An Easy Guide to Improve Drawing Skills 

This tutorial provides a chronological progression of drawing exercises that help you to build your skills in only 9 days from basic drawing exercises to complex drawing exercises. Drawing does not have to be a three-hour time period that is set aside in the day – it can be a series of small little bites of time spread throughout the empty spaces within a day.

Creating a daily practice of more digestible drawing exercises also gives you more confidence and achievable tasks that can be done. You will also find that these simple drawing exercises are a great way to work out drawing skills and are intended to be done in a sketchbook. We will also find that the drawing process is very simple and requires minimal tools, which makes the process much more doable. 

Different Daily Drawing Exercises 

The intention of this guide is to help you establish fundamental skills that you can use on a daily basis to build your basic understanding of shading and linework. Understanding the basic concepts of the drawing will also help to maximize your time actually drawing. All these drawing exercises are intended to be done chronologically, each skill learned will be built off the previous one. This makes the progression into the more complicated subject matter much more doable and less intimidating. 

Learning to Draw Basic Shapes

We want to start with the basic drawing exercise of exploring fundamental shapes and shading. Learning how to shade different shapes with different mediums is a great way to advance your shading skills as well as your understanding of light and shadow. In many ways, different mediums and shading styles can also be used strategically later on for textural differences in real-life object drawings. 

To make drawing less daunting, the best thing to do is to start small and slowly build up to more complex drawing exercises. We do this by starting with simplistic three-dimensional shapes, where we can focus more on the effects of shading and how to form objects with different shading styles. 

Working with basic three-dimensional structures enables you to work out shadow and light formations within a drawing. It’s essential to know how to create shadows around objects in spaces that are opposite to the light source. This will teach you to be more aware of light sources when drawing from life. 

Once you understand the process of shading simple objects where you create seamless transitions within your shading, you then can apply these concepts to more complicated structures. 

Working on basic shapes also gives you the opportunity to refine your shading skills by exploring different shading methods. 

It is also a fun way to explore the different effects that different shading styles can create, such as the scribble technique. This technique is a unique way to shade an object and looks amazing when done right. 

Another simple shape that is fundamental is the sphere. The sphere is a classic shape that has no corners and, in many ways, is the base shape of various other objects without corners. 

Learning how to shade a sphere is a great skill because it teaches you to create seamless transitions. 

With cornered objects, we can often create different tonal values on different sides of the shape, whereas, with a sphere, we are trying to create a seamless transition in the shadows along the curved surface. 

Using Different Shading Techniques 

Again, learning how to shade in simple objects is a foundational skill that can be applied to more complex objects. This means that we want to use this drawing exercise to explore different mediums for shading. 

As we get more comfortable with different shading tools, we will have a more confident approach to the more complicated subject matter. 

Try to explore how different shading styles can be utilized within different shapes. For instance, the cross-hatching method is quite tricky to implement into a sphere. A sphere is a great way to grasp how light wraps around an object and how shadows form subtly on the other side. 

This makes the cross-hatching method a great skill to acquire, especially for moments in a drawing with subtly curved surfaces similar to that of the sphere. 

It’s good to try harder forms of shading with simple shapes because the more practiced we are the more natural it will seem when applying them to stranger subject matter. This is also teaching us the concept of shadow and light, which is essential to drawing. 

So, remember to experiment with different shapes and shading styles, considering how different shading styles create different effects within different shapes. Also, keep in mind that shadows and light formations are represented through the use of shading. 

You can also explore the effects of using shading in strange ways with simple three-dimensional shapes. 

For instance, you can draw three-dimensional shapes in their transparent form, allowing all lines to be visible. From there, you can shade each visible segment in various directions. 

Again, explore different shading styles whilst trying different shading effects within your three-dimensional structures. Exploring this method of shading different segments in a single shape also provides you with a sense of the abstract aesthetics you can achieve through the application of shading. 

Spend time on shading in different three-dimensional structures until you feel that you have built a base of both forming shapes and shading them in with different mediums. Try to have this skill on lock and then proceed to something a little more complicated. 

Drawing Individual Household Items 

Once we become habitual with practicing shading simple three-dimensional shapes, we can then start to apply these concepts to real-life objects. We will also find that the knowledge of different mediums and shading styles can be used strategically for textural differences in objects. 

The best way to move on from drawing simple 3D objects is to start drawing single household real-life objects. This could be something like a vase, cup, mug, basket of apples, or anything that is quite basic in structure. 

You will start to learn that these objects have the same quality of light and shadow formations as basic three-dimensional shapes. However, this time, you will become more aware of the textural differences. 

Being more responsive to textures in objects starts to make you more aware of the way objects interact with light in different ways. Light and shadows will always be fundamentally the same in that they will be present on opposite sides of an object. 

However, some textures are smooth and glossy and can therefore reflect light more intensely, whereas some objects have matte surfaces and therefore absorb light a little more. This will make us more considerate of how we shade objects to represent these differences. 

Drawing single objects in a sketchbook is a great exercise that can be done on a daily basis, as there are various objects from which you can draw inspiration in your immediate environment. This is more of an exercise to explore the textural variety. 

You will find that the concepts used to draw simple three-dimensional can be directly transferred to drawing more complex three-dimensional objects. Playing around with different surfaces, such as a vase, for example, will also give you insight into the refractions and distortions of light and shadow on the surface of an object. 

This is particularly true for smooth surfaces, which makes for a great drawing exercise. In many ways, we will find that the refractions are so strange that they are almost easy to draw because of how distinct the lines can be in some cases. 

Once we start comparing such surfaces with more absorbent and matte surfaces, such as fruits, we will start to notice finer details. Simple still-life drawings such as these are really good for observational skills. 

When shading different objects, the process will also be the same every time, where we sketch the fundamental shape and slowly start to refine it into a more identifiable structure. 

We can then start to take note of the differences in shadows and light and how they form around the object. From there, we can start making decisions about the mediums and shading styles that will complement the subject matter. From there, it is simply a matter of keen observation, taking note of all the subtle details. This also prepares you for other drawings where you try to capture objects in motion, such as people. 

Still-life drawing allows you the opportunity to really advance your observational skills, as it is a practice where you can take your time and really look for long periods of time. 

In many ways, these exercises will improve drawing skills, but they will also improve your attention to detail in general. This is quite a fundamental skill for spacial and object awareness you will need for other activities in your daily life. 

Try to work out drawing different objects with different mediums, considering the aesthetic qualities of different tools and how they create different surfaces and textures.  This is perhaps one of the most essential daily drawing exercises that should be done for a while before moving on to drawing in public spaces which is where you would try to capture moments in time. 

You can also explore timed exercises to challenge yourself with drawing objects as quickly as you can. This is a good progressive task for transitioning into drawing more difficult subject matter.

Once you have established a daily practice of still-life daily sketches in your sketchbook, you will have created a good and comfortable mentality for capturing realistic objects in real-time, as you are present with the subject matter in the vicinity. 

Daily Sketches of People 

Once you have become comfortable with drawing three-dimensional shapes and basic objects, you can start to move on to drawing more complex subject matter like people. This exercise, however, is intended to be done quickly, as there are often moments when people are moving from one destination to the next. 

In many instances, we will find that there are people who are sitting around waiting or eating, and this is a good opportunity to capture a figure in a still-life approach. However, there will always be subtle movements in a person’s body language. A daily sketch of people is one of the most important drawing exercises for improving your observational skills because of the variety of details present. 

When doing daily sketches of people, we will be working with various variables in a single drawing, such as clothes, body proportions, light, shadows, and many others. 

This observational drawing exercise increases your awareness and attention to detail significantly. This is also an exercise that doesn’t necessarily have to be detailed when you start out. 

You can begin by creating some basic vague figure sketches that demonstrate shape and form to work on drawing the simple body proportions, movements, and poses that you see. 

We can also start to play around with how we bring characters to the foreground by experimenting with background features. This is also a great exercise you can transition to from still-life drawing because, in many ways, you’re drawing people as you would an object. 

Keep in mind that people are often in different types of attire means that there is a textural quality in their clothing that you are trying to capture in your drawing. This is often dedicated to their interactions with light and how shadows form on their clothing. When we draw people in motion, we are forced to try our best and notice as much as we can. This makes drawing people a memory exercise, which is amazing for your retention of information for drawing. 

It’s also important to explore people in different poses and spaces as well as people who are mobile or stationary. Drawing people in these two different states offers two different drawing approaches. The more we practice drawing people in motion, the more we will be working on our memory-related drawing skills. We will find that if we make this a daily practice, we will gain the ability to sketch faster and in detail. 

Exploring Different Mediums 

We can also use this as an opportunity to try out different mediums. Building up from your basic three-dimensional shapes drawing exercise to still-lifes and then eventually people is a great progression with skills that can be used interchangeably in each exercise. Allow yourself to explore different drawing mediums for different aesthetic effects in your drawings. For drawing people in motion specifically, a useful detail to take note of is light and how it forms on the figure. 

This means that we should take a mental snapshot of where the shadows are most significant and where the light is most significant. From there, we can be the figure more loosely with the knowledge of better shadow placement. This drawing practice should be approached as a daily sketch, which can take time and can be difficult at first. This can take a while but that is the nature of drawing. This is an essential skill to work on when learning how to practice drawing more effectively. 

Daily Sketches of Spaces 

The last exercise is a great way to utilize all the skills learned in the previous drawing exercises. This is because it requires attention to detail, the assemblage of various elements such as light, shadow, and a sense of depth. Drawing spaces is another great observational drawing skill, as it also develops both your sense of spatial awareness and sense of depth. 

Sketch 1

1. Draw Overlapping Structures: Explore spaces with an array of overlapping structures due to depth of field, offering a great challenge in observing depth and viewing angles.
2. Enhance Depth-of-Field Skills: Practice sketching spaces regularly to improve your ability to capture distance in drawings.
3. Sketch Spaces Quickly: Try quick sketches in transient areas like public transport, where time is limited, to enhance your skills.
4. Memory Exercise: Treat these quick sketches as memory exercises, similar to drawing people in motion, improving over time with practice.
5. Develop Foreshortening Skills: Learn to depict foreshortening and distance, understanding how objects change in scale with distance.
6. Assemble Scenes Like a Puzzle: Approach drawing spaces by connecting structures from the background to the foreground, creating a cohesive scene.
7. Focus on Man-Made Areas: Pay special attention to man-made spaces with distinct lines and corners, like public transport and buildings, to understand space connectivity.
8. Sketch Confidently in Short Time Frames: Learn to quickly identify connecting lines in a space, understanding how the foreground merges with the background for efficient sketching.

Sketch 2

1. Draw Static Environments for Meditation: Practice slow drawing in unchanging environments for a meditative experience.
2. Explore Different Mediums and Tonal Values: Use these static scenes to experiment with various drawing mediums and explore tonal values for depth and distance.
3. Be Suggestive in Early Stages: In initial sketches, focus on creating an atmosphere rather than a realistic depiction, being more suggestive with your marks.
4. Creative and Curatorial Approach: Choose static environments creatively, like exploring your neighborhood, and set up spaces that interest you for drawing.
5. Utilize Learned Skills and Experiment: Apply the skills you’ve acquired so far and experiment with combining different mediums.
6. Recognize Interchangeability of Skills: Understand that skills learned in various exercises are interchangeable and can be applied in different contexts.
7. Patience and Consistency in Daily Sketches: Remember the importance of being patient and maintaining consistency in your daily sketching practice.

Tips and Tricks to Remember

• Drawing practice takes time. It is all a matter of patience when it comes to drawing, so try to be patient and allow yourself time to develop. 
• Always think about light and shadow. This is a fundamental concept to keep in the back of your head when trying to improve your drawing skills overall.  
• Experiment with different mediums. When going through drawing exercises to improve your skills, incorporating different mediums is a great addition to consider in order to enhance your drawing skills. 
• Try your best to be consistent. A sketchbook is essential as it can make being consistent much more doable when learning how to practice drawing. 
• Make time if you are truly interested. It is important to make sure that you remain dedicated and put aside little bites of time in the day for drawing exercises so as to improve your skills as an artist. 

Drawing exercises can be small and doable tasks that will enhance a variety of skills over time, provided you stick with them. The best way to go about keeping yourself consistent is to put a daily reminder on your phone or to make a goal of finishing a sketchbook within a certain period of time. Most importantly, art is fun, so try to have a good time with it, and don’t be afraid to challenge yourself. 

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do You Improve Your Observational Drawing Skills? 

Drawing is a skill, which means it requires practice and commitment. The only way to develop your drawing skills is to be consistent with drawing. This is particularly true for developing your observational skills, which is why having a sketchbook is perhaps the most useful tool that can be utilized on demand. Having a sketchbook with you allows for the opportunity to sketch whenever and wherever. Using your sketchbook as a means of documenting your environments, activities, and day-to-day scenarios can be an amazing way of refining your observational skills. In many ways, life is constantly moving, which means that as you sketch in real-time, you are somewhat forced to rely on your sight and memory. This will allow you to become more vigilant and will therefore have an effect on your observational skills. 

How Do You Improve Your Shading Skills? 

Shading is simply the way in which we represent the interaction between objects and light, which in turn creates shadows and defines the three-dimensionality of objects. On one hand, developing an awareness of light and how it interacts with objects will give you a more advanced approach to your shading. This is because you will have a better sense of shadow placement and how these shadows are cast due to the light source present. The next major exercise for improving your shading skills is to practice different types of shading, such as smooth, cross-hatch, line, scribble, and other shading forms. Allow yourself to experiment and find what works for you within your own drawing practice. 

