Proko - probably going to need to draw more boxes. and breakdowns of basic figures. my problem is that I started to ink for a friend's comic. so detail and shadows is not an issue. but foreshortening and dynamic poses... that is been killing me for years. I'm still trying to figure out how to shake that block of "movement" and keep proportions right.
Can this be pinned? Tell me if I need corrections here. Exercises: 0:08 - ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA - just kidding 0:15 - Marshall Vandruff : Looking at the world and turning them into the simplest geometric volumes. Boxes, cylinders, spheres... 0:52 - Caleb Cleveland : Draw things that take you outside your comfort zone. Ex. If you prefer figurative, draw landscapes. Landscapes into caricature. Try getting more comfortable with new things. When things are getting easy, switch subjects. Try mixing up media. 2:10 Chrissie Zullo : Life drawings. People on the street, how clothes fit on people, etc... + gestures 2:50 Stephen Silver: Observation and drawing loosely. Filling up that sketchbook. Blind sketching (10 secs at start, then start looking and continue drawing). 3:37 Sanford Greene: Gesture drawing. Draw whatever. Hat, Cup, etc... Loose, free, and thoughtless drawing. Capture the idea of the subject with your gesture. 4:58 Ross Tran: Draw from life. Ex, draw a tree... try to replicate the tree in scenario where it is in space. 5:20 Bobby Chiu (Hello Schoolism!): Draw from life and draw from an artist that has the same interpretation of the subject. Then make your own interpretation. 5:43 James Douglas: Drawing straight lines... Take an imaginary cube, rotate it around (in your drawings) freehand. (Meaning you draw the same box from many different imagined angles). Then do the same exercise and draw stuff over it. This exercise is taken from a Taiwanese artist. 6:27 Ron Lemen: Do those repeated exercises like drawing circles all day, draw straight lines from thick to thin, thin to thick, draw over those lines again. Draw c curves and s-shaped curves with the same thin to thick, thick to thin exercises. This is used to practice dexterity. 7:53 Marcelo Matere: Best ones: Life drawings. Specific things like structure, how to build the figure and make it 3-Dimensional. Use solids to try the figure. 8:25 Eliza Ivanova : Gesture drawing. Variable times from 30 secs, 1 min, 3, 5, 15 min. Use whatever materials. Maybe switch them up if you are too used to one medium. 9:18 Peter Han : Perspective. Knowing how to draw boxes in space. 1 point, 2 point, 3- point. Freehand drawing a box without construction and intuitively rotating it in space. 10:05 Mike Hayes : Drawing from Life. Be aware of what you are doing and why. Think about what your doing and if you are improving at it. What skills are you working on? Have a specific goal and evaluate it every month. 11:23 Howard Shum: Gesture drawing everyday.Draw from Photos, and real life when you can. 11:50 Patrick Ballesteros: Drawing cubes and boxes out of your imagination. It's amazing to be able to draw a box in space without having to rely on perspective lines. 12:23 Victor Olazaba: Thumbnail sketches. Sketch everyday. Do quick ones. He does a lot from imagination. 13:02 Hai-na-nu Saulque: Need to be able to draw pencil to paper. Don't learn digital first. It's good to learn how to draw traditionally, and not use UNDO. Drawing pen to paper prevents you from undoing things. There is natural and curve and flow to hands with traditional media. (Wait, but what about drawing tablets that "flow with the hands"?). In Summary: Draw from observation. Do loose drawing. Do gestures. Do life Drawings. Draw things from life using simple geometric shapes. Learn how to rotate a box in space freehand. Do thumbnail sketches (for dynamic idea capturing?). Draw traditionally to improve better. Practice your line work control.
I would say that one of the best things is drawing with a pen or any other unerasable media. You learn how to think about what you're drawing, how to plan ahead, how to deal with mistakes, how to have a light touch. A lot of good things learned from the simple idea that every line is a full commitment in the drawing. Keep it up Proko!
Oh, problem with it is, doing it oneself, takes time. Gesso, allow it to dry, about a day per layer. It can be accelerated. I can do things on artboard as fast, but this was just, well... there's a psychological element to it. Like, you can make mistakes, and just, overwrite them, while still in traditional media. Just an idea!
5:52 I was stuck for years in drawing, had absolutely zero creativity, and pretty much was copying everything from references. Until this exact same thing at 5:52 I heard from Kim Jung Gi as well. this particular exercise helped me so much more than anything else. Guys do this exercise, this works.!!
There was an exercise that my design professor assigned us to the art school: taking a photo, flipping it over and then copying it. Turn it again and check for errors. Obviously this is something to do in addition to the classic fill sheets of lines, circles, curves, study the perspective and draw from life. To draw from life, if you have the chance, is the absolute best thing, in my opinion: you improve quickly, you train your eye and hand, and you get great satisfaction. I've never had as much confidence as when I did the drawing course from life, in the first two years of art school. I still regret now, after more than 20 years, that I could not do it any longer.
I went through a period where i became obsesed with gesture drawing and i did Them really fast (15-30-60 sec) for hours every night after work for 3 months. It cured most of my anxiety and i wasn't afraid to attempt anything.
Exercises I do before going back into figure drawing or warming up before a drawing session. Dexterity exercises: X1 pg lines/curves X1 pg circles X1 pg ellipses Perspective Exercises: X1 pg plotted boxes(1pt, 2pt, 3pt) X10 freehand boxes X10 freehand cubes(rotating) X10 freehand cylinders X10 freehand cylinders(rotating) Structure Exercises: X2 pgs combing basic forms I learned about these when I took classes with Peter Han and they are really helpful. I tailored the exercises to fit my schedule and it works. I cannot wait for Proko's new series 👍👍👍
KuriousKoopa Troopa drawabox.com is built on Peter Han's excercises and methods altered and further developed by Uncomfortable. You can find most of these excercises in the first lesson.
Siddharth Chauhan I usually set a side 3 weeks to cover these exercises and cover each topic 5 days a week. If you starting out I suggest doing these for a month or until you comfy. Drawing lines, ellipses, perspective, boxes and cylinders are basic things but they are the most important. I have been drawing since forever but mostly fine art training. I started focusing on the basics since 2014 but it was off and on due to illness and other complications. I hope this helps.
It definitely helps. Thanks for replying so quickly. I wanted to know what time frame I'm looking at to get good enough so that looking at my sketches wouldn't give me an aneurysm. I guess a year is a minimum, without skipping a day. Might take even longer for someone like me.
I think I should really be doing them all. :D I really love the idea of using a pen so you can't erase - forces you to pay attention instead of getting lazy. I personally love drawing with old school dip-pen and ink, as they give you much more dynamic lines, and it requires even more attention - so easy to make mistakes, even things like making sure you don't take too much ink at once or it will drip and ruin everything. Drawing with dip-pens is like meditation, I'll reach flow and hyper-focus and feel like I'm one with the pen.
Agree 100%, drawing in itself is practically problem solving (how do I get this 3D object on a flat surface?). Just like most problem solving things in life, everyone will have their own way to go about it and will eventually get to that point. I think drawing with pen is like a person who sits down and thinks about the problem as oppose to just grabbing things and quickly going about it. Ideally, both individuals will solve the problem, however the person who sits and thinks about it (pen), over someone who just goes for it (pencil), will get to that point sooner because they have a better grasp of what's going on. Obviously you have those outliers with natural talent also, who just get everything haha.
i personally feel i didnt start improving and learning as much until i started using pen. there is something about it that makes my brain just focus way more!
I see a lot of people making excuses for their lack of technique, saying "it's their style". I said that to myself sometimes too... It's easy to stay inside our bubble when we are learning how to draw... I didn't understand that I was making MAJOR mistakes until I got into school. Composition, color, line, movement, plains, texture, light... Everything matters. It's always hard to understand that what you're doing is wrong, but once you look at other people's work and realize the endless possibilities, you get that drive of wanting to be as good as them. And that's GOOD! Never hide your style because someone tells you to. But have the judgement and self-consciousness to look at your art through fresh eyes, and find your errors. Get out of your comfort zone. That's what means to grow as an artist.
