
promise that the reader will learn anything within a certain timeframe.
Table of Contents

Introduction: Are You Ready for an Amazing Journey?

Look Around You - This is Where It All Begins...

Chapter 1: Let's Get Started (Picking Materials And a Proper Place)

Chapter 2: Warming Up Like a Real Artist

Chapter 3: Basic Lines (Straight, Curvy, Thickness)

Chapter 4: Tone (Don't Skip the Exercises!)

Chapter 5: Understanding Forms

Chapter 6: Light & Shadows

Chapter 7: Proportion & Scale (Measuring, Drawing Faces, Distorting)

Chapter 8: Perspective - What It Is, And How to Use It

Chapter 9: Texture and Surface (Hard, Soft, Rough)

Chapter 10: Composition (Rules, Spacing & Lines)

Chapter 11: Drawing Figures

Chapter 12: The Art of Caricature

Chapter 13: Short Reference on Materials and Grades

Chapter 14: Extra Drawing Tutorial Techniques

Conclusion: Summing It Up - Where To Go From Here
Dedicated to those who love going beyond their own frontiers.

Keep on pushing,

Amy Taggart
Introduction
Are You Ready for an Amazing
Journey?

Drawing is an incredibly instant, creative and expressive way to make an
artwork. It can be big and bold, or small and secretive, and people have being
doing it ever since humans lived in caves and began to draw animals and people
on the walls. It is also diverse; you can draw everything from photorealistic
portraits to graphic novels, from doodled cartoons to huge architectural studies
of buildings and cathedrals. Whatever style you like, from abstract drawings to
Manga cartoons, there are a set of fundamental principles that if you take the
time to learn them, will vastly improve your ability and talent, and you will be
able to create the artworks that you have always wanted to make. This eBook
plots out these starting principles, and teaches you what they are, how they work
and the ways to learn them. Exercises are interspaced throughout the text, along
as some additional ones at the end, to help this learning process. If at times you
feel out of your comfort zone as you work through them, then that is no bad
thing.

Feel free to follow the exercises and chapters in the order that suits you. They
are organized in a way that allows for this, but at the same time, regardless of
experience, it is never a bad idea to brush up on old skills. On the next page is a
drawing I completed whilst working in the Australian outback for six months. It
is made up of six sheets of A3 paper that I carried around with me as I worked.
It combines every single principle that we will work through in the eBook, and is
a good example of how each exercise and tip can be useful when they come
together in an artwork.

Are you ready to start drawing?

Let's get started!

Amy Taggart
Look Around You
This is Where It All Begins...

One of the most important things about drawing is to look at what you are
drawing. Although this seems like an obvious point to make, it is a vital one.
Many people, when confronted with an object, say a car, will draw an image of
that object based on how they think it looks, rather than what they actually see in
front of them. The first thought is to make sure that the drawing has four wheels,
a body, headlights, windows and a steering wheel. These parts are undeniably
physical aspects of a car, but they will always look slightly differently to how we
expect to see them in our heads. For example, despite knowing that when we
look at a car it has four wheels, we may only be able to see two or three of them
depending on where we stand. Again, every car has a metal or plastic body and
headlights, but it is the curves and lines of these that make it distinctive and give
it character, just like a good drawing. How the car is lit affects how the windows
look, does the sunlight reflect the scene around the car, or can you look through
them into the interior and see the steering wheel? These are the details that
make the difference in a drawing, and really add to the quality and integrity of
your subject.
At first this could
seem complicated
and a lot to think
about, but don’t
worry, there is an
easy way to make
sure you notice
the details and
bring out the real
characteristics of what you want to draw. This can be summed up into a fairly
simple rule: spend roughly twice as much time looking at your subject as
actually drawing it. This may seem odd but it works.

The rule is also as literal as it sounds. There are a few fun drawing exercises
that we will complete during the course of this book that will really help you to
understand and realize how this rule will seriously improve your drawings skills.
It is directly linked with the practice of drawing from life, simply meaning to
draw what you see around you. For example, if you wanted to draw a portrait of
your cat or pet, then you could sit down with a sketchbook and draw them while
they were asleep on the floor or lying in the sun in the garden. If you decided to
use a photo as your inspiration then you wouldn’t be drawing from life. There is
absolutely nothing wrong with working from photographs, it is essential for
drawing certain subjects, but the point is that drawing from life will give your
artworks an edge of realism and knowledge of your subject that is impossible to
fake.
The great part of drawing from life is that it is so easy to practice. The potential
for choosing something that you would like to draw is limitless. Take a second
to look around yourself now, maybe you are relaxing at home, or reading on a
train or even a beach if you are lucky. Look at the view or something you are
wearing, or a piece of jewelry that you are particularly fond of; everything is a
possible subject for you. Everything at all without exception, it is important to
draw exactly what you want to draw yourself.
Copying

Where drawing from life develops the realism and integrity of your work, and
trains your artistic eye at the same time, copying others allows you to learn to
draw in different styles.

It is a technique that has been used for centuries by artists in order to practice
and hone their skills. If there is a particular style that you are especially keen to
learn, then I recommend making copies of the work that you admire. It teaches
you how fine artists, designers, cartoonists, architects and graffiti, manga and
graphic novel artists all tackle the visual intricacies of their particular craft.
Through copying you will learn certain techniques, and then you can change and
adapt these into your own unique drawings and artworks. There is also no
reason why you cannot transfer skills that you learn from one style into another.
For example, learning traditional figure drawing will increase your knowledge,
skill and talent at understanding and representing the human form. You will be
able to realize how joints and muscles move and react, how to show stress,
strength and suppleness, and these are skills that will considerable improve the
drawings that you would produce for, say, the characters of a graphic novel.

At the core of all this are traditional drawing skills. If you wish to make great
drawings then take the time to learn and practice these skills. Even if you would
prefer to always work in a certain stylized way, if you learn these fundamentals
then the standard of your work, whatever the genre, will improve.