The post Drawing Exercises – Learn How to Draw in Only 9 Days% first appeared on Art in Context.

What Is Doodling? 

Doodle art is an act of sketching, drawing, or scribbling on a piece of paper, without the idea of what the finished image will be. When it comes to this type of drawing, the act of doodling or drawing is of more value than the result. Even if your finished doodling art looks great, the act of doodling is more about your concentration and relaxation at the moment. 

This means that doodling should be fun and must be done without any pressure or feeling that you need to create something perfect as a piece of art.

Doodling is also unique to each doodler, and there are no rules or fixed guidelines for you to follow. Some may enjoy drawing lines or shapes, for others it may be letters or numbers. Others may want to draw faces or animals; it is completely up to you what to doodle.

The act of doodling may be considered a type of art in progress, it may not be professional art, but you do not have to make any elaborate art piece. Even if you are only making lines or marks on a piece of paper, you are creating something and expressing yourself, and this can be considered art.   

The Evolution of Doodling  

The word “doodle” was first used in the early 17th century and means “a simpleton” or “a fool”. It was in the 18th century that “doodle” was used as a verb, which meant to make a fool of or to swindle. This led to the more general use of the verb doodle in modern times, which means to do nothing.   Doodling is an art that is practiced by everyone including American presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt, who doodled children and animals. Ronald Regan also doodled football players and cowboys, and John F. Kennedy doodled sailboats.

Even Hilary Clinton was caught doodling, which led people to believe she was not paying attention. However, this does not mean she was not listening to the proceedings, as doodling has been proven to help with listening and improving creativity.

Many of the world’s most influential historians were doodlers, and you will be very surprised to see how many goofy stick figures have appeared in the margins of some famous historical manuscripts. It has even been found in the mathematical field, where Stanislaw Ulam developed a visual aid for mathematics based on doodling, which he created when attending a conference.

Benefits of Doodling  

Usually, when people doodle, it is out of frustration, boredom, or even to release stress. Doodling is almost like a safety valve that will enable you to release some pressure but in a non-threatening and safe way. However, there is a lot more going on as doodling opens the subconscious mind, allowing you to access ideas and concepts that you would not have considered. Doodling gives certain processes in your brain a short break while releasing other more productive processes.

Doodling has a definite physiological effect, which we will now take a closer look at.

Doodling Helps to Relieve Stress  

When you feel wound up or tense, it is a good time to put pen to paper and start doodling to relieve any psychological distress. Doodling can help you to relax and unwind, as it can calm the amygdala, which is the part of your brain that controls the “fight or flight” responses that are linked to anxiety and stress. Doodling activates the brain’s ability to find certain past experiences and forward them into the present, which can help to produce a better life picture, helping you to relax.

Repeating the same shape or line brings about a state of calmness, as you are simply drawing the same thing without the fear of making any mistakes.

Doodling Improves Your Memory     

In 2009, Jackie Andrade, a psychologist from the University of Plymouth in the UK, assembled 40 people and asked them to listen to a boring two-minute and 30-second telephone message. Later, they were asked to try and recall any information they could remember from the message. They were not told that they would be tested after the message.  She divided the people into two groups and only told one group to shade in some square shapes on a piece of paper in front of them. They were also instructed not to be too concerned about neatness and keeping within the lines of the square shape. 

Both groups were then asked to recall any information they could remember about the message. The group that did the doodling was able to recall about 30 percent more information than the group that just listened.

What was it that made the doodlers better at recalling information than the non-doodlers? By doodling, the people were held at just the correct level of arousal, which kept them from falling into a state of daydreaming. While the non-doodlers had no reason to keep them from drifting into a state of daydreaming.

Drawing without any pressure is what keep their brains more focused. In other words, paying continuous attention without doodling becomes a strain, while doodling keeps your attention without losing complete or total interest. A study was done on university students, particularly medical students, who are required to absorb a large amount of information.

They found that students who doodle for a few minutes at a time remember more information that they need to recall at a later stage.

Doodling Improves Creativity         

Doodling does a great deal more than just keep you from falling asleep. The art of doodling aids in creativity, which can help you come up with more ideas that you can use for the problems that you are facing. Many famous poets and writers were doodlers, like J.K Rowling and Alexander Pushkin.

They drew the faces of their characters in the margins of their documents, which served as inspiration.

Sunni Brown, an American author, proved that doodling could stimulate certain parts of the brain and assist in processing information, allowing you to develop new ideas. She has been named one of the top ten highly creative people on Twitter.   

Doodling can help in refining and generating ideas that have been in your mind for some time, which is the main reason why authors are doodlers. The faces that Alexander Pushkin doodled on the edges of his manuscripts helped them come to life in his imagination. 

So, it is safe to say that many of the world’s greatest ideas are the result of doodling.

Doodling Helps to Process Your Emotions    

When you feel anxious, depressed, or frustrated, you may find it difficult to express your feelings in words. When someone asks you what is wrong, you may have an image popping up in your mind that can describe those emotions, but no way of expressing it. The University of California in San Diego established a digital sketch platform named UbiSketch.

They tested it over four weeks and discovered that the users of the platform sketched images that they had in their minds, expressing their feelings.

One person sketched a frazzled brain because he felt exhausted from his job and a newborn baby. Another person sketched an exam paper looming over her head, as the deadline of her final exams was rapidly approaching.

So, if you are found in a situation where you are wound up and frustrated, why not doodle that image and sketch out your feelings? Even if it is rough and not a good drawing, remember that a picture can speak a thousand words. 

Doodling Can Boost Your Mood 

Doodling does not only make you more creative, but it can also make you feel happier.  In our preceding section on expressing your emotions by doodling, it did not matter what you sketched. However, what you draw here matters.  In 2008, a study was conducted where participants were asked to sketch something that made them feel unhappy or happy. Those who chose to sketch the positive happy side experienced an elevation in their mood.

So, next time your spirits feel low, try sketching something that makes you feel happy.

Doodling Helps You to Learn More Effectively 

You may think doodling during your study time is counterproductive, but studies have proven that students who doodle during assignments and lectures retain more information. This enables you to understand complex ideas as well as increase your enjoyment of study and learning. Doodling also reduces any distractions and will promote innovative thinking. These are some of the benefits you can enjoy in university, school, at work, or just life in general.

Doodling Helps to Improve Your Thinking  

There is a well-known expression, “You can miss the forest for the trees”. Doodling is something that can help you take in the whole forest. When you have a problem to solve or a task to complete, you often suffer from tunnel vision, and you can only see what is directly in front of you. Doodling will help you to step backward and allows you to connect to other concepts. You can doodle ideas, even if they are in your subconscious or old memories. In other words, you are looking at the bigger picture, which can lead you to more innovative solutions to your problem.

Doodling can help you to concentrate and focus on your conscious mind, but even when daydreaming, connections can be made in your subconscious mind as well.

One student studying architecture was struggling to come up with an idea for a project, he was bored and doodled his signature repeatedly. Suddenly, he noticed a pattern forming between the letters. An idea sprang to mind, and he doodled a sketch, which became the cornerstone of his design that was highly successful. 

Doodling Can Make You a Better Listener  

We have all experienced our mind wandering when listening to someone talking to us, and our thoughts are more on personal issues. When this happens again, try to doodle. Jesse Prinz, who is a philosophy professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, says doodling keeps your mind in a state of listening that is almost the same as meditation. Your mind is in a state where it cannot wander, and if you do not doodle, you find yourself having difficulty concentrating.

This attitude makes you a better listener, where you can concentrate and comprehend what the other person is talking about.  

The Art of Doodling   

Doodling has been described as mindless art, but this is far from the truth, so instead of calling it doodling, let us rather refer to it as doodle art. Many people love doodle art because they enjoy sketching, as it is relaxing and fun to do. Doodle art can be simple or more complex and intricate. Let us now consider different styles and techniques of doodle art that you can use and enjoy.

Zen Doodling 

Zen doodling, also known as freestyle doodling, is sketching, or drawing lines, figures, or letters. You can even color in some of the loops or squiggles in different colors. You can create it anywhere and with any type of drawing supplies you may have at hand. The doodle can look like anything, it does not matter, the idea is for you to enjoy and relax. Here are some zen-doodling ideas for you to try.

• Draw some boxes and color them in.
• Fill your page with different loops and lines.
• Draw a large triangle and then keep on adding smaller triangles inside and around it.
• Doodle your name and those of your family using different styles, like block letters, robot style, loopy letters, and even messy letters.
• In the center of your page draw a flower, then add smaller flowers all around it till you fill your page.
• Draw different sizes and shapes of leaves.

Zen Tangle   

Zen tangle is a form of doodling that is made up of various doodling patterns that can be found in many books and online. These patterns all come together to create a whole art piece. It is easy to do, fun, and relaxing, and anyone can create amazing images of structured doodling patterns that are repetitive. However, zen tangling is different from zen doodling, as more thought is put into it. You are paying a lot more attention to making your doodles more cohesive, and it is not just a random squiggling of lines and letters but involves simple patterns that come together to create the final image.

Zen tangles are usually created using a small piece of square paper or board about three and a half inches, or board, which are then filled in with repetitive patterns.

Most zen tangles have specific names and ways in which each pattern is formed or drawn. There are many patterns you can learn, with names like dribbetz, cyme, ennies, fangle, among many others. The art of creating a zen tangle is known as tangling. It is a meditative art form, where the artist’s focus is on creating single lines and not a complete image. Zen tangles are usually created in black and white and should be a mindless drawing activity that looks like absolutely nothing but is created with intent and purpose. So, if your zen tangle looks like something with a specific shape or form, then it is not a zen tangle.

When you create a zen tangle, you need to see that it does not look like something. In other words, it has no top or bottom, no upside or downside, they are rather tangle patterns that may have some shading, but they are carefully and intentionally created. Below, you will find a few zen tangle ideas.

• Start off with a simple square shape and then begin adding zentangle patterns.
• You can also take other simple shapes, like a heart-shape, and fill with zentangle patterns.
• Use the zentangles to create beautiful butterfly wings.
• Create simple animal outlines and fill will zentangle patterns.
• How about a stylish zentangle hat?

Mandalas  

The word “Mandala” is a Sanskrit word meaning “circle” and is a very old custom that has been practiced by different religions and cultures over the centuries. For example, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Native Americans, and many more. It was used as a spiritual or meditation tool that represented a connection to the universe but is now used as a tool to promote relaxation and mindfulness. Mandalas consist of circles or circles within squares and can be of any shape. They must have an integrated structure that is organized around the center. The mandalas consist of repetitive geometric patterns that begin in the center and then move outward.

The mandalas can have color, or they can be black and white, and they can be simple, or immensely intricate.

Mandalas are created with a purpose, like creating a connection, wholeness, or intentions, and the creator needs to remain focused on that purpose all the time they are drawing. If you feel like adding shapes, words, or patterns just let your mind flow, and the mandala is complete when you feel it is finished or when the focus has been lost. There is even a specific color chart for the colors of your mandala. So, here is a list of the colors and their symbolic meaning, which will allow you to pick the color that you feel goes with your mandala.

• Pink: represents intuition, love, and femininity.
• Red: represents high energy, strength, and passion.
• Yellow: represents wisdom, laughter, learning, and happiness.
• Orange: represents transformation, creativity, intuition, and self-awareness.
• Blue: represents inner peace, emotional healing, and meditation.
• Green: represents psychic ability, physical healing, caring, and love of nature.
• White: represents spiritual focus.
• Purple: represents all spiritual things.
• Black: represents deep thinking, mystery, and individuality.

Doodling and Education 

Traditionally the art of doodling has been regarded as a distraction from learning, but psychological research has shown that doodling in the classroom can be of great benefit to the student in learning, attention, memory, stress relief, and increased focus.  For many students, the conventional way of learning does not work, and doodling can be a way of improving the student’s ability to concentrate. In some schools, the teachers are beginning to include doodling as part of the curriculum.

Doodling in schools and places of learning should not be discouraged but rather used as a potential avenue where educators can find the best methods that will help the students to learn and retain information.

Doodling in the Workplace   

When you next find yourself at work with a problem, and you cannot find the answer, why not take out a piece of paper and a pen or pencil and start doodling? By just drawing random shapes, lines, or figures, you will be able to improve your memory, boost your creativity, increase your productivity, or just help yourself relax. Researchers have proven that doodling has some amazing benefits for everybody, including at your workplace.  Doodling will help to improve your memory to recall information that was spoken in meetings.

It will boost your creativity and will give you the ability to think outside the box, making you more efficient in your job. Doodling will also help you to relax and reduce any stress you may be going through.   

Doodling makes an excellent brainstorming technique, each member gets a piece of paper and a pencil, then each one doodles an image that comes to mind. Then the papers are passed around to the person next to them, and they add to that first sketch. The papers are then collected, and each sketch is discussed to see how many innovative ideas come to mind.

How to Doodle 

Doodling is a great way to pass the time when you are bored, which can strike anytime or place. So, you need to always be prepared by carrying a notebook and pencil with you so you can create doodles. Here are some simple steps to follow when learning how to doodle. First, here are some basic doodling supplies that you will need.

• Pencil or pen
• Highlighter
• Marker

Whenever you want to doodle, just pick up your pen or pencil and start to doodle. You can sketch an event, an act, a feeling, a place, a person, your name, or anything that comes to mind, even if it is only a few lines and squiggles. As soon as you start, you will find that inspiration will come. Doodle ideas can include flowers, faces, words, or numbers using different types of figures and letters, or animals like your pet cat or dog or some scary monsters. Just look around you for doodle ideas, such as a tree, or people walking, or doodle what you can hear, like a song or what your teacher or lecturer is talking about. 