Gabriela Gago Da Silva Nobody bit the artist that says it believes “it’s just my style” it’s the most obvious 💩💩💩excuse for being lazy and not reaching past the comfort zone.
I think of it this way, if you're drawing a manga, and the whole thing is "sketchy/sloppy" that isn't a style, its a lack of good linework, HOWEVER, if you're drawing a manga and one scene is intentionally "sketchy/sloppy" thats a style and an emotion you're trying to temporarilly portray. Its like, every "mistake/bad technique" has a place where it's good and sometimes even great, the problems fall into place when mistakes and bad techniques are the only tools that you use.
My suggestion for an exercise I find works with me is draw something over and over again with the intention of improving on it. You will see the image evolve better and better each time. Try it with a pair of eyes or something simple, then go bigger or more of a full drawing and try repeating it more than three times. You will be amazed!
I am no pro, but for me, an exercise that helped me improve exponentially was actually Iterative Drawing. It felt like a pure and genuine level skip because how fast I felt myself improve. Simply drawing one thing, quickly. looking at it. analysing mistakes and what i like and writing them down. then doing it again, trying things differently. different pose, different style of line, that sort of thing, just to see how it looks. do that for say 10 heads and hopefully will have experimented in lots of different ways and figured out what you like and dont like, or what looks good or doesnt, or what looks unnatural!
What Ron Lemen said was interesting to me. I've been drawing since I could pick up a pencil, and my mother told me that when I was 3, i would sit contently drawing little tiny circles all over my paper. As an adult, we don't take time to play that way, and Ron reminded me how important it is.
Thanks for this, it’s gonna be really helpful! An exercise I like to do is, drawing pages of “deliberately bad drawings” because it helps me think about my weaknesses and how I can do a better job next time I work on a proper art project.
So gesture drawing and boxes from any angle are the two main thing and I agree. The boxes are great for correct structure and gesture to make the drawings feel energetic and loose. Drawing elipses in every angle should get an honorable mention.
Good post. What I value the most is routine, regardless the type of exercises I do, it is the routine that makes me feel the most comfortable with my tools and it gives for the best results. One of my teachers of the academy I went to said "If you draw 2 days a week, you learn 2 days and then you forget for 5 days". I've always remembered that as one of the main rules for improvement: draw every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes, but don't go to bed without having drawn something, anything.
gesture drawing! I was lucky that in art school- years ago I had 2 3hr, classes/week of one minute gestures - full page, 18 x 24 . Suggest the whole figure at the start - the head, the weight bearing leg. You can't help but improve because what you are doing is training your eye and peripheral vision to the point where you find you can place everything, and take everything in without shifting your gaze up and down and then your figures have movement! When you find that your attention is not quite what it was, that you are repeating your drawing habits, go to the zoo, or a farm, etc. - and draw animal figures whose joints don't go together like ours. That will get you back to really looking. You will then be able to be excited drawing still life: you will look at flowers just sitting in a glass and see so much movement.
Great takeaways Going from hard to soft edges, reverse And being specific for what subskill in drawing you're looking to improve Also as soon as sth becomes easy, continue to explore outside your comfort zone
All great ideas. The only thing I would add is to draw with other artists, especially ones that will give you honest feedback. It boosts the ego for friends and family to praise you, but one of the fastest ways to grow as an artist is to have somebody who can help point out things you may miss that need work.
Oh god. I have so much things to do !!! I'm just a teenager i'm not in art school, but "classic" school and I feel like I have very little time to draw. I'm trying to draw anytime I can but it's very hard and sometimes I just go on UA-cam and watch those kind of videos that are helpful and motivating ! Thanks a lot, i'm not giving up to become a professional artist one day :D
The "advice we are not looking for" was my favorite. "Find your personality in the way you draw lines and curves"? That's my next goal definitly. Thank you!!
Stan, thank you for taking the time to film and put together these videos. You don’t know how much good they bring to people facing a creative depression. Much love.
I think Hai-Na-Nu's advice is great. I've been always a digital artist, but often I rarely see myself improve. Often times I really dislike drawing with pen on paper because I "fear" the failure, the idea of being unable to correct the mistake is what often pushes me back. Caleb Cleveland's advice of "leaving comfort zone" is the toughest to do, but probably the best. Love these videos, please keep them up. I've gotten myself back into drawing after a 2 year hiatus and I still hope to improve for the better.
This was incredibly awesome! It's been hard to find information on HOW to practice, but these were simple and straightforward - real applicable advice. LOVE to see the general consensus too, and in a shorter time frame than watching 20 individual videos. Thank you!!!
From my experience, gesture drawing, drawing shapes were the best. I have improved SO MUCH IN SUCH SHORT TIME WITH THESE. It's only been like a year for me. I'm going to now try life drawing (I have tried it before and its HARD), I believe it make me improve even more since like EVERY artist recommends it.
One of the things I thought about when having students to draw with pencil or ink is that it forces them to think or mentally visualize what they're drawing. Drawing in digital can dull the thinking process because corrections come too easily.
Thanks for all those suggestions. My self will exercise gestures and boxes I like to draw with ballpoints in napkins. Don’t ask me why. It’s like a challenge for learning about pressure and not be able to correct the drawing.
Back in the day when I was drawing alot, it literally just comes to you, your hand just magically makes images appear without much thought. Then I lost it. I had to start taking antipsychotic medication. As well as making me a literal zombie, it also had the effect of completely shutting down the creative part of my brain. When images and ideas would once pour out of me, its now impossible. I'm trying to wean myself off my meds in the hope my artistic skill will return. Until then I will just try my best....look on with sadness at all the artists thriving out there.
First year high school art teacher here. I have drawing next semester and I'll be implementing a lot of these ideas! Thank you so much for this great video.
SUMMARY: Best drawing exercise (questions asked on comic con): - Look at the world turn it into simple geometric volumes - Surprise yourself, draw anything that takes you out of your comfort zone, once things become easy, then do something else, like drawing figures, draw fluids dynamics things, etc - find the fun in practicing - Just fill in the sketchbook, draw directly on paper without looking on the paper, draw directly from feeling - draw whatever, a hate, a cup, try to think "How to draw this" > related to figures mostly - you see a tree, try to draw it in space, be creative, add something, change something - find an artist that interprets the same as you, and then figure out your own - draw lines, cubes and rotate it around - exercise, practice in all different angles - your pencil is your instrument in your wrist, the language - you - speak through in your art - life drawings, figures, in 3D - gesture drawing, it's the best thing ever, short time, medium time, long time - draw boxes, perspective, try to move freely, many people say it - lifedrawing - once you understand a box in space (not actual space btw) it will help, so practise - thumbnails, you can start small and than later just blow it up - draw pencil to paper, ignore digital stuff, learn to draw propererly first on paper, traditional art will help you improve faster, it will help draw with a more fluid flow of drawing, drawing traditionally helps improving your skills
You take an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and draw six equally sized squares on it, three squares along the long axis, two along the short. You draw random shapes consisting of 5 straight sides within the squares on the left column and then in the right column you try to recreate those random shapes. This is a great way to improve your eye as you need to capture the angle of line, relationships, shape of some random abstract construct.
Caleb Cleveland brought up a really good point, I tested it, and it works 100% it gives you a sense of confidence that you can draw anything you want.. a boost of creativity of sorts. Really good stuff.
Another excellent exercice is taking a chunk of charcoal, half an inch long. Do long and large traces with the side of the charcoal twig. These exercises free you up and off of details. Gesture, orientation proportions, complicated compositions, perspective, shadows, lights, and so on could be worked out this way. Good luck with your art.
These videos have been so helpful. I love all the tips about the boxes. I’m going to try that in the morning. I already force myself to draw with a brush and ink everyday so now I don’t feel crazy for doing all those circles and squares. I need to watch this particular video again. Super helpful thank you.
