So you want to start drawing?

by Rhiannon Urbanowski

So you’ve decided that you want to pick up drawing but you’re not sure where to begin. Whether it sounds like a relaxing pastime or a profitable skillset, drawing is something I have always believed ANYONE can improve at. Does that make it easy? Definitely not. Does that make it impossible? NEVER.. Anyone can learn a skillset with some patience. That is the beauty of a skillset, or any of the trades in general. Anything can be learned and improved upon with time, enjoyment, and dedication.

I say time because it will take an allotment of energy to not only improve, but just to get “into” a drawing. I think patience is a HUGELY important part of picking up drawing. Most good artists have been artists for a better majority of 20 years. It takes TIME to get good at something. Have you ever heard the saying that it takes 10k hours to master a skill? Just like you aren’t going to learn to drive a car the first time you sit behind the wheel, your drawing of your cat or that spaceship won’t look anything remotely like the object you are attempting to draw until you spend hours drawing that object.

But it’s not just about drawing that same object 10,000 times. That would probably get pretty mundane after awhile and I’m not sure a lot of people would be the artists they are today if they only drew a cat EVER in their lives. You have to diversify. You have to draw things that interest you. And maybe that does mean drawing A LOT of cats. But maybe it also means drawing dogs and drawing cars and drawing flowers so that you can learn to see the difference between how they are shaped and structured and how the light hits them. Drawing is an art in and of itself when you boil down how many facets go into a single image. How much heart goes into a piece of work that an artist has created. How much time have they spent refining their skill to come to a point in their life where they can draw a beautiful image in a matter of hours or maybe even minutes? That is what people are paying artists for, although that is another blog post entirely.

And then comes in enjoyment because if you aren’t getting any satisfaction from the process itself, you will never improve. You will never be able to spend the time or to dedicate yourself to the process enough to get better. When you enjoy what you are doing, whether it be the subject matter or the process, you will willingly spend the time and energy to engage with a drawing long enough to make something of it. Enjoyment is the biggest deciding factor in whether someone will make a good artist or not. Art is something that comes from the soul and it is incredibly hard to fake. Good art always takes heart and people will never be drawn more that sensationally to art that has ulterior motives. Draw things that you enjoy. I enjoy food and pancakes 🙂

Dedication is third because I believe that people have only ever made impressive strides when they dedicated themself to a task. If you want to learn the piano but you only play for 15-30 minutes once a week at your piano lessons for 10 years of your life you will at least know more piano then someone who only sat down at the piano once a month for a summer. However, how much better would you be after 10 years if you spent 15-30 mins twice a week (aside from your required lesson)? How about if you played 8 hours a day? It almost sounds impossible but I have met music students who easily spent 8 hours a day. And it’s the same for art. It’s the same for artists. Art students would easily spend 8 hours drawing a project for one class and another 8 hours drawing another picture or creating another image for another class. But it requires some level of dedication.

So the real question becomes what do YOU want to gain from drawing? Do you want to to sell your work someday, to be an artist for a living, or do you just enjoy putting lines down on the paper? You will see improvement over time no matter your level of dedication, so long as your level is above nonexistent. So experiment. There is no need to decide today. If you enjoy it, do it. Buy yourself a pad of paper and a pencil and carry it everywhere you go. Get yourself something small that will fit into your pocket and take it with you everywhere. Take it on the bus and sketch the people around you. Pull it out in the mall when you see an interesting individual or a beautiful park or an object that captures your attention. Just start drawing. Make it a habit. See if it sticks? And when it does, spend more a more time on the same image, the same piece of paper. Instead of sketching your cat for 5 minutes and putting down your pencil, spend 30 minutes and try to add more details. Draw the fur, draw the shadows and the highlights. Start drawing what you see and when you learn the rules, learn to break them.

Happy Drawing!

See you next time