Remember, doodling does not have to be perfect, and it does not have to resemble something or somebody.

Doodling is simply an expression of your feelings and what you are thinking. So, have some fun as there are no rules to follow and there are no deadlines to meet. Doodling is not just some random scribbling. Doctor Robert Burns, who was the director of the Institute of Human Development, made use of doodles to diagnose some of his patient’s emotional problems. He shares how doodling shows what is happening in our subconscious minds, and just as an EEG transmits brain activity onto a piece of paper, so your hand works in a similar way.

So, when you find yourself struggling and unable to concentrate, then doodling may be just the thing that you need. It will give your brain the ability to focus and allows you to be more creative, helping you to solve problems that you might be experiencing. 

The art of doodling has been given a bad name in the past, but it has proven to be beneficial to students as well as employees, as it helps to improve memory and reduces stress. The main advantage of doodling is that it can be done by anyone, even if you do not have an artistic background. All you need to do is sketch some basic shapes or lines and you are doodling, and with some more practice, you can become a master in doodle art!

Frequently Asked Questions  

Is Doodling the Same As Drawing? 

Doodling art is not as challenging as drawing, which is a skill you must learn. What is doodling? It is creating simple lines and basic shapes on paper. You are not trying to create something perfect, and the process is done more on a subconscious level. You are merely expressing yourself on the paper.

What Are the Main Benefits of Doodling?  

Research has proven that people who doodle during a lecture or class are paying attention to what is being said, and that they can recall a lot of the information that was discussed. Their brain remains engaged, and their memory is improved. The main benefit of doodling is to help you remain focused and improve your frame of mind. Research has shown that doodling can uplift your mood and has the same effect on your brain as laughing or eating chocolate.

What Is the Psychology Behind Doodling?   

Doodling can enhance your thinking and balances your mental state between daydreaming and awareness, enabling you to come up with new and creative ideas. It also produces a state of relaxation.  

The post What Is Doodling? – Enhance Your Creativity Through Doodling% first appeared on Art in Context.

An Easy Guide to Drawing Two-Point Perspective  

In this tutorial on two-point perspective drawing, we will learn how to create 2 point perspective shapes and how to transform them into identifiable structures that can be used in our own practice. Knowing about perspective drawing and understanding the difference between one-point and two-point perspectives will provide you with more choices when constructing spaces and environments in your artwork.

This skill is especially helpful when learning how to draw landscapes that seem immersive and realistic in scale and depth. 

Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Draw Two-Point Perspective 

In this tutorial on two-point perspective, we will start simple with a basic demonstration of the fundamental rules that constitute a two-point perspective drawing. We will learn how to establish 2-point perspective shapes using these rules, which we will then change and shape into a more identifiable structure. In this case, we will learn how to draw a building and go through the step-by-step process of creating the structure with the rules of perspective.

Now that we know what to expect, let us go through the drawing process of the two-point perspective. 

Understanding the Basics for Two-Point Perspective 

We first want to break down some basic concepts used in two-point perspective drawing that will help us to understand the drawing process a little more clearly. Once we know the basic concepts we will find that we then will be able to apply these concepts to various two-point perspective drawings. 

Understanding the Horizon Line and Two Vanishing Points 

Similar to one point perspective, you simply want to draw a horizon line on your page and establish two vanishing points along the horizon line. Depending on how high or low the horizon line will change the way in which the two-point perspective shapes will be seen.

Once you have the horizon line and two vanishing points drawn on the horizon line, you can then draw a single vertical line between them. This will establish a meeting point where the perspective lines of each vanishing point will connect. 

Understanding Perspective Lines for Depth

This vertical line can extend past the horizon line, going through it will establish an object placed on the ground beneath the horizon line. From there, lines can connect to either end of the vertical line from both vanishing points.

These perspective lines are going to establish a sense of depth for objects to be drawn within. 

From here you can add vertical lines within the perspective lines, which will start to create two-point perspective shapes. These perspective lines can meet anywhere in the space on the page to establish shapes anywhere within the drawing. 

You will find that as you create shapes within the confines of the perspective lines, you will start to see that it establishes a viewpoint from the corner of an object, allowing you to see around the object. 

Drawing a Building in Two-Point Perspective 

Now that we have a general idea of how basic two-point perspective shapes are constructed, we can start drawing our own building with the basic concepts we have learned. We will see that by using the simple tools of the two-point perspective, we can easily construct interesting structures. 

Step 1: Drawing Perspective Lines in Two-Point Perspective Shape

We now know how to draw a simple shape with two vanishing points and a vertical line that runs through the horizon line. Once we have established the shape, we can draw dots along the vertical line and connect perspective lines to them from both vanishing points. 

We can now add points along the top of the rectangular shape. Trying to keep them evenly separated. Try to draw these dots along the top line of the rectangular shape on either side of the shape. We should see that the rectangle resembles a building in its most basic rectangular form at this point. 

Step 2: Adding Vertical Lines to the Shape 

From the dots drawn along the top of the rectangular shape, we can now draw a set of vertical lines down both sides of the shape. We want to make sure that they remain vertical and parallel to one another. 

Step 3: Lightly Erasing the Drawing 

With perspective drawing, it is a good idea to work lightly, especially during the early sketching stages where you establish the fundamental form of the structure. From here, it is a good idea to lightly erase the basic structure before more refined sketching. 

Step 4: Lightly Drawing Features of a Building 

The combination of vertical and perspective lines is going to establish a grid that runs along the surface area of the shape. This is going to set up some guidelines for us to draw in features of a building. We want to make sure that we consider the angle at which the building is viewed when drawing features. 

Due to the perspective, we will see all the right sides of three-dimensional structures on the left side of the building and vice versa for structures on the right side of the building. When drawing lines of features on the building we can use the vanishing points on opposite ends to establish the angles of lines. 

This means that not only can we use the perspective lines from one vanishing point to establish a structure on the building, but, we can use the perspective lines from the other vanishing point to draw the visible edges of said structures. 

This is especially helpful for making structures three-dimensionally accurate on the building. By using both perspective lines from vanishing points, you can create different three-dimensional structures on both sides of the building. 

Try to explore adding features to the façade of the building using the grid that was drawn with the perspective lines. Remember, that the perspective lines are used for establishing depth, however, length and height are established with vertical lines. 

You can also explore adding features that protrude outwardly from the façade of the building. Again, you can use the perspective lines to build up the structural lines, by making them point toward each vanishing point. 

You can play around with creating levels in the building by drawing protruding features on the façade that break up the building into different levels. This is a great way to create balconies or windows with protruding columns. 

You can also draw features surrounding the building such as sidewalks and street lights. Again, the perspective lines will assist you with the depth of structures and how far they need to extend toward each vanishing point. 

You will also find that they help to establish the scale of objects fading into the distance and the more they drift toward the vanishing points. This means that you can use these lines to determine how larger or high objects will extend from the ground, such as street lamps. 

Start to play around with adding features as you use the perspective lines to assist you with establishing them in the space. Again, each vanishing point will set up guidelines for drawing various sides of a single structure and their various angles. 

The perspective lines from each vanishing point will also establish the plane on which features can be drawn. This means that the cross-over of these perspective lines will help you to accurately establish features on the building, and features surrounding the building. 

Step 5: Drawing Final Details 

This is where we can start to work over the light sketch one last time, finalizing the details of the building. We should at this point feel free to be expressive with adding details to the building. 

At the end of the day, we want to use the rules of two-point perspective to establish simple two-point perspective shapes that can then be tweaked and changed by more free-hand drawing and details. 

We now can also explore adding color and unique elements to the drawing. Once we have lightly sketched the basic features of the building with the perspective lines, we can use those features as a reference for adding more as we go. 

This means we can still accurately add new features, simply by using the placement of previously drawn features as a reference. The previously drawn features should be used as a reference for the form and shape of new features on the building. 

The valuable part of a two-point perspective is that you can build up basic two-point perspective shapes with the rules, and then tweak and change them to create unique and interesting structures. This is where you can play around with how you would like a building to look. 

It is important to know that the vanishing points establish the depth of a structure. The perspective lines can be used to gauge how high or low structures will be but mostly how far back they will appear. 

Try to take your time as well, you don’t want to rush a perspective drawing. You want to make sure you keep using the vanishing points to establish new features. 

When trying to add unique features, consider exploring architectural images from Pinterest or any other art-based platform for inspiration. 

Step 6: Adding Contextualizing Features 

This is where we can draw a road on either side of the building in the center of the page to establish that roadside effect near the building. We can do this by simply drawing a line from both vanishing points that flow down towards either side of the page. 

You can also explore adding things like billboards on top of the building or buildings on either side of the building. These are secondary features we can add to the drawing to give the scene a more contextualized setting. 

You can also add in road lines, again flowing into the vanishing points on either side of the building. The road starts to give a more realistic placement to the building and how corners of buildings are often perceived from this angle. 

From here on out you can choose how you would like to detail surrounding features and structures near the building. This is where you should play around with the world-building aspect of a space and how you would like the surrounding features to appear. 

By the use of these perspective lines, you could construct an entire city, keeping the height and depth of the space realistic by sticking to the parameters of the perspective lines. 

And there you have it! How to draw two-point perspective shapes and how to transform them into something interesting. Allow yourself to explore the potential of this drawing technique by creating spaces with the use of perspective lines. 

Tips to Remember

• Build up the drawing with light sketches. It’s better to build up a drawing with light sketches, as this way you are less likely to make a mistake. 
• Understand the difference between length, width, and height. Perspective lines can help you to navigate the positioning of elements and determine how close or far they should be. 
• Play around with features and perspective lines. Use the lines from the vanishing points to build features on the building.
• Experiment with creating spaces. Don’t get hung up on perfect placement; use the perspective lines to establish various features and structures in different spaces in the scene. 

Two-point perspective drawing is a great skill to know when you want to create immersive environments that give a point-of-view-like effect. The utility of the two-point perspective is quite versatile as it can be added to the different subject matter as well as different drawing exercises. This is particularly useful for breaking down spaces when drawing them in real life. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What Can You Draw With a Two-Point Perspective?

Two-point perspective is often used for architectural and landscape artworks as a unique way to observe objects. This point of view can also be used to draw anything as the principle of two-point perspective can be applied to various subject matter and not just simple two-point perspective shapes. Two-point perspective principles can be a unique way of drawing characters that have a real shift in scale as body parts are positioned between backgrounds and foregrounds. This is a great way to draw characters moving in space and in unique positions of movement. 

What Is the Difference Between a One-Point and Two-Point Perspective? 

One-point perspective utilizes the unique composition established by one vanishing point, whereas two-point perspective utilizes the composition of two vanishing points. For a one-point perspective, this is a great way to create a landscape or a scene that flows in a singular direction. From a two-point perspective, the landscape is capable of flowing in two directions, creating a scene where objects are present on the crossover between two vanishing points. This gives a unique peripheral-like effect to the scene, where you can observe the object directly, but also the scene around the object. 

The post Two-Point Perspective Drawing – An Easy Step-by-Step Guide% first appeared on Art in Context.

How to Draw a Still Life

Learning how to draw a still life is so fun because you can use literally any object, however, that kind of freedom for some can seem daunting when figuring out what objects for still, life drawing will look right. In this beginner still-life drawing tutorial, we will break down the process of creating a still life, from choosing objects to arrangement and the drawing process. Even though we will work with simple still-life drawing subject matter, we will find that the processes apply to all types of subject matter. There are many ways to approach a still-life object drawing, but hopefully, this tutorial will help narrow down the process in a digestible way.

Necessary Materials

In this beginner still-life drawing tutorial, we will be working out the basic still-life object drawing process with a few simple tools. We will want to make sure we have some good pencils for sketching the still life. We will also want to make sure we have a ruler, eraser, and sharpener for keeping our pencils sharp and working out any mistakes we might make. Other than that, we will need some paper and a space in which we can focus on this tutorial on how to draw a still life without any distractions. All materials can be found through the links below:

• Ballpoint Pen
• Micron Pens
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Paper

A General Guide to Drawing a Still Life

There are two main sections to drawing a still life, the first is the preparations, where we figure out what are the ideal still-life objects to draw. We then work on arrangement and lighting until we are satisfied with the setup for a still-life object drawing. From there, we move on to the drawing process, where we start drawing the actual still life. This is where we break up the drawing process into their fundamental stages, exploring preliminary sketches, light shading, mid-tone shading, and finally dark shading to finalize the still-life object drawing. Now that we know what to expect, let us go through the process of learning how to draw a still life.

Preparation

Still, life drawing requires good research and preparation. In many ways, it is good to scour the internet for really interesting examples to inspire you beforehand. This will give you a sense of various ways to prepare yourself for a still life. There are so many different objects for still-life drawing, and it can seem quite challenging to find the right arrangement. There are a few ways we can look at the approach to drawing still life, and it starts with the following.

Choosing Items

We start by choosing a few items that we think are interesting and might work well together in a still-life drawing. We want to make sure we choose items that are unique, with different textures and surfaces. Try to include both organic and man-made items, which will provide you with textural differences to explore.

Arranging the Scene

Once we have our items. we want to work on arranging our items within a space, trying to find a good balance between all the objects. A good suggestion is to consider using fabric as a set on which the objects can be placed.

Try to think of different angles from which you will be drawing the still life. Will the still life be above or below you? These are the types of questions you want to ask yourself when thinking through your decisions.

Lighting

Lastly, we want to think about lighting. This is an opportunity to create really vividly contrasted or subtly lit scenes. Playing around with the direction from which the light source is present is going to shift the shadows in small ways that will affect the final outcome of the still-life drawing.