I love doing all these exercises, one I didnt hear though is actual exercise, working the body out can help just as much as working the drawing muscles
Thinking about Caleb Cleveland's advice of approaching new subject matter with the attitude of gesture drawing as Sanford Greene suggested, that really feels like it’s opening up a world of possibilities in my mind. Drawing things outside of my comfort zone is daunting, particularly things I’ve never tried to draw before, but thinking about it in a gestural way - the idea of being loose and capturing the idea, the essence of something - makes it way more approachable and engaging to me personally. Funny how an idea can shift your whole perspective! Great advice!
For this year I set to work a lot on the basic maybe 2-3 hours a day - a lot of lines varying length, weight, direction straight, curves. With pencil but also with ink liner, nib or brush. - also circles and elipses. - then I do some calligraphy and lettering, trying to work with the whole arm. Basic Fonts to get the lines and curves clean.Again more to get control of the arm and hand rather than for the specific result(I'll think about the final result at some point but later). - Then I do some geomeric shapes, square, rectangle, hexagon, and fill them with hatching or with smooth layer in graphite. - Finally I do some freehand drawing, trying to focus on getting the first lines correct, I mean not sketching or roughing, only one evocative line. For example I followed your video in the Zoo with Aaron Blaise, and I tried to get the Gorilla or Puma gesture in 2 or 3 lines. In the train I make quick 2 min peoples sketchs with a ballpoint pen not thinking about erasing. Regards
I'm working on my digital art skills, but this video shows how important knowing the fundamentals is - no amount of digital polish can cover up mistakes in structure/form, lack of gesture, etc. It also helps to expand your range, draw things you're not comfortable with - something I'm still trying to get into...
To try to sum up the main points of agreement: perfect your fundamentals (lines, circles, circles, rotating boxes), draw anything/everything you see trying to capture its utter quintessence (not getting bogged down in details or true accuracy - flow for poses, and equivalent concepts for objects), and push the limits of your comfort zone. And don't use digital for practice.
6:27 this one really stuck with me, I don't know why it just made a lot of sense. I like the comparison of " musician can make one instrument sound like anything " I'll be trying out a few in this video, I'm so happy to hear other tips and personal exercises that helped these talented artist ( The ink pen / traditional one was also amazing ) Edit: grammar
I think another important thing to frequently experiment with is negative and positive space. Not just by the additive process (putting lines on a canvas/paper) but the subtractive process as well (eg, using scratchboard or doing printmaking). However, as an artist who does both traditional and digital equally (and learned traditional first), I kind of cringed at the last piece of advice. Not because it's wrong. He's absolutely right in fact, because it takes different control to actual draw something on physical paper and control the media in a way that you can't just press undo or make a new layer over top, so it's certainly valuable to learn traditional first as a new artist. But, digital is not inferior to traditional. They just have different natures and different struggles and pros and cons. I think everyone who is into drawing and illustration should do (or at least try) both. Digital is not easy nor does it make it any easier to really correct things in artwork. TRUE you can press undo, or draw on another clean layer over top, like I already said, BUT none of that is useful if you don't already have the skills to execute the fix you're trying to make. And correcting in traditional art is just as easy as it is in digital. Even if you're drawing in ink or marker or pen, you can always gesso or whiteout over it or even attach another piece of canvas or paper over top to cover it. You can even just layer over it with more ink or paint or whatever. Or trace the original and correct it on a new piece of paper. Or cover the mistake you made with paper and photocopy it and continue the drawing on the copy.
I will definitely say that, when I was learning (following drawabox.com), I first tried to do it digitally, and I realized that I was undoing a lot of my mistakes, and I was basically starting to draw by trial-and-error. This is the digital equivalent of chicken scratching. I also became very perfectionist, undoing my marks if they were only a tiny bit off. I would make a mark, see how it turned out, try again, rinse and repeat, and I wasted A LOT of time.. Using a pen on paper, and not allowing myself to chicken-scratch, really forced myself to be more careful about my marks, and also to learn to move on from mistakes, and maintain "flow". I would highly recommend starting traditional, or at least doing it on the side, because it really opened my eyes to my bad habits.
Oh for sure. If someone is still learning the basics, it's best to do traditional more than anything. I believe that's how you really learn to use your eye and your hand together and control the media on your paper. You really literally feel it with your hand. When I first started drawing seriously as a 8 or 9 year old, I would draw exclusively with traditional media, but when I got to my early teens, I started getting into pixel art and pixel "dolling" which really helped me shape my ability to know how shading and lighting work on a 2D image to make it look 3D. But yeah for someone just starting out from the ground up, it's the best to learn the basics via traditional media. But I thought it was worth mentioning about that last point of digital vs traditional because he wasn't asking advice for beginning artists, he was asking about exercises that are good for any artist to do.
This pushed me to draw cubes in space and I’m having a lot of fun?! It’s hard to get perspective right sometimes but I feel like this is really helping me visualize stuff!
When I was in high school, as I was starting a new sketchbook I made a dedicated challenge to only draw in pen until I filled it up-- no pencil first. It was an adjustment to be unable to erase, but eventually it taught me to make confident strokes and to think about the marks I was making; in pen you have to make a decision before you make the mark, you can't just scribble mindlessly. The results were great, and to this day I'm often complimented for my clean and confident inking. (of course, this exercise gave me more confident brush strokes and sketching, too)
I jotted down several of them but the first one I will start on is from Ron Lemen. He said, Dexterity, like a musician that is so familiar with his own voice and how to make it do what he wants you are familiar with your own arm, hand, wrist and the movements you want it to make in order to show someone what you want them to see. Your ideas are bottled up inside of the tool that you use. Learn to use it. Circles, straight lines over and over. Then go back and try to draw the same straight line or circle. Make the line go from thin to thick and make 'S' curves, then 'C' curves and make them go from thin to thick. Dar to light. I will try the others too, such as drawing from life and the boxes but the things that Ron Lemen said almost made me cry. I was thinking for quite a while today of what I could draw or paint that would tell people of the beauty in an animal or just the color Red iron oxide. The things that aren't there for the casual observer but I didn't know how to or what to put on paper. I believe that If I use my pencil, pen, arm, hand and exercise it then, more naturally will I be able to express the things that come into my thoughts. I will be able to share so much more that is really needed out there. My husband is trained in classical and opera and he said that he practiced a certain song hundreds of times before he would sing it for ________. I'm thankful that he doesn't try to stop me from getting the things that I need for my kind of art.
Here I am sitting drawing freaking circles all day and I finally realize actual professional artists did this. It makes me so happy this could actually have some affect on my pieces.
So TL;DR: Fill up a sketchbook with still life 30 second gesture drawings of boxes in perspective in a (traditional) medium I am not comfortable working with, every day. Got it!
Thanks Proko for this videos. I started using boxes to draw cars and spaceships, then found out it can be useful even drawing difficult human parts such as heads, noses and hands. I could suggest also mastering stick figures could help a lot with human poses and animals.
This was exceptional man! Getting all that valuable information from artists I would never have had a chance to question truly is a priceless thing. Thank you so much and thanks to all the talented artists who shared some really insightful information.
I am going to try the boxes exercise. At the moment I am working on eye and hand coordination by drawing my hand three times a day ...continuous line contour
I liked Ron Lemen's comparison of the drawing with playing an instrument. Having control of your hand and the outcome of how apply your pick or your pencil is fundamental to being a good artist.
Gesture drawing is so damn important!!! Whenever my stuff starts feeling stale it's because it's stiff! Five to ten minutes of gesture drawing can save me from hours of frustration!
I do a lot of drawing, sketching and thinking in pencil/pen. While it isn't my livelihood, it is rather reassuring to hear much the same recommendations coming out of professional artists, that I have related to other sketching and drawing enthusiasts. For me, when doing still life and landscapes, I find that rapid thumbnail sketches bordering on 3 value notans, to be the most helpful. In that little drawing, I get the fundamentals of value, perspective (aerial and linear), and composition. From that point any further studies or works just go that much easier. Figurative work, gestures and quick contours all the way. Whether I am using a live model (currently not often enough), a public place, a video or tv show, a mannikin, or the occasional foray into an online life-drawing session, I find my ability to control proportion, perspective, and form to flow that much easier when I do several pages of gestures and/or quick contours.
