Three tips to improve your drawing

Here’s three tips to help you start or improve your drawing.

Tip 1. Practise makes improvement

The common response I hear from friends and people I have met at markets is ‘I can’t even draw a stick figure’. Well, like other sports, music and arts, it’s all about practise, patience and a thing called muscle memory. A common misconception is ‘Practice makes Perfect’. That is not entirely true.

Practising any task, whether it’s guitar, drawing or sinking basketball hoops will improve your skills over time and does not necessary mean you will be perfect. Renowned piano players, musicians and artists still practise their skill because you cannot define what perfect is in these areas.

This is where muscle memory comes in. In order to do these tasks skilfully your muscles need to practise these movements over and over and over to form muscle memories. For example, I’m terrible at Basketball, but If I stood in front of a hoop and practised throwing the ball everyday for 10 minutes each day, in two weeks I would have improved that skill. Any improvement I had made also gives me confidence to keep going. I know I will never play in a NBA Team but I could shoot some hoops with my son and keep up.

It’s the same with drawing and painting, if you practise with a brush or pencil, those movements made by your hand and wrist form a memory.

The hard part is to keep practising and not giving up because your improvement isn’t where you think it should be. I started drawing when I could hold a pencil and kept practicing because I loved to create pictures. I often find if I haven’t drawn in a couple of weeks, my skills become a ‘bit rusty’ so I need to keep practicing to keep that skill up. If you really struggle with drawing, I would suggest starting off with something easy like tracing which leads me to my second tip.

Tip 2. Tracing will improve your drawing!

Fact: Tracing helps you become better at drawing. Yes, that is correct and no, it is not cheating as some artists like to think, its a great was to create something and improve your drawing skills at the same time. Best of all it improves muscle memory. I trace drawings all of the time. I really only trace rough sketches I have previously drawn myself but I still use a couple of methods to trace – a lightbox or overlaying thin paper. You will find over time you won’t need to trace so much because of the confidence you have now from learning how to draw. So get out there and find something to trace, print off your favourite picture of a unicorn or a car and start copying it.

Tip 3. Draw what you love!

If your’e serious about drawing or painting, draw what you love. For example, If you like to draw unicorns, cars, fairies or even gory monsters, draw them! If feel you need to draw landscapes, people or flowers because that seems more ‘acceptable’, don’t. You will find your drawing will improve because are drawing what you love to draw. Art is all about creating something that you want to create which brings you joy.

I hope these three tips help and give you some confidence and guidance with your drawing. Good Luck!