Drawing Process

Once you have selected your items and have arranged them in a space to your satisfaction, we can now move on to the drawing process. As we go through the basic steps of drawing a still life, we will learn that there are always going to be subtle differences in the end result and the objects that are being drawn.

Step 1: Seating and Set-Up for Observation

It is essential that we set up a space to sit and observe the items, this space should remain the same. We want to make sure that we are observing the scene from the same angle all the time. From there, we want to use our pencil to establish a basic horizon line.

Step 2: Light Sketching of the Scene

We want to take our time sketching out the scene, it is very important to keep the sketch as light as possible. Using a sketching pencil or a light graphite pencil like an H is a good suggestion. Make sure to keep your hand very light.

This is the most important part of a still-life drawing because we are drawing from life, which means we are more likely to make mistakes. This is also why we want to retain our viewpoint for drawing. We don’t want to be shifting to different sides, rather we want to draw from a single place.

A good suggestion is to start with objects in the foreground which become a reference for scale and positioning once completed. Using the object that stands in the foreground as a point of reference will help you to sketch and align the surrounding objects more accurately.

Again, the more complex the items you use the more time you should spend working out the placement of different features. For instance, if you use something like a camera, you want to consider how large the buttons are in relation to the lens. Or does the camera have a diagonal slant from your viewpoint?

Asking yourself comprehensive questions is a great way to work through a lightly sketched still-life drawing. Objects for still lifes can be difficult when drawing from life, which is why we really want to spend as much time as we can on lightly sketching the scene before committing to adding in shading.

Step 3: Shading the Foreground Object

Once you have established the scene for the still life, you want to start with the object in the foreground. You can use whatever medium you would like to shade in your still-life drawing, but you want to make sure you work from foreground to background.

We really want to have established all elements in a light sketch, this will make the shading process more seamless. We want to work through items one at a time, making sure we start with objects in the foreground.

Considering the light source is essential for the shading process, as this will help you to be more intentional with your drawing marks and shading. We will notice that different items will always have different interactions with light.

Working on a single foreground object will also help you to define the tone of the scene and how dark and light objects can be drawn in relation to the foreground object.

In many ways, you could also lightly shade the entire still life and slowly add in darker shading, but this method allows you to move through each item one at a time. This is a great way to take pressure off yourself and focus on a single object at a time.

Step 4: Shading the Surrounding Objects

This method also works as a tonal measuring tool, just as the foreground sketch helped with the scale and positioning of surrounding items. Having a single item completely drawn can help to navigate how light and dark surrounding items should be.

Once you have the foreground item established, you want to start working from one side of the drawing and move through each item. Again, this will help you to work out how dark or light objects should be by the foreground object and the current object you are in the process of drawing as a reference for the upcoming item.

As you move through each item, it’s important that the first drawn item helps to establish the tonal range for the next. This process will continue for each item, with the succeeding item that follows you will then have a reference for how dark or light your shading should be.

As you shade the surrounding items, you want to work in layers of shading for each object at a time. This means that for each individual item, you must first set a light layer of shading and then darken areas if need be.

Make sure you also notice the differences in surfaces and how they reflect and distort light on their surfaces. We will find that some objects have a matte-like quality, and the light reflections can be more subtle.

We will also find that as we start sketching surrounding items, we might encounter more intricate overlapping features between the surrounding objects. We can be cautious with shading parts of an object and then focus on the overlapping features of the other object if necessary.

The method of working on items one at a time will help to focus on individual items one at a time, but we will have moments here and there, where we will have to go back and forth between different objects.

This is why a still-life object drawing is really good for observational skills because it requires you to be attentive to subtle moments like overlapping. This is also particularly true for objects with strange surfaces that distort and change the environment around them.

Working on objects one at a time can also make you more attentive to the details that are actually present in each object. For instance, if we were to work with glass, we would find that the glass is capable of distorting anything that sits around or behind it.

Instead of trying to draw what we think, we can look at each item individually and actually see what details are actually visible. If you incorporate glass into a still life, it works really well as a drawing exercise because of how it changes the surrounding environment.

As we move through each item at a time, we will also find that naturally, the scene starts to fall into place, almost as if you were assembling a puzzle. This is particularly true, for tonal values and how you shade in the next object with the previous object as a reference.

It is really important to take your time and be patient with the drawing process. You want to make sure that you give the objects for your still-life drawing unhindered attention, spending a good portion of time on each item that needs to be drawn. 

The more attention you give to each object the more likely you are to effectively assemble the object through the shading process. If you find yourself feeling tired, take a break and come back with a refreshed mindset.

Concepts to Consider

This beginner still-life drawing tutorial has established the basic drawing process for setting up and effectively drawing still life. However, there are some key concepts to consider that are unique to a still-life object drawing.

Shading Styles

Firstly, think about what kind of medium and shading style you would like to incorporate into your drawing. Consider what different mediums are capable of and how they have different visual effects. Different shading styles also work better with specific mediums, which is important to consider for a still life.

This is particularly necessary for deciding what type of outcome you are aiming for, as pens can have high contrast and sharp lines, whereas pencils can be smoother and softer. So, think about shading style and mediums for what type of outcome you would like to achieve.

Surfaces

Explore both organic and mechanical/man-made objects for a more enriched and interesting drawing. This will also affect your shading process because it will force you to take note of how different surfaces interact with light.

Textures are different between organic and man-made objects, but textures can also be different between various man-made objects. You want to think about glossy, matte, and various other textural qualities in objects and how they respond to light.

This is also helpful to have in the back of your mind when you think about distinguishing between objects and what type of shading can help to determine this difference.

Knowing When to Stop

Lastly, and very importantly, is knowing when to stop. We can easily overshade a drawing and over-saturate the drawing by carrying on. In many ways, what makes a still life beautiful is the balance of tone and placement among items, so stop when your intuition tells you to.

Tips and Tricks for Drawing a Still Life

• Consider your arrangement. Objects for still-life drawings should be thought through. Try to create a balance between your objects for your still-life drawing.
• Work on an object one at a time. For each of the still-life objects to draw, each one should be worked on one at a time.
• The early sketch is the most important. For an accurate still-life object drawing, make sure the light sketch is as best as it can be.
• Use items as references for other items. Use each item as a reference for the next for both scale and tonal values.
• Explore using other objects. There are many still-life drawing examples to draw inspiration from, try to create unique still-life drawings with strange objects.
• Be patient. A still-life object drawing is a difficult task, take your time and break it up into digestible stages.

Still-life drawing examples are all over the internet and can be a great resource from which to draw inspiration. This can be helpful for both shading styles, arrangement, and other factors that are involved in the still-life objects drawing process. As long as you find items that are interesting and you take your time, you will most likely be pleased with the end result. This is also an art practice that has existed for centuries and remains an essential practice when looking to master your medium. Try to draw inspiration from ancient and modern still-life drawing examples to give you a good sense of different approaches to the still-life drawing genre.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Are the Main Things to Consider When Drawing a Still Life?

The first thing we want to consider is the objects for still-life drawings. We want to consider what types of objects work well in a single space. A great suggestion is to have a variety of objects, both man-made and organic, which will help you to explore variety in your drawing style and shading style. The next thing is the arrangement: how do they sit in the same space? Is there good flow between objects and do they have different shapes? We want variety in forms, and we want to play around with how we compose the scenario. We also want to consider the setting in which the items are set, which is a significant aspect of arranging the items. Then lastly, we want to consider lighting, we can play around with from which direction the light source is most dominant. These are fundamental concepts to consider and can be the reason that your still life looks professional.

What Is the Purpose of a Still Life?

A still life is an essential drawing exercise that enhances your observational skills. Observational skills are easily neglected in this modern era, as the process of drawing from digital devices has become synonymous with most artists’ drawing practice. When drawing from life, in particular still life drawings, you are forced to do measurements and scaling in real life, using only your attention to detail and your patience. When practiced on a regular basis, a still-life drawing practice exercise can enhance your observational drawing skills for other life drawing pieces. This exercise improves both focus and attention to detail which is essential for improving not only your still-life drawings but your drawing practice as a whole.

Which Mediums Work Well for Still Life Drawing?

What is nice about still life is that there are various still-life examples to draw inspiration from, whether they are done in your preferred medium or not. Still-life drawing can be done with any medium and the process of constructing a still-life artwork is generally the same. Whether it is drawn, painted or even digital, sill life drawing has the same preparation and creation process. This is why it is good to look at still-life drawing examples for inspiration for form, composition, and objects to use as many still-life artworks can be used as a reference for your own. So, when it comes to a medium, allow yourself to use whichever you would like.

The post How to Draw a Still Life – Step-by-Step Still-Life Drawing Tutorial% first appeared on Art in Context.

An Easy Guide to Cross-Hatching

Cross-hatch shading is an easy task that can be used for various drawing ideas. In many ways, learning how to cross-hatch is more interchangeable between mediums than other shading styles because we work with lines. In this tutorial, we will get to explore both the fundamentals of cross-hatching with a pencil and then apply it to a more complex subject matter with the use of the pen. We will slowly break down the process into digestible bites so that we have a comprehensive understanding of the cross-hatching shading style. Learning how to cross-hatch is a great skill to have because you can explore this shading process with various mediums, making it a versatile skill that can be used in a variety of ways.

Necessary Materials

In this tutorial on cross-hatching, we will work with a simple set of tools as we explore the fundamentals of the cross-hatching technique. We will need some pencils, some ballpoint pens, and some micron pens. We will want to make sure that we have a sharpener for the early stages so that we can work with fine lines. Once we have all the necessary materials, we can start preparing ourselves by finding ourselves an environment that is conducive to focusing. All the necessary materials can be found through the links below:

• Ballpoint Pen
• Micron Pens
• Pencil
• Paper
• Reference Image (downloadable)

A Easy Guide to Cross-Hatching

In this tutorial, we will look at how this shading style can be implemented into basic three-dimensional structures, allowing us to really grasp the cross-hatching technique. This will also provide us with the opportunity to understand both light and shadow in a fundamental way. We then will see how this process can be applied to more realistic objects and how to achieve variety in shadow, tonal values, and light for a more realistic cross-hatching art. There is a downloadable reference image that will assist us in the latter part of the tutorial that breaks down the cross-hatching process of a still life with a few simple steps.

The Fundamentals of Cross-Hatching

Let us start with some basic three-dimensional shapes to grasp the drawing process of creating a cross-hatching drawing. Working with three-dimensional shapes is a great way to break down the fundamental cross-hatching technique and how it is utilized to create light and shadow within three-dimensional structures.

Shape

Let’s start with drawing a basic sphere and rectangle, as it is important to grasp the shading process with basic shapes. This is because all three-dimensional structures can be simplified into basic three-dimensional shapes.

Using your pencils, you want to start with a general light layer cross-hatch pencil drawing, where you establish the darkest shadows on a single side of each shape. All the shadows will remain on a single side for each shape to create a realistic interaction with light.

Considering the form and perspective of each shape and how they are placed on a single plane will help you to establish consistency within your cross-hatching technique. These principles can be easily applied to real objects.

You want to keep the sketch light where you are more focused on the formation of the shapes and how they interact with one another. This is important because shading is meant to be a tool that enhances the realism of how objects exist in space.

Light and Shadow

Light and shadow are essential concepts to grasp, as these will help to establish consistency in the way we shade. You want to choose a single side from which the light source will be present.

This is going to establish shadows on the same side of each shape, which will create a coherent light and shadow effect which is more effective when learning how to cross-hatch.

Cross-Hatching Linework

When we learn how to cross-hatch shade, we don’t need to worry too much about creating perfect vertical and horizontal lines. Cross-hatch drawing is not just about simplistic lines perpendicularly intersecting at right angles to create a shadowy effect.

We can be messier and looser as we add more lines along the sides that will be mostly shadowed. The intent should be to build layers of lines, where you work with lighter lines along the shape first, after which you can slowly layer over darker lines.

By layering lines, we start to see how gradients will naturally form. This is with the intention of a light source being present on one side of the page. You want to work lines over one another, again and again, slowly transitioning from a lot to a few.

Naturally, the more lines we place on a single side of each shape, the darker that side of the shape will be. By doing this, we can slowly work in fewer and even thinner lines as move toward the lighter side of each shape.

This is where the use of various tools can be a great way of creating different gradients within the shapes. We can use lighter and thinner tools for lighter qualities in the shape, whereas we can use darker and thicker pens for darker areas in the shape.

The intention should also be to create lines in all sorts of directions, slowly working in fewer and softer lines as you move along the shape to the area that is most lit.

Think of it as adding softer light lines along the entire shape from dark to light. You then want to stick with this process by slowly layering lines over each other again and again, each time moving from dark to light.

We always want to work from dark to light. This way, we are less likely to add in darker lines in the lighter areas of the shape by accident. This should always be a process of patience and caution as you draw cross-hatching lines.

As you start to work through different objects one at a time, you will start to see that the cross-hatching technique provides a unique overall aesthetic to the drawing.

You can be really intentional as well with how you draw your cross-hatching artworks, as you can be really precise with your lines or more sporadic. You can also add in only thin lines or have a combination of thick and thin lines.

However, slowly layering lines over one another should always be the intention of the shading process. By doing this, we slowly darken various areas of a drawing and start to create a specific textural quality in the drawing that is unique to cross-hatching shading.

These are the basic fundamentals of the cross-hatching drawing process. This is a really beautiful sketch-like quality that can create a beautiful aesthetic in a drawing.

Applying Cross-Hatching to Real Objects

Now that we understand the fundamentals, let us go through a scenario where we can utilize this method of shading in a still life. A still life is a great way to exercise the cross-hatching technique because you can work with simple objects that can still provide you with the challenge of replicating three-dimensionality with light and shadow.