Learning traditional before digital is definitely a big one for me. When I started drawing more seriously, I only drew digitally on my iPad and didn't have any pen control skills going into Photoshop, so I started drawing pencil on paper all the time instead. being able to see the drawing at one consistent size instead of zooming in and out and being able to feel the natural texture of pencil on paper is really important to me.
I picked up on the quick, gesture drawings..being free. I also liked the concept of pencil-to-paper/traditional first. I did several ballpoint pen drawings a couple of years ago during Inktober, and it was kind of awesome to commit to something which couldn't be erased that I knew would be shared with others. It was really refreshing and fun, perfectly imperfect!
Obviously gesture is the best. I have find it to improve my art. It gives my hands freedom and flexibility of capturing dynamic Figures. And yes I apraise artists using both media and showing justice. As it really helps to work efficiently and you can work across paper and computer. Good tips. Thanks.
i always doodle and draw shapes to get the feeling of the pen/pencil/brush that I use. it becomes a part of you and makes you feel like being creative .
Good to see Draw-A-Box was a good choice for my drawing coarse. Kinda checks a lot of these boxes(sure, pun intended, why not). Now if only I can keep on top of it and not stray. Thanks for all the videos that help inspire me to keep going.
When I was in writing class my Professor would have us start the class by writing on a journal or piece of paper to do a free write. To write whatever was on our mind. She said the reason for this was to "get the Emos out". Which I agree worked a lot because it would let me focus more without too much of my personal life entering into the writing. I feel the same goes for drawing. If I am stuck or too emotional to draw I would just draw what I was feeling. To "get the Emos out" and clear my mind :)
Great segment! I definitely echo the recommendations for drawing from life. Having to flatten a real-life 3d image onto a 2d sheet of paper completely changes your perception and informs what you lay down. Most people look at their world every day but don't really know what anything looks like because the brain fills in gaps and patterns subconciously. Drawing from life forces you to really ingest what you're seeing so you can close those gaps and draw (pun intended) from that knowledge to create your art.
Thanks so much for this mini series asking pros questions like this. I find it interesting how ultimately simple their tips are, encouraging study of basic shapes, drawing from life, and experimenting. For me, drawing from life is something I’ll be trying out more!
Gesture is always going to be useful, shapes and volumes as well. But one thing I didn't see any of these artists address is step away or back away from a piece of artwork. Coming back with a fresh perspective will help you see mistakes and or potential in the image that you might not have seen if you're constantly working on it up close. A simple change of your perspective can be of great help sometimes. It will also usually immediately help you with seeing composition and shape language. That type of information is usually visible at any range. Fun video series, nice work.
14:00 so true ! i think everyone needs to learn drawing traditionally , thanks for the great tips Proko , love your videos , keep making video man , love learning new things from you
Deep down, I knew that I was supposed to do these, but for some reason, I only want to do these exercises only after hearing other artists talk about them.
This was so immensely useful, definitely a video I will be coming back to. Thanks for posting this video it was not only practical but motivating, hearing so many great artist repeat the same thing help me see what I need to focus on to get better.
thanks for this video, i'm one of the lazy artist, iknow that i have a talent of drawing but i enjoyed seeing the artists drawing than i myself practising it. but now i have to practice drawing everyday thank you again proko your channel is the best artists motivator. more power... and more practice to all artist.
Thank you for your videos! All exercises are great. At this point I would go for Lemen's exercises and drawing boxes in all kinds of rotations. My own tip would be to do zentangle exercises. I love lines and patterns and although I'm not too fond of the commercial side of zentangle, I started drawing the patterns with this method. After only a few months now I notice benefits in all my creative explorations, which I didn't expect. Doing a zentangle exercise is simple and doesn't have to take a lot of time, but it's the opposite of doing a quick and loose sketch. You draw clear lines (no sloppiness allowed), circles and curves with full focus of your mind (the zen part of it), and with these simple lines you build up a pattern. It's drawn with pen, pencil is only for shading and sometimes a guideline. Without realising, I learned a lot about how lines work together, how lines work with negative space, how simple lines can create shape, depth or optical illusions.
Two best ones here (cos they were the two I had in my head) are LOOKING! If you're not looking at something you're drawing, you can't draw it, because you're not seeing it. I mean, when you look at a tree, SEE the curve of the trunk, the exact colour of the leaves, the texture of the bark, any imperfections, enjoy the tree. Look DEEP! Don't just look for a few seconds, look for an hour. Eventually, you'll be able to see ALL that stuff, in just a few seconds. A coat, a dog, a person, a tree, a car, whatever ... you have to learn how to really look! And the second one is the warmup / hand pencil exercises. Lines. Thousands and thousands of parallel lines, as close to each other as you can, then switch angle and cross hatch it. Do it till you do it without even trying or thinking, soon every line will be drawn in 0.01 seconds and they will be perfect. Then draw a circle, and shade it, and then do another and another, over and over. With pencil or with biro. Doesn't matter. Eventually it'll be second nature, your brain and eyes and hand will be in total unison, never arguing with each other, forever (as long as you keep it up). It's like chopping onions. At first you cut your hand, the onions rings are all over the place, and you can only chop 3 onions a minute. After a few months, you no longer cut yourself, your slices are uniform, and you're up to 8 onions a minute! After a few YEARS, you don't even look at your hands anymore, you never make a mistake you can't instantly fix or adapt with, AND you chop 20+ onions a minute. It's the same with drawing. Chopping onions.
Which of these exercises are you gonna try? Do you have other suggestions for good exercises? Share the knowledge!
Proko sure sir... This will help me in designing
Proko I'm definitely going to draw boxes everyday
Proko - probably going to need to draw more boxes. and breakdowns of basic figures.
my problem is that I started to ink for a friend's comic. so detail and shadows is not an issue.
but foreshortening and dynamic poses... that is been killing me for years.
I'm still trying to figure out how to shake that block of "movement" and keep proportions right.
In Gary Oldman's voice - Everyone!
Gonna draw from photos and simple shapes
Can this be pinned? Tell me if I need corrections here.
Exercises:
0:08 - ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA - just kidding
0:15 - Marshall Vandruff : Looking at the world and turning them into the simplest geometric volumes. Boxes, cylinders, spheres...
0:52 - Caleb Cleveland : Draw things that take you outside your comfort zone. Ex. If you prefer figurative, draw landscapes. Landscapes into caricature. Try getting more comfortable with new things. When things are getting easy, switch subjects. Try mixing up media.
2:10 Chrissie Zullo : Life drawings. People on the street, how clothes fit on people, etc... + gestures
2:50 Stephen Silver: Observation and drawing loosely. Filling up that sketchbook. Blind sketching (10 secs at start, then start looking and continue drawing).
3:37 Sanford Greene: Gesture drawing. Draw whatever. Hat, Cup, etc... Loose, free, and thoughtless drawing. Capture the idea of the subject with your gesture.
4:58 Ross Tran: Draw from life. Ex, draw a tree... try to replicate the tree in scenario where it is in space.
5:20 Bobby Chiu (Hello Schoolism!): Draw from life and draw from an artist that has the same interpretation of the subject. Then make your own interpretation.
5:43 James Douglas: Drawing straight lines... Take an imaginary cube, rotate it around (in your drawings) freehand. (Meaning you draw the same box from many different imagined angles). Then do the same exercise and draw stuff over it. This exercise is taken from a Taiwanese artist.
6:27 Ron Lemen: Do those repeated exercises like drawing circles all day, draw straight lines from thick to thin, thin to thick, draw over those lines again. Draw c curves and s-shaped curves with the same thin to thick, thick to thin exercises. This is used to practice dexterity.
7:53 Marcelo Matere: Best ones: Life drawings. Specific things like structure, how to build the figure and make it 3-Dimensional. Use solids to try the figure.
8:25 Eliza Ivanova : Gesture drawing. Variable times from 30 secs, 1 min, 3, 5, 15 min. Use whatever materials. Maybe switch them up if you are too used to one medium.
9:18 Peter Han : Perspective. Knowing how to draw boxes in space. 1 point, 2 point, 3- point. Freehand drawing a box without construction and intuitively rotating it in space.
10:05 Mike Hayes : Drawing from Life. Be aware of what you are doing and why. Think about what your doing and if you are improving at it. What skills are you working on? Have a specific goal and evaluate it every month.
11:23 Howard Shum: Gesture drawing everyday.Draw from Photos, and real life when you can.
11:50 Patrick Ballesteros: Drawing cubes and boxes out of your imagination. It's amazing to be able to draw a box in space without having to rely on perspective lines.
12:23 Victor Olazaba: Thumbnail sketches. Sketch everyday. Do quick ones. He does a lot from imagination.
13:02 Hai-na-nu Saulque: Need to be able to draw pencil to paper. Don't learn digital first. It's good to learn how to draw traditionally, and not use UNDO. Drawing pen to paper prevents you from undoing things. There is natural and curve and flow to hands with traditional media. (Wait, but what about drawing tablets that "flow with the hands"?).
In Summary:
Draw from observation. Do loose drawing. Do gestures. Do life Drawings. Draw things from life using simple geometric shapes. Learn how to rotate a box in space freehand. Do thumbnail sketches (for dynamic idea capturing?). Draw traditionally to improve better. Practice your line work control.
pin this shit
I second the motion to pin the comment
third
Fourth
Srsly pin this
Fifth person to pin.
or atleast make have this comment more likes.
I would say that one of the best things is drawing with a pen or any other unerasable media. You learn how to think about what you're drawing, how to plan ahead, how to deal with mistakes, how to have a light touch. A lot of good things learned from the simple idea that every line is a full commitment in the drawing. Keep it up Proko!
Jean Kirstein interesting, why not?
Jean Kirstein concept artist 💩💩💩💩💩
@@elsagrace3893 what's wrong with concept artists?
Oh, problem with it is, doing it oneself, takes time. Gesso, allow it to dry, about a day per layer. It can be accelerated. I can do things on artboard as fast, but this was just, well... there's a psychological element to it. Like, you can make mistakes, and just, overwrite them, while still in traditional media. Just an idea!
It does help... but a few sketches can help with composition or likeness. Nothing like taking a practice swing before you let her rip
6:08
step1: draw a box
step2: add details
He usually skips the first step, so sometimes it's just
step1: add details
xD
I'm laughing SO MUCH RIGHT NOW
I'm so mad haha, this guy has such skill.
it may be a meme but it actually is true.
how to draw a perfect circle (spongebob style):
1. draw a face
2. erase all the unnecessary lines
5:52 I was stuck for years in drawing, had absolutely zero creativity, and pretty much was copying everything from references.
Until this exact same thing at 5:52 I heard from Kim Jung Gi as well.
this particular exercise helped me so much more than anything else. Guys do this exercise, this works.!!
100%
don't think inside the box, not out of it, DRAW THE BOX
it's funny because when you draw the box, you're already outside of that box lol
.. hm..
Kojima understands you. However, Snake doesn´t
Danny Leonardi but u can also draw it from inside
Minato Namikaze hahaha, the pun...
Again another great video. The fundamentals are so important to master. Gesture, perspective and drawing from life.
138k subscribers
With no content ?
@Kage Momoku I do.
I love that most of these answers are similar because now I know what to focus on more.
There was an exercise that my design professor assigned us to the art school: taking a photo, flipping it over and then copying it. Turn it again and check for errors.
Obviously this is something to do in addition to the classic fill sheets of lines, circles, curves, study the perspective and draw from life.
To draw from life, if you have the chance, is the absolute best thing, in my opinion: you improve quickly, you train your eye and hand, and you get great satisfaction.
I've never had as much confidence as when I did the drawing course from life, in the first two years of art school.
I still regret now, after more than 20 years, that I could not do it any longer.
I went through a period where i became obsesed with gesture drawing and i did Them really fast (15-30-60 sec) for hours every night after work for 3 months. It cured most of my anxiety and i wasn't afraid to attempt anything.
These pro asks are incredibly helpful! Thank
you! I would love to see more content like this in the future.
Exercises I do before going back into figure drawing or warming up before a drawing session.
Dexterity exercises:
X1 pg lines/curves
X1 pg circles
X1 pg ellipses
Perspective Exercises:
X1 pg plotted boxes(1pt, 2pt, 3pt)
X10 freehand boxes
X10 freehand cubes(rotating)
X10 freehand cylinders
X10 freehand cylinders(rotating)
Structure Exercises:
X2 pgs combing basic forms
I learned about these when I took classes with Peter Han and they are really helpful. I tailored the exercises to fit my schedule and it works. I cannot wait for Proko's new series 👍👍👍
KuriousKoopa Troopa drawabox.com is built on Peter Han's excercises and methods altered and further developed by Uncomfortable. You can find most of these excercises in the first lesson.
KuriousKoopa Troopa Glad I could help and sorry for the late reply but seems that FannyMMO's already helped you out 👍👍👍
how many days a week you follow this routine? and for how long have you been drawing?
Siddharth Chauhan I usually set a side 3 weeks to cover these exercises and cover each topic 5 days a week. If you starting out I suggest doing these for a month or until you comfy. Drawing lines, ellipses, perspective, boxes and cylinders are basic things but they are the most important. I have been drawing since forever but mostly fine art training. I started focusing on the basics since 2014 but it was off and on due to illness and other complications. I hope this helps.
It definitely helps. Thanks for replying so quickly. I wanted to know what time frame I'm looking at to get good enough so that looking at my sketches wouldn't give me an aneurysm. I guess a year is a minimum, without skipping a day. Might take even longer for someone like me.
I think I should really be doing them all. :D
I really love the idea of using a pen so you can't erase - forces you to pay attention instead of getting lazy. I personally love drawing with old school dip-pen and ink, as they give you much more dynamic lines, and it requires even more attention - so easy to make mistakes, even things like making sure you don't take too much ink at once or it will drip and ruin everything. Drawing with dip-pens is like meditation, I'll reach flow and hyper-focus and feel like I'm one with the pen.
Storm Engineer I found I had a big artistic growth spurt a while ago when I was drawing tons of people quickly in pen from life and random magazines!
Agree 100%, drawing in itself is practically problem solving (how do I get this 3D object on a flat surface?). Just like most problem solving things in life, everyone will have their own way to go about it and will eventually get to that point. I think drawing with pen is like a person who sits down and thinks about the problem as oppose to just grabbing things and quickly going about it. Ideally, both individuals will solve the problem, however the person who sits and thinks about it (pen), over someone who just goes for it (pencil), will get to that point sooner because they have a better grasp of what's going on. Obviously you have those outliers with natural talent also, who just get everything haha.
i personally feel i didnt start improving and learning as much until i started using pen. there is something about it that makes my brain just focus way more!
Drawing with dip pen is fun, but I wish you didn't have to dip them every 10 seconds :P
Finally got this video watched. Yes all of them are valuable and also well explained on the why side!
Sounds like the most common suggestions were 1) Drawing boxes in perspective, and 2) Gesture drawing. That's what I'll work on. Great videos!!
Drawing from life was the most common
I see a lot of people making excuses for their lack of technique, saying "it's their style". I said that to myself sometimes too...
It's easy to stay inside our bubble when we are learning how to draw... I didn't understand that I was making MAJOR mistakes until I got into school. Composition, color, line, movement, plains, texture, light... Everything matters.
It's always hard to understand that what you're doing is wrong, but once you look at other people's work and realize the endless possibilities, you get that drive of wanting to be as good as them. And that's GOOD!
Never hide your style because someone tells you to. But have the judgement and self-consciousness to look at your art through fresh eyes, and find your errors. Get out of your comfort zone. That's what means to grow as an artist.
Gabriela Gago Da Silva Nobody bit the artist that says it believes “it’s just my style” it’s the most obvious 💩💩💩excuse for being lazy and not reaching past the comfort zone.
I think of it this way, if you're drawing a manga, and the whole thing is "sketchy/sloppy" that isn't a style, its a lack of good linework, HOWEVER, if you're drawing a manga and one scene is intentionally "sketchy/sloppy" thats a style and an emotion you're trying to temporarilly portray. Its like, every "mistake/bad technique" has a place where it's good and sometimes even great, the problems fall into place when mistakes and bad techniques are the only tools that you use.