Step 1: Sketching the Scene

Let’s start with a light sketch of the scene as we observe the reference image for guidance. It’s important to set the scene as realistically as possible before shading.

We slowly want to work through the scene, basically drawing in the different items as we did for the three-dimensional shapes.

Take your time setting the scene with a light pencil sketch and try to work out the fabric and how it interacts with the different items present.

Step 2: Light Cross-Hatching to Establish Shadows

Once you feel that you have adequately sketched out the scene, we want to continue with our pencils to add in some light cross-hatching. We also want to establish which side of the scene the light source will be present.

Try to be gentle with placing these light cross-hatching marks. The intention is to give subtle form to the different items, slowly creating more three-dimensionality in the scene.

We really want to consider each form of each shape, meaning that we want to consider curvatures within the shapes. Ask yourself: Are there gentle curves or harsh curves? You want to think through this as you draw the different items.

This is the time where we focus on really capturing the shape and form of each item, just as we learned how to do so with the three-dimensional shapes.

Slowly, we should start to see how the still life scene becomes more alive and realistic through a subtle cross-hatch pencil drawing.

Step 3: Adding in Light Cross-Hatching Shading

This is where we can start to utilize darker tools to slowly enhance the drawing. A good suggestion is to start with a ballpoint pen, as it has lighter ink than that of a micron pen.

The intention is to follow the same fundamental process of building layers. Use the concepts you have learned for the three-dimensional shapes and apply that process to these real objects.

You want to make sure you use the reference image as a guiding force for the placement of darker and lighter lines. Again, we don’t need to worry about perfect lines; rather, we want to be more conscious of dark lines.

We want to work with layers, starting with lighter tools as we shade the scene with cross-hatching lines. We will slowly increase the contrast as we layer darker lines later on.

We also want to make sure that we work from the darker areas to the lighter areas within each item. Remember, this will reduce our chances of accidentally making the lightest areas in the drawing dark.

Step 4: Layering Darker Cross-Hatching Lines for Contrast

Once we have established lighter layers of cross-hatch shading throughout the drawing, we can start to move on to darker tools for more contrast. This is where the use of micron pens becomes very helpful.

Again, we simply follow the same process of working layer over layer of cross-hatching lines. We also want to make sure that we are always working from the darkest sides of the drawing to the lightest sides of the drawing.

This means that as we focus on each area and item within the drawing that has shadows, we want to work from dark to light, slowly layering lines over one another to create seamless gradients in the drawing.

You can be really strategic with how you do this through the use of thicker and thinner lines. This means you can work with thin lines to establish lighter layers, and then work with thicker lines in the darkest shadowed areas.

The more you add lines over one another, the more seamless and cohesive the drawing will start to look. That being said, you can also add in very few lines in very lit areas of the drawing to create textural differences.

At this point, it is simply a matter of patience and observation of the thing that you are drawing. Be sure to always keep checking and analyzing your reference image for guidance.

Take your time, slowly building up layer over layer, darkening the shadowed areas and creating transitions into the lighter areas. The more time you take to add in lines, the more effective you will be at creating gradients between lighter and darker moments.

That is the basic process of a cross-hatching technique drawing process! Just remember to be patient and really observant of the subject matter that you are drawing.

Tips to Remember

• Do some practice sketches. Use these skills to draw different items to better your cross-hatching technique.
• Get comfortable with three-dimensional shapes. Consider drawing simple three-dimensional shapes such as apples and then slowly build up to more complicated subjects like people.
• Consider light and shadow more closely. Make sure you consider the light source of whatever you are drawing.
• You can draw lines in various directions. Don’t worry about perfect lines; allow yourself to be loose with your cross-hatching shading.
• Consider using different tools for different gradients. Create light to dark layers through the use of different tools to create more enriched textural qualities in your drawings.

Learning how to create cross-hatch shading is not difficult if you build up from basic to more complex shapes. This tutorial provides a variety of different concepts and ideas to consider within your cross-hatching art. Remember, art takes practice, so be patient with the drawing process and keep at it!

Frequently Asked Questions

What Can You Use Cross-Hatching For?

Cross-hatching can be used for various drawing ideas. Cross-hatching is simply a shading method and is therefore easily applicable to different drawings. Cross-hatching also works really well within the realm of drawing from life, which includes still lifes, nature, portraits, and other things drawn from sight. The shading style lends itself well to real-life objects being represented in a drawing format as it simultaneously achieves both a sketch-like quality whilst being able to achieve realistic moments of shadow and light. The best way to exercise this drawing method is to explore its potential in a still life. This allows you to draw realistic objects that have different compositions, making it a great way to grasp the cross-hatching technique within a drawing.

Can You Use Different Mediums Together With Cross-Hatching?

What is nice about cross-hatching is that it is a layered method of drawing, as the process requires overlapping lines to create different gradients. This means that we can work with different mediums that work well interchangeably with one another such as pencil and pen. Drawing undertones with a lighter medium such as a pencil is a great way to set up transitions between gradients in a more seamless way. This means that as you overlap darker lines with another medium, perhaps a pen, you then can use the pencil lines as a guideline. Utilizing different mediums for different shadows in a drawing is a great way to explore gradient shifts in a cross-hatching drawing.

The post Cross Hatching – Learning the Cross Hatching Technique% first appeared on Art in Context.

An Easy Guide to Drawing One-Point Perspective  

In this easy perspective drawing tutorial, we will be breaking down the process of drawing a one-point perspective in a simple and doable method. We will break up the process into digestible steps that will allow you to fully grasp each aspect of constructing a one-point perspective from start to finish. This tutorial is easy to follow and will demonstrate how you can use one-point perspective drawing rules to create various environments.

Necessary Materials 

This tutorial on how to draw one point perspective requires very simple tools as it intends to help you grasp these concepts at a basic fundamental level. You will need a pencil, a ruler, an eraser, a sharpener, and a ballpoint pen. This tutorial demonstrates the one-point perspective drawing process through the means of a digital drawing device but the drawing process is completely applicable to traditional materials. If you do not have a digital device, you may find all the materials through the links below: 

• Pencils 
• Ballpoint Pen
• Ruler 
• Sharpener 
• Eraser 
• Good Paper (200 g/m – 250 g/m recommended) 

Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Draw One Point Perspective 

In this tutorial on point perspective, we will be learning the basics of how to construct a  one-point perspective drawing and how this particular perspective drawing can be used to create an environment. We will be learning how to draw an immersive room with the rules of a one-point perspective. We will learn how these particular techniques for perspective drawing create a particular point of view in space and how this can be used to create a realistic spatial scene. 

Learn the Basics for One-Point Perspective 

We first want to understand what exactly makes a one-point perspective drawing a one-point perspective. Understanding the basic rules that are necessary for a one-point perspective are quite simple and once understood can be used to create all sorts of environments. 

Understanding the Horizon Line and Vanishing Point 

We can start by drawing a simple horizontal line through the middle of the page. We do want to make sure that the horizon line is slightly closer to the top of the page. 

From here we can mark a point on the horizon line to establish the vanishing point. We can do this anywhere on the page, but to make it simple,  let’s draw the vanishing point in the center of the line. 

Understanding Perspective Lines 

With one point perspective, we will find that all objects fall along a single plane that flows directly into the single vanishing point. This means that if we draw lines, they will flow into that single vanishing point, this single vanishing point is what determines it as one point perspective. 

As we set up these perspective lines, we will find that they will govern how larger or small objects will be drawn within the drawing. This will give the effect of objects getting smaller in scale as they appear to be more in the distance. 

When drawing lines that are positioned along a vertical or horizontal plane, you can use these perspective lines to establish their origin points or points of contact. 

We will also find that regardless of whether objects are placed above or below the horizon line, they will all flow into the vanishing point. This will keep consistency in the one-point perspective style. 

Drawing a Room in One-Point Perspective 

Now that we have a basic understanding of one-point perspective let us proceed by creating a room environment using the rules of a one-point perspective drawing. It’s always good to use these rules and put them into an actual drawing that helps to contextualize the concepts in an artwork. 

Step 1: Drawing Walls of the Room 

You can start by drawing the horizon line with a vanishing point in the center. From there you can draw diagonal lines that flow to the bottom corners of the page. From here, we can begin by drawing the walls of the room by drawing vertical and horizontal lines that connect at the diagonal lines. 

From here, we can draw another square that is much smaller in the middle of the larger square. Already we can tell that this is establishing the walls and depth of the room. Try to work lightly with your pencils as we will be working layers on top of one another. 

Step 2: Lightly Sketching Objects In the Room 

The same concept applies when drawing objects in the room. In this case, let us start simply with a table. Because the table is sitting in the horizontal plane, its sides will flow into the vanishing point, whereas the horizontal lines will stay horizontal. 

However, if we were to draw a couch against the wall, we know the wall is vertical and therefore the back of the couch will remain in a vertical direction. This is determined by the side of the couch. However, to give it depth, the top of the couch will flow along the depth of field toward the vanishing point. 

A good suggestion is to work in a set of diagonal lines, from the vanishing point, for each object. Then you can use the diagonal lines as guidelines to construct objects accurately within the space. 

It’s important to note that objects that flow in the upward direction, or the vertical direction will remain so. However, as the flow into the distance, this is where we will use the vanishing point to assist us. 

If we use the vanishing point for depth every time we draw an object, we will have continuity in the scale and depth of objects. This will give them an accurate and realistic structural distortion as seen from a one-point perspective. 

Whether you draw a carpet, a light fitting, or a door, you want to use the walls and floor of the room to help you establish the length or height of the object. However, the vanishing point is what you will use to establish the depth of the object. 

This means you can use the walls and the ceiling to establish the positioning of the object, but the vanishing point and perspective lines can help you to determine how large or small an item should be depending on where it is positioned within the room. 

Step 3: Going Over the Sketch With Refined Marks 

With one-point perspective drawings, it’s good to work with layers of light pencil shading to first establish the drawing. From there you can start to layer darker pencil shading and more refined drawing. Once you have drawn your room, first give it a light erasing before drawing over it with darker marks. 

From here, you can start working on objects in the space with more detail and shading. Once we know where the objects are placed in comparison to the vanishing point, we then can start to draw them more accurately. 

This is where we can start to be more artistic about our decisions and how we enhance the one-point perspective drawing with details in the objects. 

You can play around with adding items to the room, such as adding items to the table or adding details to the carpet. At this stage, we can start to be a little playful with our details. 

Once we have built the room up accurately by using the vanishing point, the rest is about creating the environment by understanding the scale of the already-drawn objects. 

Step 4: Sketching Objects in the Space 

At this point, we can see how large and deep the room is, which can now be used to guide the drawing process and the placement of objects in the space. This means that we can add objects in the foreground, midground, and background, by using the surrounding objects to determine how large or small we should draw new objects. 

At this point, you can play around with adding new objects to the space. Once you know the depth of the space determined by the vanishing point, it then becomes an easy perspective drawing process and how to scale objects. 

Again, as long as you use the walls and ceiling for length and height, you can then use the vanishing point to set up guidelines to determine depth. You can simply draw lines from the vanishing point to any space in the room to establish structures correctly in the space. 

This goes for floors, windows, artwork on the walls, and whatever else you would like to add to the room. You then can play around with shading and detailing in the different objects of the perspective drawing. 

From here on out you can explore what kind of details you would like to add to the room, as well as features outside, visible through the window. And there you have it! How to draw a space using a one-point perspective. 

Tips to Remember

• Take your time. Understand the basics before creating perspective art. 
• Work with light layers. You want to make sure you build your drawing up with light layers of sketching before adding refined and contrasted details
• Make sure all objects flow into the vanishing point. If you use the vanishing point for establishing objects in space, they will always look right. 
• Understand that the vanishing point is used for depth. When adding objects in space, the floor and ceiling can be used for height and length but the vanishing point establishes the depth of the object. 

Many simple perspectives drawing techniques can be applied to your own artwork that will enhance the sense of depth and space. In this vanishing point drawing tutorial, we learn how this tool can be used to establish depth for a more realistic interpretation of space. This one-point perspective technique can be utilized in various perspective artworks. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Main Purpose of Perspective Drawing?

Perspective drawing helps you to understand the depth of the field and how to create this effect within a drawing. In various artworks, we can clearly see there is a sense of depth that establishes a foreground, midground, and background. However, to construct these spaces in a way that seems logical, perspective drawing will help you to create these effects within your own drawings. One-point perspective drawing is one of a few ways of working with concepts of depth and how to establish this quality in your own work. Try to explore various one-point perspective examples to get a sens of how depth is developed using this technique. 

How Can You Use Perspective Drawing in Art?

One-point perspective art can be utilized in various ways, but perhaps the most useful way to use one-point perspective is to create backdrops and environments. Perspective art is mostly used to make more accurate-to-scale scenes that set the backdrop for a drawing. This easy perspective drawing tutorial breaks down how to use a one-point perspective to construct a setting such as a room. This can also help to establish the scale of objects as well as figures within an environment. A vanishing point drawing helps to determine the depth of the environment and how distant objects and space are from one another. 

What Is Unique About One-Point Perspective? 

One-point perspective is different from two and three-point perspectives by the position it establishes the onlooker in. It creates this effect of seeing a single aspect of a space and how the surrounding space fades into a single vanishing point. This is often used in spaces to create this eye-level effect of being in a space, whereas two and three-point perspectives establish space with more vanishing points. Therefore, this creates a more peripheral representation of space, such as seeing around corners of a building. 

The post One Point Perspective Drawing – Learn to Draw Perspective Art% first appeared on Art in Context.