You are helping so many artists with this video. We appreciate you so much
Waynimations nice comment
Gesture drawing of the motion and not worry about the details is a great exercise for me.
12:00 he said it
My suggestion for an exercise I find works with me is draw something over and over again with the intention of improving on it. You will see the image evolve better and better each time. Try it with a pair of eyes or something simple, then go bigger or more of a full drawing and try repeating it more than three times. You will be amazed!
I am no pro, but for me, an exercise that helped me improve exponentially was actually Iterative Drawing. It felt like a pure and genuine level skip because how fast I felt myself improve. Simply drawing one thing, quickly. looking at it. analysing mistakes and what i like and writing them down. then doing it again, trying things differently. different pose, different style of line, that sort of thing, just to see how it looks.
do that for say 10 heads and hopefully will have experimented in lots of different ways and figured out what you like and dont like, or what looks good or doesnt, or what looks unnatural!
What Ron Lemen said was interesting to me. I've been drawing since I could pick up a pencil, and my mother told me that when I was 3, i would sit contently drawing little tiny circles all over my paper. As an adult, we don't take time to play that way, and Ron reminded me how important it is.
Thanks for this, it’s gonna be really helpful! An exercise I like to do is, drawing pages of “deliberately bad drawings” because it helps me think about my weaknesses and how I can do a better job next time I work on a proper art project.
So gesture drawing and boxes from any angle are the two main thing and I agree. The boxes are great for correct structure and gesture to make the drawings feel energetic and loose. Drawing elipses in every angle should get an honorable mention.
Good post.
What I value the most is routine, regardless the type of exercises I do, it is the routine that makes me feel the most comfortable with my tools and it gives for the best results. One of my teachers of the academy I went to said "If you draw 2 days a week, you learn 2 days and then you forget for 5 days". I've always remembered that as one of the main rules for improvement: draw every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes, but don't go to bed without having drawn something, anything.
I really love how proko gets everyone on board. He is such a genius who loves to share his skills and get others inspired. Love proko from Bangladesh.
its hard to draw from life when u stay inside lookin at memes=')))
Bogdan John you know it man , but it's sad
Draw from memes
Bogdan John go to the park.
Draw your family members
I wish a large portions of memes were actually funny so we could justify procrastinating with memes, but they're not.
Ron Lemen gave a really great advice. Probably the most important one that can be easily overlooked imo.
gesture drawing! I was lucky that in art school- years ago I had 2 3hr, classes/week of one minute gestures - full page, 18 x 24 . Suggest the whole figure at the start - the head, the weight bearing leg. You can't help but improve because what you are doing is training your eye and peripheral vision to the point where you find you can place everything, and take everything in without shifting your gaze up and down and then your figures have movement! When you find that your attention is not quite what it was, that you are repeating your drawing habits, go to the zoo, or a farm, etc. - and draw animal figures whose joints don't go together like ours. That will get you back to really looking. You will then be able to be excited drawing still life: you will look at flowers just sitting in a glass and see so much movement.
Great takeaways
Going from hard to soft edges, reverse
And being specific for what subskill in drawing you're looking to improve
Also as soon as sth becomes easy, continue to explore outside your comfort zone
All great ideas. The only thing I would add is to draw with other artists, especially ones that will give you honest feedback. It boosts the ego for friends and family to praise you, but one of the fastest ways to grow as an artist is to have somebody who can help point out things you may miss that need work.
Oh god. I have so much things to do !!! I'm just a teenager i'm not in art school, but "classic" school and I feel like I have very little time to draw. I'm trying to draw anytime I can but it's very hard and sometimes I just go on UA-cam and watch those kind of videos that are helpful and motivating ! Thanks a lot, i'm not giving up to become a professional artist one day :D
Same!
The "advice we are not looking for" was my favorite. "Find your personality in the way you draw lines and curves"? That's my next goal definitly. Thank you!!
Stan, thank you for taking the time to film and put together these videos. You don’t know how much good they bring to people facing a creative depression. Much love.
I think Hai-Na-Nu's advice is great. I've been always a digital artist, but often I rarely see myself improve. Often times I really dislike drawing with pen on paper because I "fear" the failure, the idea of being unable to correct the mistake is what often pushes me back. Caleb Cleveland's advice of "leaving comfort zone" is the toughest to do, but probably the best.
Love these videos, please keep them up. I've gotten myself back into drawing after a 2 year hiatus and I still hope to improve for the better.
This was incredibly awesome! It's been hard to find information on HOW to practice, but these were simple and straightforward - real applicable advice. LOVE to see the general consensus too, and in a shorter time frame than watching 20 individual videos. Thank you!!!
What really helps me is looking for stuff in life and just remember how they were, then make them simple in my head to use them in future >
From my experience, gesture drawing, drawing shapes were the best. I have improved SO MUCH IN SUCH SHORT TIME WITH THESE. It's only been like a year for me. I'm going to now try life drawing (I have tried it before and its HARD), I believe it make me improve even more since like EVERY artist recommends it.
One of the things I thought about when having students to draw with pencil or ink is that it forces them to think or mentally visualize what they're drawing. Drawing in digital can dull the thinking process because corrections come too easily.
Thanks for all those suggestions. My self will exercise gestures and boxes
I like to draw with ballpoints in napkins. Don’t ask me why. It’s like a challenge for learning about pressure and not be able to correct the drawing.
LOST EDGES!!! Thank you Mike Hayes, now I know what to obsess over next! And thank you promo for all the free knowledge, God bless you sir!
Back in the day when I was drawing alot, it literally just comes to you, your hand just magically makes images appear without much thought. Then I lost it. I had to start taking antipsychotic medication. As well as making me a literal zombie, it also had the effect of completely shutting down the creative part of my brain. When images and ideas would once pour out of me, its now impossible. I'm trying to wean myself off my meds in the hope my artistic skill will return. Until then I will just try my best....look on with sadness at all the artists thriving out there.
First year high school art teacher here. I have drawing next semester and I'll be implementing a lot of these ideas! Thank you so much for this great video.
At this point I'm convinced that learning how to make art is no different from exercising, just instead of your whole body it's your brain
Drawing in perspective in ball point pen has definitely helped me. Highly recommend.
SUMMARY:
Best drawing exercise (questions asked on comic con):
- Look at the world turn it into simple geometric volumes
- Surprise yourself, draw anything that takes you out of your comfort zone, once things become easy, then do something else, like drawing figures, draw fluids dynamics things, etc
- find the fun in practicing
- Just fill in the sketchbook, draw directly on paper without looking on the paper, draw directly from feeling
- draw whatever, a hate, a cup, try to think "How to draw this" > related to figures mostly
- you see a tree, try to draw it in space, be creative, add something, change something
- find an artist that interprets the same as you, and then figure out your own
- draw lines, cubes and rotate it around - exercise, practice in all different angles
- your pencil is your instrument in your wrist, the language - you - speak through in your art
- life drawings, figures, in 3D
- gesture drawing, it's the best thing ever, short time, medium time, long time
- draw boxes, perspective, try to move freely, many people say it
- lifedrawing
- once you understand a box in space (not actual space btw) it will help, so practise
- thumbnails, you can start small and than later just blow it up
- draw pencil to paper, ignore digital stuff, learn to draw propererly first on paper, traditional art will help you improve faster, it will help draw with a more fluid flow of drawing, drawing traditionally helps improving your skills
I'm going to work on the box exercises and gestures I just found a group of artist doing a life drawing class and joined it yesterday so I'm excited.
You take an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and draw six equally sized squares on it, three squares along the long axis, two along the short. You draw random shapes consisting of 5 straight sides within the squares on the left column and then in the right column you try to recreate those random shapes. This is a great way to improve your eye as you need to capture the angle of line, relationships, shape of some random abstract construct.
Caleb Cleveland brought up a really good point, I tested it, and it works 100% it gives you a sense of confidence that you can draw anything you want.. a boost of creativity of sorts. Really good stuff.
Another excellent exercice is taking a chunk of charcoal, half an inch long. Do long and large traces with the side of the charcoal twig. These exercises free you up and off of details. Gesture, orientation proportions, complicated compositions, perspective, shadows, lights, and so on could be worked out this way. Good luck with your art.
These videos have been so helpful. I love all the tips about the boxes. I’m going to try that in the morning. I already force myself to draw with a brush and ink everyday so now I don’t feel crazy for doing all those circles and squares. I need to watch this particular video again. Super helpful thank you.
The rotating box, pen, life drawings! I already do shapes, lines, boxes, and Mark Kistler' s 30 minute book! Cool video!
I love doing all these exercises, one I didnt hear though is actual exercise, working the body out can help just as much as working the drawing muscles
I'm definitely going to practice S and C curves and circles, the boxes in space and gesture drawing !
Thinking about Caleb Cleveland's advice of approaching new subject matter with the attitude of gesture drawing as Sanford Greene suggested, that really feels like it’s opening up a world of possibilities in my mind. Drawing things outside of my comfort zone is daunting, particularly things I’ve never tried to draw before, but thinking about it in a gestural way - the idea of being loose and capturing the idea, the essence of something - makes it way more approachable and engaging to me personally. Funny how an idea can shift your whole perspective! Great advice!
Mike Hayes: “Be aware of what you’re doing and why.” True wisdom. The rest of his interview fills in the blanks.
Clearly draw box, cylinder and gesture drawing in traditional is best way I found to improve my digital skill! Try it guys!
For this year I set to work a lot on the basic maybe 2-3 hours a day
- a lot of lines varying length, weight, direction straight, curves. With pencil but also with ink liner, nib or brush.
- also circles and elipses.
- then I do some calligraphy and lettering, trying to work with the whole arm. Basic Fonts to get the lines and curves clean.Again more to get control of the arm and hand rather than for the specific result(I'll think about the final result at some point but later).
- Then I do some geomeric shapes, square, rectangle, hexagon, and fill them with hatching or with smooth layer in graphite.
- Finally I do some freehand drawing, trying to focus on getting the first lines correct, I mean not sketching or roughing, only one evocative line. For example I followed your video in the Zoo with Aaron Blaise, and I tried to get the Gorilla or Puma gesture in 2 or 3 lines.
In the train I make quick 2 min peoples sketchs with a ballpoint pen not thinking about erasing.
Regards
I'm working on my digital art skills, but this video shows how important knowing the fundamentals is - no amount of digital polish can cover up mistakes in structure/form, lack of gesture, etc. It also helps to expand your range, draw things you're not comfortable with - something I'm still trying to get into...
To try to sum up the main points of agreement: perfect your fundamentals (lines, circles, circles, rotating boxes), draw anything/everything you see trying to capture its utter quintessence (not getting bogged down in details or true accuracy - flow for poses, and equivalent concepts for objects), and push the limits of your comfort zone. And don't use digital for practice.
Cubes, lines and gestures, I'm super new at this so I think that's what will help me get a grasp on all this
6:27 this one really stuck with me, I don't know why it just made a lot of sense. I like the comparison of " musician can make one instrument sound like anything "
I'll be trying out a few in this video, I'm so happy to hear other tips and personal exercises that helped these talented artist
( The ink pen / traditional one was also amazing )
Edit: grammar
I think another important thing to frequently experiment with is negative and positive space. Not just by the additive process (putting lines on a canvas/paper) but the subtractive process as well (eg, using scratchboard or doing printmaking).
However, as an artist who does both traditional and digital equally (and learned traditional first), I kind of cringed at the last piece of advice. Not because it's wrong. He's absolutely right in fact, because it takes different control to actual draw something on physical paper and control the media in a way that you can't just press undo or make a new layer over top, so it's certainly valuable to learn traditional first as a new artist. But, digital is not inferior to traditional. They just have different natures and different struggles and pros and cons. I think everyone who is into drawing and illustration should do (or at least try) both. Digital is not easy nor does it make it any easier to really correct things in artwork. TRUE you can press undo, or draw on another clean layer over top, like I already said, BUT none of that is useful if you don't already have the skills to execute the fix you're trying to make. And correcting in traditional art is just as easy as it is in digital. Even if you're drawing in ink or marker or pen, you can always gesso or whiteout over it or even attach another piece of canvas or paper over top to cover it. You can even just layer over it with more ink or paint or whatever. Or trace the original and correct it on a new piece of paper. Or cover the mistake you made with paper and photocopy it and continue the drawing on the copy.
I will definitely say that, when I was learning (following drawabox.com), I first tried to do it digitally, and I realized that I was undoing a lot of my mistakes, and I was basically starting to draw by trial-and-error. This is the digital equivalent of chicken scratching. I also became very perfectionist, undoing my marks if they were only a tiny bit off. I would make a mark, see how it turned out, try again, rinse and repeat, and I wasted A LOT of time.. Using a pen on paper, and not allowing myself to chicken-scratch, really forced myself to be more careful about my marks, and also to learn to move on from mistakes, and maintain "flow". I would highly recommend starting traditional, or at least doing it on the side, because it really opened my eyes to my bad habits.
Oh for sure. If someone is still learning the basics, it's best to do traditional more than anything. I believe that's how you really learn to use your eye and your hand together and control the media on your paper. You really literally feel it with your hand.
When I first started drawing seriously as a 8 or 9 year old, I would draw exclusively with traditional media, but when I got to my early teens, I started getting into pixel art and pixel "dolling" which really helped me shape my ability to know how shading and lighting work on a 2D image to make it look 3D.
But yeah for someone just starting out from the ground up, it's the best to learn the basics via traditional media. But I thought it was worth mentioning about that last point of digital vs traditional because he wasn't asking advice for beginning artists, he was asking about exercises that are good for any artist to do.
@@SpicePrincess1890 ah I see, yeah I'm a beginner so I was mostly just speaking from my perspective. I'm hoping to move to digital myself one day
Going out of the comfort zone, definitely! I really like (by that I mean hate it) drawing quick 360° sketches of the same model.
This pushed me to draw cubes in space and I’m having a lot of fun?! It’s hard to get perspective right sometimes but I feel like this is really helping me visualize stuff!
When I was in high school, as I was starting a new sketchbook I made a dedicated challenge to only draw in pen until I filled it up-- no pencil first. It was an adjustment to be unable to erase, but eventually it taught me to make confident strokes and to think about the marks I was making; in pen you have to make a decision before you make the mark, you can't just scribble mindlessly. The results were great, and to this day I'm often complimented for my clean and confident inking.
(of course, this exercise gave me more confident brush strokes and sketching, too)
I jotted down several of them but the first one I will start on is from Ron Lemen. He said, Dexterity, like a musician that is so familiar with his own voice and how to make it do what he wants you are familiar with your own arm, hand, wrist and the movements you want it to make in order to show someone what you want them to see. Your ideas are bottled up inside of the tool that you use. Learn to use it. Circles, straight lines over and over. Then go back and try to draw the same straight line or circle. Make the line go from thin to thick and make 'S' curves, then 'C' curves and make them go from thin to thick. Dar to light.
I will try the others too, such as drawing from life and the boxes but the things that Ron Lemen said almost made me cry. I was thinking for quite a while today of what I could draw or paint that would tell people of the beauty in an animal or just the color Red iron oxide. The things that aren't there for the casual observer but I didn't know how to or what to put on paper. I believe that If I use my pencil, pen, arm, hand and exercise it then, more naturally will I be able to express the things that come into my thoughts. I will be able to share so much more that is really needed out there.
My husband is trained in classical and opera and he said that he practiced a certain song hundreds of times before he would sing it for ________. I'm thankful that he doesn't try to stop me from getting the things that I need for my kind of art.
Here I am sitting drawing freaking circles all day and I finally realize actual professional artists did this.
It makes me so happy this could actually have some affect on my pieces.
So TL;DR: Fill up a sketchbook with still life 30 second gesture drawings of boxes in perspective in a (traditional) medium I am not comfortable working with, every day.
Got it!