An Easy Guide to Drawing Optical Illusions

Optical illusion drawings are not difficult but some are slightly easier than others. That being said, we will go through the process of drawing various easy optical illusion artworks that can be broken up into digestible steps. When creating a 3D illusion drawing, we will find that it is more a matter of patience and precision. As long as we approach the drawing process with patience, we will find that creating illusion drawings is simple and fun. In this easy optical illusion art tutorial, we will also only need a few simple materials:

Necessary Materials

Illusion drawings are quite simple to draw and require the simplest of tools to do so. In this tutorial on how to draw illusions, we will only need a pencil, pen, marker, and ruler. We will also want to make sure we have an eraser for any silly mistakes made along the way. Other than that, any paper will do. You will also need to make sure that you have a space where you can focus and engage with each step of the tutorial. All the materials can be found through the links below:

• Pencils
• Copic Marker
• Ballpoint Pen
• Eraser
• Good Paper (200 g/m – 250 g/m recommended)

Step-by-Step Instructions for Easy Optical Illusion Artworks

In this tutorial, we will look at how to draw five unique optical illusions, some more simple than others but all of them are easy. We will break down the drawing process into a few simple steps for each optical illusion giving us the best possible chance to create a beautiful optical illusion drawing. Now that we know what to expect, let’s get started with this optical illusion drawing tutorial.

How to Draw an Impossible Triangle

What makes optical illusion drawings so unique is the strange way light and shadows interact with warped three-dimensional objects. In many ways, three-dimensional rules are broken which results in a seemingly impossible object. The best way to introduce this idea is with the impossible triangle.

Step 1: Drawing the L-Shaped

Using your ruler and pencil, you want to start by drawing two lines parallel to one another in a vertical direction. We will want to draw an L-type shape. Make sure the lines are all the same in width between one another and that the L-shaped is the same in length for both the vertical and horizontal sections.

Once you have your two vertical parallel lines, you can connect another two parallel lines to the bottom of the first two at the corners. They should be the same in width with the bottom two moving in a diagonal direction to create an L-shape that is the same in length as well. 

Step 2: Making the L-Shape Three-dimensional

Now that we have this two-dimensional L-shape we want to add lines to make it three-dimensional. We do this by creating a set of small diagonal lines that all move in the same direction from each corner of the L-shape. Just make sure to keep the width of lines always the same.

Step 3: Adding Connecting Lines

We now want to add lines from the top of the L-shape to the end of the L-shape. We want to use the three-dimensional diagonal lines to guide the placement of these connecting lines. We want to make sure the width of the lines always remains the same.

We now want to draw another connecting line that runs parallel underneath the first two using the same width as before. By doing this, we will give the connecting lines three-dimensionality, making the structure flow in an infinite loop.

Step 4: Erasing Lines Inside the Triangle

Now that we have this triangle with even lengths and widths, we want to erase the lines inside the shape to accentuate the infinite loop. We only want to erase the lines inside the top of the shape and the section that runs vertically inside the middle of the shape.

By erasing the lines inside the middle section and top section of the triangular shape, we will start to see the impossible triangular shape appear in three dimensions.

Step 5: Adding Shading for More Three-Dimensionality

To further emphasize the three-dimensional quality, we can add shading to certain parts of the triangular shape. Starting with the middle section, you can add shading that has a dark to a light gradient that flows through the triangular shape.

We can add another gradient of shading from the other corner of the triangle, but this time keeping it slightly lighter. This way, we will be left with three different shades on each part of the triangular shape.

We want to make sure that we have three different tonal values in each part of the triangular shape to emphasize its three-dimensionality.

And there you have it! A simple step-by-step process on how to draw an impossible triangle.

How to Draw an Impossible Trident

The impossible trident is perhaps the most recognizable optical illusion drawing. This is a great illusion drawing that is both interesting and complex but so simple to draw. Let us break down the process of drawing the impossible trident.

Step 1: Drawing the Individual Rods

Using your pencil and ruler begin to draw a rod shape that moves in a diagonal direction. We want to make sure that the end of each rod is rounded and that they are all the same in width.

We want to draw three rods, with each one beneath the last slightly shortened. By doing this we will create a sense of depth in the trident. However, we won’t draw the third one now as it will connect by the use of connecting lines.

Step 2: Adding Connecting Lines

We now will connect the bottom line of the bottom rod to the inside of the top rod. However, the line doesn’t touch the top rod but flows along the inside of the top rod’s shape whilst remaining parallel to the top rod’s lines.

This line will flow along the inside of the top rod and then come out, bend downward and flow into the top line of what will become the third and lowest rod. Take some time with this and make sure each rod is the same in width.

Carrying on with the same line, we want to connect that line to the back of the trident, creating this square shape as a base of the rods. We should start to see the trident forming more clearly at this point.

We should be able to see that the rod can connect with a single line, whereby the bottom line of the bottom rod flows into the back of the trident and the top line of the top rod. We can also connect the bottom line of the top rod to the top line of the middle rod with a vertical line.

Step 3: Adding Three-Dimensionality to the Trident

We now want to draw cylindrical shapes within each rod, giving it a three-dimensional effect. we create this cylindrical shape within each rod with parallel lines that run along the inside of each rod. We want to make sure that the lines curve at the ends of each rod within the trident shape, giving the ends a rounded shape.

As we do this within each rod we will find that the bottom two can be closed at their back ends with a straight line. The top rods inside lines should still flow through to the outside lines of the bottom rod.

From there, we can draw a circle inside the ends of each rod to emphasize the cylindrical shape of the rods a little further. We can also give the trident more three-dimensionality by adding shape to the inside section at the base of the trident by the middle rod.

Step 4: Outlining the Trident

Using a ballpoint pen we now want to outline the structure of the trident to define the form of the shape a little more.

Make sure you patiently go over the lines with your pen, using a ruler for the straight lines.

At this point, we should have an impossible trident optical illusion drawing that is outlined. We now want to emphasize three-dimensionality with some shading.

Step 5: Adding Shading to the Trident

We can now color the circles at the end of each rod black with our pens. We can also start to add shading to each rod creating gradients that flow from dark to light. 

This step is more intuitive and should be done according to how you would like to shade the trident. Play around with different shading directions within the trident to emphasize the strange effect in the impossible trident.

Try creating a seamless gradient within each rod of the trident. This will emphasize the three-dimensional quality of the impossible trident.

Take your time and see how the lines flow and where they should be closed off. Otherwise, there you have it – a simple few steps on how to draw an impossible trident!

How to Draw a Distorted Chess Board

The distorted chess board is a less common optical illusion but it is fun and easy to draw. The 3D illusion drawing creates a strange effect when looked at for a long time. Let’s see how we can create this simple illusion drawing.

Step 1: Drawing the Square

We start by drawing an even square that is whatever size you would like. However, we want to make sure that it is even in length and width. From there, we can draw a diagonal line connecting to opposite corners in the square.

We then want to add evenly measured increments along all sides of the square and a long diagonal line within the square. We want to add a little dot of evenly measured increments that correlate with the size of the square.

This means that if your square is 16 cm, use a set of 1- or 2-cm increments along the edges of the box. This way, once we start drawing our lines, they will connect seamlessly in the square.

Step 2: Adding in Lines

From each corner of your square on either side of the diagonal line, you will connect a straight line from the corner to each measured increment along the diagonal line.

We want to take our time using our rulers to connect lines from the corners of the square to the dots along the diagonal line within the square.

We then can proceed to do the same on the other side of the diagonal line, connecting a straight line from the corner of the square to the dots along the diagonal line in the square.

From there, we want to connect the dots with straight lines that run parallel with the diagonal line. We can do this on either side of the diagonal lines, resulting in a set of lines that cross over perpendicularly to the others that flow from the corners of the square.

Step 3: Outlining the Square With Ballpoint Pen

To make the process of filling in the chess board optical illusion much easier we want to go over the lines with a ballpoint pen. By doing so, we give ourselves more distinct lines to color within.

Make sure you use your ruler and slowly go over all the lines. We want to make sure every line is emboldened with a pen.

You want to make sure you take your time so that there aren’t any silly mistakes made with your pen.

Step 4: Filling in the Chess Board

Using a marker, we want to start on one side whereby we fill in the squares with the chess board sequence. Try going row by row, first just marking which square is to be filled in.

Once you have done so, a good suggestion would be to work from the small corners to the middle of the chess board. You want to take your time making sure you don’t color in the white squares.

The more patient you are, the more likely you are to not make any silly mistakes. Make sure you use a ruler to keep the edges of each square clean.

You want to make sure that you don’t smudge any ink as you fill in the correct blocks of the chess pattern. A good suggestion would be to use a piece of paper under your hand as you draw.

And there you have it! Once you have completed filling in the correct blocks, you will have an obscure chess board optical illusion drawing.

How to Draw a Corridor Illusion

The corridor illusion is another less popular optical illusion drawing, however, this one puts your shading to the test. When drawn correctly, the corridors give the effect of moving into the paper, fading into a void. Let’s see how we can create this strange optical illusion effect.

Step 1: Drawing a Three-by-Three Square

We want to start by creating a three-by-three columned and rowed square. we want to make sure that we draw a square that can be divided perfectly into three both in length and height.

Step 2: Drawing Smaller Squares Within the Squares

Once we have our nine squares, we want to use a 1 cm width and draw a square within each of the larger squares. If we use the same width in each square, we should find that the far corners all align with the center square.

Make sure you spend time on this using your ruler and the same width for each square so that they are accurate. You can draw a line from opposite corners to see if they intersect perfectly in the middle square, if they do then they are accurate.

Step 3: Drawing Shading Guidelines

Using our pencils, we can now start to outline all the smaller inner circles within the square. We should have a total of nine evenly-sized squares at this point.

We now want to draw a straight line in each square that aligns with each corner of each square to the center point of the middle square. However, we want to only keep the lines visible in the squares, which means we should be left with a corridor effect in each square.

Step 5: Shading Each Square

Now that we have our squares and corridor lines, we now want to use our pencils and shade a gradient from dark to light. We want the darkest part of the shading to be positioned in the corner of each square closest to the center square.

Another good suggestion is to consider the planes of each corridor. this means that each corridor will have both a vertical and horizontal plane either the roof or floor.

We want to make sure that we shade along the horizontal and vertical planes of each corridor, making sure the shading aligns with the correct plane. The only square where all planes will be visible is the center square, which means we will shade in a square-like pattern.

Take your time with each square making sure each one has a seamless gradient of shading. Make sure that you use paper under your hand if necessary – this way, you are less likely to make any silly mistakes.

As you shade in each corridor, you will start to see how the effect of depth starts to appear within the optical illusion drawing.

Once you have shaded in each square, you should have a set of corridors that fade into darkness. And there you have it – a basic few steps for creating a unique corridor illusion!

How to Draw an Impossible Square

Another great illusion that is simple and easy to draw is the impossible square. This illusion is another popular one that gives the strange effect of an infinite loop in the form of a square. Let’s see how we can create this strange illusion drawing.

Step 1: Drawing Squares Within a Square

Let us start by drawing a simple square with our pencils. We want to make sure that we draw an evenly sized square both in width and length.

From there, we want to draw another two squares, each one1 cm in width from the last one. We should at this point have three lined squares, all intersecting at 1 cm widths as they get smaller.

Step 2: Cutting the edges of the Largest Square

We now want to erase the edges in a diagonal fashion of the square that is on the outside. We can do this at the intersection points of the outer and middle square lines where they create a perpendicular point.

We do this by drawing diagonal lines that are also 1 cm in width from the perpendicular corners of the first square and middle square. This can be measured as a 1 cm distance from each corner in width and length from the outer corners of the largest square.

From here, we should have an octagonal shape with long sides and short corners. We should still have two more squares on the inside of the largest one with each one centimeter in width from the last.

Step 3: Outlining the Impossible Square Shape

From here, we want to start forming the impossible square shape by outlining the octagonal shape with a ballpoint pen.

We can also outline the inner circle that is the smallest within the octagonal shape.

We now want to draw a set of 90-degree lines starting from the highest corner at the left point of the octagonal shape. This line will go down vertically and then along the bottom horizontal line of the inside square and stop at the vertical line of the inside square.

Once you draw a 90-degree line, you will find that as you rotate through the shape, we should have four of these 90-degree angles rotating through the shape. From there, we want to erase any pencil lines inside the shape.

From there, we can embolden the outer octagonal shape and inner square again. we want to just make the shape more distinct and clearer with a black marker. At this point, we should see the visible impossible square shape.

Step 6: Adding Shading to the Impossible Square

To further the three-dimensional optical illusion effect within the impossible square, we can add in some shading. We do this by starting at one point in the square and creating a gradient of dark to light with our ballpoint pens.

You want to rotate through each section in the shape one by one, adding in shading that flows in opposite directions. By adding shading to the square, you will find that it emphasizes the three-dimensionality of the optical illusion. And there you have it- how to draw an impossible square!

How to Draw an Impossible Staircase

The last optical illusion we will draw is perhaps the simplest, yet very disorienting. Out of all the illusion sketches, this one is perhaps the most usable within various artwork ideas. Let’s see how we draw the impossible staircase.

Step 1: Drawing the Guidelines

We want to start by drawing an evenly measured square that is the same in length and width. Try to use an even number to construct your square, such as 16 cm by 16 cm.

From there, we will want to start creating stairs by creating 2 cm increments along the horizontal and vertical axis of the square.

As we make one vertical and horizontal set of rows in the square, we will continue to make them on top of the last set. By doing this, we will slowly construct intersecting lines that use the same 2 cm increments.