Firstn't
wait wtf
bro do you draw too? draw something on your channel bro
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Draw 0 3 5
Thanks Proko for this videos.
I started using boxes to draw cars and spaceships, then found out it can be useful even drawing difficult human parts such as heads, noses and hands.
I could suggest also mastering stick figures could help a lot with human poses and animals.
This was exceptional man! Getting all that valuable information from artists I would never have had a chance to question truly is a priceless thing. Thank you so much and thanks to all the talented artists who shared some really insightful information.
I am going to try the boxes exercise. At the moment I am working on eye and hand coordination by drawing my hand three times a day ...continuous line contour
Drawing everything around you, simple sketches and drawing shapes in perspective are the the 3 that inspire me
I liked Ron Lemen's comparison of the drawing with playing an instrument. Having control of your hand and the outcome of how apply your pick or your pencil is fundamental to being a good artist.
Ron Lemen was the best one, so freaking honest. Exactly what I needed to hear. Sloppy isn't a personality trait in art HA
Gesture drawing is so damn important!!! Whenever my stuff starts feeling stale it's because it's stiff! Five to ten minutes of gesture drawing can save me from hours of frustration!
I do a lot of drawing, sketching and thinking in pencil/pen. While it isn't my livelihood, it is rather reassuring to hear much the same recommendations coming out of professional artists, that I have related to other sketching and drawing enthusiasts.
For me, when doing still life and landscapes, I find that rapid thumbnail sketches bordering on 3 value notans, to be the most helpful. In that little drawing, I get the fundamentals of value, perspective (aerial and linear), and composition. From that point any further studies or works just go that much easier.
Figurative work, gestures and quick contours all the way. Whether I am using a live model (currently not often enough), a public place, a video or tv show, a mannikin, or the occasional foray into an online life-drawing session, I find my ability to control proportion, perspective, and form to flow that much easier when I do several pages of gestures and/or quick contours.
Learning traditional before digital is definitely a big one for me. When I started drawing more seriously, I only drew digitally on my iPad and didn't have any pen control skills going into Photoshop, so I started drawing pencil on paper all the time instead. being able to see the drawing at one consistent size instead of zooming in and out and being able to feel the natural texture of pencil on paper is really important to me.
I picked up on the quick, gesture drawings..being free. I also liked the concept of pencil-to-paper/traditional first. I did several ballpoint pen drawings a couple of years ago during Inktober, and it was kind of awesome to commit to something which couldn't be erased that I knew would be shared with others. It was really refreshing and fun, perfectly imperfect!
Obviously gesture is the best. I have find it to improve my art. It gives my hands freedom and flexibility of capturing dynamic Figures. And yes I apraise artists using both media and showing justice. As it really helps to work efficiently and you can work across paper and computer. Good tips. Thanks.
Exaggeration I feel is important to try. It helps not just gesture but also proportion. The more exaggeration more ability to find subtle things
Drawing from life has really helped me improve in the last few years :) My favorite thing to do is go to orchestras and sketch the musicians. :)
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i always doodle and draw shapes to get the feeling of the pen/pencil/brush that I use. it becomes a part of you and makes you feel like being creative .
Wow that Concept art of Ross Tran is absolutely stunning!
"It's your personality that shows through and how you speak through your art is you" James Douglas said this-best advice in here.
Definitely the boxes one... it's the best for figuring out perspective.
Good to see Draw-A-Box was a good choice for my drawing coarse. Kinda checks a lot of these boxes(sure, pun intended, why not). Now if only I can keep on top of it and not stray.
Thanks for all the videos that help inspire me to keep going.
Pencil lines thick to thin and circles and rolling boxes in a perspective environment in unfamiliar angles. Then 30 second gestures.
When I was in writing class my Professor would have us start the class by writing on a journal or piece of paper to do a free write. To write whatever was on our mind. She said the reason for this was to "get the Emos out". Which I agree worked a lot because it would let me focus more without too much of my personal life entering into the writing.
I feel the same goes for drawing. If I am stuck or too emotional to draw I would just draw what I was feeling. To "get the Emos out" and clear my mind :)
Great segment! I definitely echo the recommendations for drawing from life. Having to flatten a real-life 3d image onto a 2d sheet of paper completely changes your perception and informs what you lay down. Most people look at their world every day but don't really know what anything looks like because the brain fills in gaps and patterns subconciously. Drawing from life forces you to really ingest what you're seeing so you can close those gaps and draw (pun intended) from that knowledge to create your art.
Thanks so much for this mini series asking pros questions like this. I find it interesting how ultimately simple their tips are, encouraging study of basic shapes, drawing from life, and experimenting.
For me, drawing from life is something I’ll be trying out more!
Gonna try the simple exercises right away, straight lines and circles. Then the cube exercises.
Drawing boxes in all angles, along with lines and circles. Then finishing with the 10 second blind drawings sounds like a good plan for me.
Gesture is always going to be useful, shapes and volumes as well. But one thing I didn't see any of these artists address is step away or back away from a piece of artwork. Coming back with a fresh perspective will help you see mistakes and or potential in the image that you might not have seen if you're constantly working on it up close. A simple change of your perspective can be of great help sometimes. It will also usually immediately help you with seeing composition and shape language. That type of information is usually visible at any range.
Fun video series, nice work.
14:00 so true ! i think everyone needs to learn drawing traditionally , thanks for the great tips Proko , love your videos , keep making video man , love learning new things from you
Deep down, I knew that I was supposed to do these, but for some reason, I only want to do these exercises only after hearing other artists talk about them.
This was so immensely useful, definitely a video I will be coming back to. Thanks for posting this video it was not only practical but motivating, hearing so many great artist repeat the same thing help me see what I need to focus on to get better.
thanks for this video, i'm one of the lazy artist, iknow that i have a talent of drawing but i enjoyed seeing the artists drawing than i myself practising it. but now i have to practice drawing everyday thank you again proko your channel is the best artists motivator. more power... and more practice to all artist.
Thank you for your videos!
All exercises are great. At this point I would go for Lemen's exercises and drawing boxes in all kinds of rotations.
My own tip would be to do zentangle exercises. I love lines and patterns and although I'm not too fond of the commercial side of zentangle, I started drawing the patterns with this method. After only a few months now I notice benefits in all my creative explorations, which I didn't expect.
Doing a zentangle exercise is simple and doesn't have to take a lot of time, but it's the opposite of doing a quick and loose sketch. You draw clear lines (no sloppiness allowed), circles and curves with full focus of your mind (the zen part of it), and with these simple lines you build up a pattern. It's drawn with pen, pencil is only for shading and sometimes a guideline. Without realising, I learned a lot about how lines work together, how lines work with negative space, how simple lines can create shape, depth or optical illusions.
Two best ones here (cos they were the two I had in my head) are LOOKING! If you're not looking at something you're drawing, you can't draw it, because you're not seeing it. I mean, when you look at a tree, SEE the curve of the trunk, the exact colour of the leaves, the texture of the bark, any imperfections, enjoy the tree. Look DEEP! Don't just look for a few seconds, look for an hour. Eventually, you'll be able to see ALL that stuff, in just a few seconds. A coat, a dog, a person, a tree, a car, whatever ... you have to learn how to really look! And the second one is the warmup / hand pencil exercises. Lines. Thousands and thousands of parallel lines, as close to each other as you can, then switch angle and cross hatch it. Do it till you do it without even trying or thinking, soon every line will be drawn in 0.01 seconds and they will be perfect. Then draw a circle, and shade it, and then do another and another, over and over. With pencil or with biro. Doesn't matter. Eventually it'll be second nature, your brain and eyes and hand will be in total unison, never arguing with each other, forever (as long as you keep it up). It's like chopping onions. At first you cut your hand, the onions rings are all over the place, and you can only chop 3 onions a minute. After a few months, you no longer cut yourself, your slices are uniform, and you're up to 8 onions a minute! After a few YEARS, you don't even look at your hands anymore, you never make a mistake you can't instantly fix or adapt with, AND you chop 20+ onions a minute. It's the same with drawing. Chopping onions.
The exercise of drawing rotating boxes and then rotating objects was so useful! :D