Step 2: Creating the Staircase

You want to work your way from one corner to the opposite corner on the other end of the square. Once you are done you should easily be able to outline a staircase shape. You can erase any other unnecessary lines around the staircase.

Step 3: Creating the Impossible Staircase

At the bottom of the last step, you want to draw another 2 cm horizontal line extending out from the bottom corner of the bottom stair.

You then want to continue that line diagonally in a parallel 2 cm width with the bottom stair. Keep drawing a parallel line along the bottom stair until you get to the vertical part of the bottom stair.

Once you get to the vertical part of the bottom stair, extend that vertical line until it reaches the same horizontal plane as the top horizontal line of the top stair. You then can connect that line to the top right corner of the top step with a horizontal line.

Step 4: Outlining the Impossible Staircase

From here, we want to use our ballpoint pen to outline the impossible staircase shape. We can start by outlining the stair structure and then the lines connected to and surrounding the stair structure.

Step 5: Shading the Steps

We should have the impossible staircase at this point; however, we want to emphasize its topical illusion quality with some shading. We can do this by shading every second step with our ballpoint pens.

Once you have shaded every step, you will have a strange impossible staircase illusion drawing. And that’s how you draw an impossible staircase in a few simple steps.

There you have it, a few simple optical illusion drawings that can be drawn in a few simple steps and can be used in all sorts of artworks!

Tips to Remember

• Use your ruler. Always use a ruler when drawing straight lines for these optical illusion sketches.
• Think intuitively. Once you start the drawing process, you will find that the images start to appear before completion if you follow the steps correctly.
• Consider the flow. As you complete each illusion drawing, you want to consider how each of their forms flows according to the rules of three dimensions.
• Use precise measurements. If there are precise measurements to use, never deviate from them.
• Utilize shading. By utilizing shading in your illusion drawings, you will find that it further accentuates the three-dimensional qualities of the image.

This tutorial on how to draw illusions gives you insight into a few tips and tricks that make 3D illusion drawings effective. In many ways, you will find that you will make little mistakes and need to retry and that is okay, it will take a little practice. However, once you have grasped how to create the illusion sketches, you can utilize them in various artworks in all sorts of ways.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do You Shade Optical illusions?

There are many ways to utilize shading within optical illusions because they are often three-dimensional structures. A good way of shading is to utilize the concept of three tonal values. This means that you can incorporate a different shade on the three different surfaces as the illusions will often have, height, length, and depth. This will create an effect of maximum, medium, and minimum contrast in a single object, which will emphasize its three-dimensional quality. Secondly, you can shade in opposite directions along different planes. By shading different sections in opposition directions, it can create a strange effect in the optical illusion drawing, making it weirder and disorienting,

How Can You Use Optical Illusions in Art?

Optical illusion drawings are also great features that can be incorporated into other artwork ideas. In many instances, you can use the strange three-dimensionalities of various optical illusion sketches to create backgrounds or surfaces for characters and objects to be placed upon. Their strange disorienting qualities can be a great addition to surrealistic artwork ideas, whereby they can create a landscape that deviates from conventional rules. Artists such as M. C. Escher and Salvador Dalí are great examples of how these structures can be used as focal points or features within various types of artworks.

The post Optical Illusion Drawing – How You Use Optical Illusions in Art?% first appeared on Art in Context.

An Easy Guide to Drawing Bubble Graffiti Letters

There are many ways to construct graffiti-style letters and sometimes the result makes it seem as if it is difficult or intricate. However, when you break up the bubble graffiti process into digestible bits you will find that it is really easy to do. This form of graffiti is simple and doesn’t require crazy shapes and forms like wildstyle graffiti. In this tutorial we will break down the process of drawing bubble graffiti letters into a few simple steps, making it much simpler and more digestible for us to follow. 

Once you understand the fundamentals of constructing the letters, you will find that you can also apply these principles to other graffiti styles letters.

Bubble graffiti is also easily modifiable, this means we can easily change the text into all different shapes and compositions. As we go through this tutorial on how to draw bubble graffiti letters, we will only need simple tools. That being said, let us take a look at what we will need.

Necessary Materials

In this tutorial, we will go through a basic process of constructing graffiti-style letters using a simple method that transforms a normal letter into bubble graffiti letters. We will only need a few tools for this tutorial such as a pencil for the earlier stages of constructing letters. We will also want three-micron pens and one black.

We will want to have copies that correspond with the Colors of the micron pens.

This way when we make a letter a specific Color, we can use both tools for constructing the letter. It’s also just good to have a sense of Color variety within the bubble graffiti letters. For both the Copic markers and the micron pens, you can buy them in a set. Lastly, we can use whatever paper is available to us. All materials can be found through the links below:

• Copic Markers
• Micron pens
• Pencil
• Paper

Instructions on How to Draw Graffiti Bubble Letters

In this tutorial, we will look at two things. First, we will acquaint ourselves with the letter forming process of bubble graffiti. We will look at how we turn a simple written letter into a bubble graffiti-style letter. It’s really easy to do, which is great because it looks quite complicated in its finished form.

Once you understand the process of drawing bubble graffiti, you will then be able to apply it to any letter.

This brings us to the second activity, which is creating a bubble graffiti alphabet. Once we know how to form a letter, we will use the skills we have learned and apply them to every letter of the alphabet. This will provide you with a practice that will enable you to apply the methodology to your bubble graffiti lettering. Now that we know what to expect let us go through the tutorial on how to draw graffiti bubble letters.

How to Draw a Bubble Graffiti Letter

Learning how to draw graffiti bubble letters starts with understanding the process of constructing a single letter. We will first look at how to construct a single letter in a few steps. The process is easy and once you understand how to draw a single graffiti bubble letter, you can then apply the method to different letters to create your graffiti bubble alphabet.

Step 1: Writing Out a Letter

We begin by taking our pencils and writing out a letter. For the sake of the tutorial, let us write out the letter “M”. You don’t have to write this geometrically; you can write out the letter however you’d prefer.

You could write it out normally or you could add slight curvature to your lines or try to keep it simple for the tutorial.

Step 2: Giving the Letter a Rounded-Look

Once our letters are written out, we can then proceed to add body to our letter by drawing around it. As we draw around the lined letter, we want to add curvature to all the different points where the letter changes direction. This means instead of a geometric shape; we curve our letter’s edges to create a rounded more bubble-like quality.

You can draw around your lined letter as wide as you want giving it a very round quality.

Again, we are drawing a larger body or outline around the lined letter. Whenever there is an edge in a letter, we will create an arch or curved line to form those areas for a letter. This can be applied to any letter with edges.

Once you have outlined, you can then erase the lined letter inside of the larger rounded body outline.

Step 3: Light Source and Highlight Lines

Once we have our letter drawn and we have a thicker rounded version of the letter M, we can then proceed to give the letter highlights. We begin by establishing the direction of the light source. Once we know which side the light source is coming from, we can then know which side to put the highlights on.

We add highlights to the letter by drawing little curved shapes along the curved parts of the letter. However, if the light source is on the right, we then want to add these shapes on the right side of each curved or rounded feature within the letter.

This means that wherever you have drawn a curved rounded shape in the letter you can draw one of these shapes to that round feature.

These little shapes that you draw within the curved-rounded areas within the letter, will be left white. This is because, once we color in the letter, these white curved shapes are going to look like reflections or a shining quality that deflects light off the surface of the letter. Once we have drawn these shapes, we can outline them with a colored micron pen.

Let’s use red for this part of the tutorial.

We can also proceed to outline the whole letter with our red micron pen. Remember, the little shapes that you draw within the letter should have a banana-like shape, that curves parallel to the curvature of the letter.

These features must be added on the sides that would be close to the light source, thus creating consistency in the highlighting quality of the letter.

Step 4: Filling in the Letter

Once we have our letter drawn and have outlined the letter and highlighted shapes with our micron pens, we can then proceed to fill in the letter with our Copic markers. You want to make sure you use the same color Copic marker that corresponds with the color used to outline the letter and highlight shapes within the letter.

Since we have outlined the letter with our red micron pens, let us fill in the letter with a red Copic marker.

Step 5: Outlining the Letter

A great addition to bubble graffiti letters is to give the letter an outline. By doing so we give the letter a more graphic look. We can do this by taking our black Copic markers, and outlining get e letters. You want to make the outline thick, giving the letter a bold look. Take your time, by doing so you are less likely to make a mistake.

This is the process of making bubble graffiti letters, once you know how to construct a single letter you can apply the methodology to any letter. A few simple steps can transform any letter into a bubble graffiti letter.

Now that we know the process, it’s time to turn other letters into a graffiti bubble letter style by making a graffiti bubble letter alphabet.

How to Draw a Bubble Graffiti Alphabet

Now that we know the methodology of drawing graffiti bubble letters, we can now proceed with a practicing exercise where we can put our skills to the test. A great way to do this is by drawing a bubble graffiti alphabet, where we use the different steps we have learned to create our bubble graffiti letters. Graffiti alphabet styles can change in little ways depending on different letters.

This means you want to make sure you practice your graffiti alphabet styles so that you get comfortable with the different letters. Now, let us go through the different steps of creating a bubble graffiti alphabet.

Step 1: Writing Out an Alphabet

We can begin by writing out the alphabet with our pencils. We want to make sure that as you write out each letter on the page, you want them to be spaced out. It’s important to take time writing out your letters making sure that they are placed on the page with some space between each other.

Step 2: Outlining the Letters

Once we have all our letters written on the page, we can proceed with outlining each letter, giving them body and form. This is where we implement the curved and rounded features at every edge of a letter.

You want to keep a gap between your outline and the written letters, this will make the letters thicker and more bubble-like.

Be playful with how you draw the bubble-like outline around each letter, making sure you give each letter a thick bubble-like effect with the rounded body. Keeping the outlines circular and round will make the letters look thicker, which in turn will give the letters a bubble-like quality.

Step 3: Erasing the Lined Letters

Once your letters are outlined and you are satisfied with the rounded and thicker body for each letter, you can then proceed to erase each lined letter within the rounded outline. Once we have erased the lined letters within the outlined body, we will see how the letters start to look fuller and more bubble-like.

Adding the outlines around our letters gives the letters a thick rounded bubble-like quality. As we erase the lines within each letter, we begin to see how the letters start to look more distinct in their graffiti bubble style.

Make sure you erase all the lined letters within each letter.

Step 4: Adding Highlight Lines

We should be left with the outlined letters of a bubble graffiti alphabet. We start with the highlight lines, where we draw lined features within the letters that will indicate the highlights. We do this by drawing banana shapes in the curved areas of each letter. We want to make sure that whichever side we draw within the letter, we keep all these marks on the same side for each letter.

When you draw the lines that will define the highlights within the letters, you want to make sure that you draw these curved banana shapes in the curved areas of each letter. Again, you want to make sure that you keep them all on one side of a letter, this way you create a consistency that describes a light source coming from one direction.

Step 5: Filling in Letters and Adding Graphics Outlines

Since we know how to fill in each letter now and give each letter its graphic outline, a good suggestion is to go through each letter one at a time. Remember that, when you fill in a letter you want to first outline the letter and highlight shapes with your micron. From there you can use the corresponding colored Copic marker to fill in the letter.

Lastly, you can add a black graphic outline to embolden the letter.

As you go through each letter, remember that the process is to outline first. From there you can fill in the letter and then proceed to add the final touch, which is a graphic outline with your black Copic marker. Make sure you pay attention and leave the highlight shape blank or negative to give the letter the shine effect.

Make sure you outline the highlighted banana shape. The highlight is a key feature of the bubble graffiti lettering style, as it defines a quality of shine which is unique to the bubbly look.

Step 6: Trying Different Color Combinations

Now that you are aware of the process you can now play around with different color combinations. This means that you can follow the same process, except this time you could change the letter color and graphic outline around the letter. Exploring different color combinations will give you an insight into how letters look aesthetically with different color sequences.

As you try different color combinations you can also see how letters can work together with a contrasted quality that different color sequences provide. As you slowly fill in each letter one by one, you will also see how letters look together in the bubble graffiti style. As you fill in your letters, making sure that the highlight feature remains open and blank is important.

Be careful when filling in your letters around the highlight feature. This will provide the letter with a key feature to give the letter the shining-bubble look.

Again, make sure you explore different color combinations. This is why we want to make sure we have three different colors Copic and microns. As you fill in each letter with a different color you are also learning how to pair letters together.

Creating an alphabet provides you with this skill that you can apply to your own bubble graffiti lettering artworks.

As you fill in each letter, you will also see how the bubble graffiti style for lettering becomes more apparent when a group of letters is completed with this method. The look of letters together in groups gives a more holistic and refined quality of a bubble graffiti style.

That’s the process of creating bubble graffiti lettering.

Using this method of constructing letters can be utilized in various contexts. Probably the best way to use this form of lettering is to pair it with other hand-lettering styles. By doing so, you will enrich your hand lettering artwork.

Tips to Remember

• Take your time. Learning a new skill always requires patience taking time to go through the different steps.
• Experiment with different color combinations. Once you understand the process, try using different color combinations for your bubble graffiti.
• Make sure you outline your letters before filling them in. This way you are clear as to where you fill in your letters.
• Make sure you do not fill in the highlight shape. This is a key feature to provide dimension and shine to the letter.
• Most importantly, have fun. Use this style of lettering with other lettering artworks.

Learning how to draw graffiti bubble letters is quite simple. As you come to understand the process of constructing a bubble graffiti letter through the different processes, you can then play around with shape and color variations for your bubble graffiti alphabet. This is also a great addition to other graffiti-style letters and can be used within a combination of other graffiti writing styles. This tutorial is intended to guide you, however, there are no set rules and you should use it as a resource for your bubble graffiti lettering. Remember that as you draw a bubble graffiti alphabet, you want to play around with how you apply the different steps to each letter. Most importantly, have fun and see how you can use this in other hand lettering artworks.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do You Add Highlights to Bubble Graffiti Letters?

There are many ways to add highlights to graffiti bubble letters, however, the simplest of them all is to leave negative spaces within the letters. We do this by first understanding the position of the light source. Once we know where the light source is we can then place highlights within the letter. We create the highlight by creating a shape within the letter on the side that would be closest to the light source. We then draw a curved shape within the letter, keeping it on one side near the light source. From there, we color in the letter, except for the shapes that we have drawn within the letter, leaving them negative or white. Leaving the little shapes in the letter white will give the letter a shining quality that makes the bubble graffiti lettering look bubblier.

What Is Bubble Graffiti Lettering?

Bubble graffiti lettering is a graffiti tag style or a style of graffiti with rounded lettering, which gives the letters a bubble-like quality. This makes the letters look very playful as the round quality is less geometric and rigid. Bubble graffiti letters stick out from other graffiti-style letters and are a great way to soften a hand lettering artwork. Using this method of graffiti can give fullness to your lettering and contrast well with more geometric-styled lettering styles like wildstyle graffiti. Bubble graffiti can also be a great addition to other artworks or it can be a singular piece of work. You can give your bubble graffiti lettering a variety of details such as different colors and shapes which can change the composition of the bubble graffiti lettering. However, its rounded feature is iconic to its style and is a feature that can be manipulated in a variety of ways that can make the bubble graffiti lettering styles beautiful.

What Do You Use Bubble Graffiti For?

Learning how to draw graffiti bubble letters is a great exercise as it helps you understand how to transform simple line letters into a drawing. The learning curve of bubble graffiti lettering provides you with skills that help you understand letter formation, hand lettering, and simple drawing skills. However, bubble graffiti letters can be used for a variety of reasons such as a feature for other artworks. It can also be a great addition to your hand lettering activities or, it can be used for large-scale mural-styled graffiti artwork. How you use bubble graffiti letters is up to you if you are interested in the genre of hand lettering, building up your repertoire of skills and hand lettering variety is essential. Learning how to draw graffiti bubble letters is a great addition to your range of hand-lettering skills as the bubble quality of bubble graffiti letters contrasts well with many different hand lettering styles.

The post How to Draw Graffiti Bubble Letters – Easy Graffiti Lettering Guide% first appeared on Art in Context.

An Easy Guide to Essential Lettering Styles

There are many different types of letter styles to explore, however, most of the various lettering styles are simply adaptations of a few basic styles. There are a few basic lettering styles that are adapted and turned into various other quirky hand-lettering variations.

In this tutorial, we will be introduced to four fundamental lettering styles, and we will then be taught how to draw through an easy step-by-step process.

We will want to make sure we have a few basic tools for this tutorial, as we explore the basic variations of lettering. These lettering styles will be demonstrated with hand lettering tools; however, the principles can be applied to any digital application. Let us see what materials we will need for this tutorial.

Necessary Materials

We will be exploring four different lettering styles in this tutorial, all of which can be practiced with simple tools. Firstly, we will want a pencil, as this will help us with constructing some of our hand letters. We will explore block, serif, brush, and faux lettering. For most of them, we will use a pencil and pen to construct our letters.

However, for brush lettering, we will use a simple brush pen.

Some lettering techniques will require straight lines, so we’ll want to have a ruler. We will also encounter a few mistakes throughout the process, so make sure you have an eraser as well. Lastly, we will need some paper, any paper will do since this is intended for practicing these four different lettering styles. All materials can be found through the links below:

• Calligraphy Pen
• Micron Pens
• Pencil
• Koi Brush Pen
• Paper (Any paper will do)

How to Draw Different Lettering Styles

In this tutorial, we will go through four different lettering styles that are foundational for most hand lettering. These four lettering styles can be changed to look both formal and casual. We will be introduced to all four, following which we will be given a simple step-by-step guide that describes how to draw each. We will also look at how these letters can be turned from formal and professional to quirkier and more casual.

Knowing how to draw different lettering styles in both a casual and professional way gives you an option for making lettering types that are for professional reasons and more personal creative reasons.

In general, it is always great to broaden the variety of lettering choices. Now that we know what to expect, let us go through the different types of letter styles. 

Normal Block Lettering

Block lettering is probably the foundational lettering style that influences most other lettering drawing processes. The construction of block lettering is an easy process and demonstrates how you can turn simple line text into thicker text, giving it its block letter quality. Learning how to do block lettering through a hand style is a great entry point into the lettering. It’s easy and it provides you with skills that will carry over into other lettering styles within this tutorial.

Let us take a look at the process of forming block letters.

How to Draw Block Letters

We will go through a few simple steps that give you an indication of the letter forming process for block lettering. Block lettering is a great entry point into lettering as it provides a fundamental process of forming letters, which can be used in different types of lettering.

Step 1: Writing Letters

Block lettering begins with writing a letter as you would do with a pencil. However, keeping the letter as geometric as possible will be conducive to giving the letter the iconic blocky style. Let us begin by taking our pencils and writing out the letter “M”.

Use your ruler to keep the lines straight. You can also draw two horizontal lines to guide you in your letter formation.

Step 2: Making the Letter Block-Style

Using our ruler and pencil, we want to draw parallel lines along each line of the letter. As we do this, we want to keep all the parallel lines as consistent as possible for each line of the letter. This means the width of each set of lines within the letter should be as consistent as possible.

By doing this, we are creating a formalized version of a block letter.

Step 3: Filling in the Text

From here we can proceed to take our black micron pens and outline the text. Again, you want to use your ruler for creating seamless straight lines. Slowly go over the pencil lines with your micron pen.

Going over the lines with our marker also makes us less likely to go outside of the lines when filling in the letter.

Then we can proceed to fill in the text with our black marker or micron pen, making the letter completely black. Of course, you can leave the text open or even fill it with different colors. This is just a formal form of block lettering, and it’s a way of familiarizing you with the general process of filling in a text.

Consistent for Formal

To make a text look professional and formal, consistency is key. Keeping consistency in thickness, width, and spacing gives the text a uniform appearance. This makes the text look professional. You could develop text this way by creating guidelines in which you write your text.

Even the earlier stage of writing out the text should be done so with consistency.

Once your word is written, you will apply the same process of adding parallel lines next to each line that makes up a letter. Remember, as you do this you want to keep consistency in thickness. You should always use a ruler when writing straight lines.

For curved lines, it’s more a matter of going slowly and cautiously.

If you are filling in your letter with a single color, you want to make sure that you go over the pencil lines with the color of your choice. Going over the lines provides us with a bolder lining in each letter, making it easier for us to fill in each letter.

Lastly, you then can proceed to fill in your letters. Again, take your time, especially if you are wanting to create a professional-looking hand lettering image. Lettering is a process that does require patience. However, there are a few ways to informalize lettering.

Make lettering more casual and quirkier for personal hand lettering endeavors.

Inconsistent for Casual

Making lettering look more playful and casual is all about tweaking the rules of lettering. For instance, you know how to write letters and thicken them with parallel lines. However, to make letters more playful, you could play around with inconsistencies.

This could be capitalized and lower-case combinations, thickening different parts of a single letter, or even conjoining letters.

Once you understand the fundamentals of a lettering style, it’s always fun to make adaptations, using the rules but tweaking them to create unique-looking texts. Inconsistency is the best mental note to remember when creating a more playful text. So, explore inconsistencies within your lettering.

Now you understand the general process of constructing block letters. You know how to make them both professional looking as well as playful and quirky. Both methods can be used for different reasons.

Lettering is utilized for various reasons, so knowing how to make and then adapt lettering is essential.

Serif Lettering

Serif is a different type of adaptation of block lettering, this time there are two things to remember. The first is the strokes, every upstroke is a thin stroke and every thick stroke is a downstroke. Also, all horizontal strokes will be thin as well, which means just down strokes are thick.

Secondly, there are little additional strokes that are added to each letter, which gives serif lettering its iconic serif look. We will similarly form letters; however, we will change the width of lines within each letter. From there we will add the final little strokes. Let us take a look at a general guide for this type of lettering.

How to Draw Serif Letters

The drawing process is very similar to the block lettering process. However, we want to consider how we write letters normally. Generally, there is a hand gesture for each letter that has movements going up and down to form a letter.

Remember this, because now when we draw the letters, we want to remember that every stroke that goes up will be thin and every stroke that goes down will be thick. Let’s take a look at a few steps on drawing serif.

Step 1: Writing Letters

Same as block lettering we draw out some horizontal guidelines, which we then proceed to write letters within as normal. Remember to use your ruler for straight lines, and keep your letters spaced out and within the horizontal guidelines. Let’s try together by writing the word “ART”.

Step 2: Making the Letter Serif-Styled

From here we will give each line of our letter a parallel line that runs alongside it. However, this time we want to remember how a normal letter is written with strokes. For every stroke that goes up, we want it to be thin and for every stroke that goes down, we want it to be thicker.

All horizontal lines can be thin as well.

From here, we can add in the serif strokes at the ends of each letter. A good suggestion is to do some research and look at a serif alphabet to guide you in placing your serif strokes. Another useful idea is to make sure that they are consistent in thickness and width within each letter.

Step 3: Filling in the Text

From here we can proceed to take our micron marker and go over the pencil lines to outline the text. Again, make sure you use your ruler for straight lines and take your time, cautiously going over any curved lines.

From here we can then proceed to fill in the text with our black marker. This is the general process of creating a serif-styled text. We can see that it is similar to block lettering, except we have thin and thick strokes within each letter and we add the little serif strokes.

Again, there are two ways to utilize these rules for a professional and casual look.

Consistent for Formal

Making serif look professional is all about consistency. A good way to start is by writing out your letter within horizontal guidelines that will keep your lettering in a straight line. Spacing your letters as you write them should also be consistent. Lastly, making sure that straight lines are drawn with a ruler is important.

Making sure you remember how a normal letter is written is important. This way you know where to put the lines that indicate the thick strokes within each letter. A good suggestion is to construct a single letter at a time, this way you can use the last drawn letter as a reference for the next.

Make sure there is consistency between them, including the serif strokes.

You must take your time with formal lettering. This also means it’s okay if you make a mistake with your pencil in the earlier stages. You can always tweak and erase your lettering until you are satisfied that it looks uniform.

From there, it is simply a matter of outlining your text.

When you want to fill in a text with a single color, it is always helpful to outline the text before filling it in. This will just make it easier for yourself when you want to fill in the text adequately.

Once you have outlined your text, you want to slowly fill in each letter. Taking your time is important, you don’t want to go out of the lines of the letter, compromising the formal quality of the text.

Inconsistent for Casual

For a more casual and playful look of serif lettering, we can play around with the rules that we have learned. This means we can play around with capitalized and lowercase letters.

We can also play around with the spacing; however, we want to keep the serif strokes as well as the thin upstroke and thick downstroke qualities.

Another method of constructing the serif lettering is by establishing your drawn letters and then outlining them before adding the serif strokes. This means that once our letters are drawn in pencil, we can go straight to outlining them.

Once you have outlined your text and filled in each letter, you can fill in your letters. Keeping the strokes and the serif strokes are still important. However, you can still play around with the inconsistencies of how thick and thin each set of lines are within individual letters.

Once your letters are filled in you then can go ahead and draw each serif stroke for each letter. This is just another way of adding serif strokes to a serif-styled text.

However, for more playful approaches, you can also explore various colors within your lettering.

Brush Lettering

Brush lettering is a great lettering style to move on from serif, as it also uses the thin upstroke and thick downstroke rule. Similar to serif, in brush lettering, we use thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes, however, there are a few basic calligraphy strokes to memorize that will enhance your brush lettering.

These basic strokes can be applied to all types of calligraphy-style lettering.

For brush lettering, we use different pressures on the brush to define the thickness of different strokes, rather than having to construct each stroke individually. What is nice about brush lettering is you can combine different styles of text, simply by using the method of thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes. 

By using this method of letter construction, you will find a coherence within your hand-lettering that looks beautiful. Let’s go through the process of constructing brush letters.

How to Draw Brush Letters

Drawing brush letters is a simple task, once you understand the basic strokes form calligraphy and the rule of thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes. These two concepts are foundational to brush lettering and can give the iconic look of brush letters.

That being said, let us look as this different letter style and how to draw it.

Step 1: Understand the Basic Strokes

We want to understand how to approach both the cursive and block style lettering, and we will use the thin upstroke and thick downstroke methods for both. For calligraphy-styled letters, we want to be acquainted with the basic strokes. You want to practice writing them out with your brush pen.

Step 2: Construct a Word With Basic Strokes

From there we can construct a simple word using the basic strokes to form each letter. As long as we understand each letter in its calligraphic form, we can easily assemble each letter using the basic strokes. 

A good suggestion is to write out words using the basic strokes, to acquaint yourself with the process of constructing letters.

Step 3: Apply Thin and Thick Strokes to Other Letter Styles

To create a range in our brush lettering, we can apply this thin and thick stroke rule to any letter style. This is a secondary part of brush lettering, where we utilize the brushes’ capabilities to create unique lettering combinations. Applying this rule to simple lettering forms and other letter styles is a great way to create variety in your brush lettering drawings.

Consistency for Formal Styled Lettering

 Once you have the hang of the brush pen and understand how different pressures create different strokes, you can begin to play around with lettering combinations. However, as you write out your letters using guidelines to keep them straight will help to create a formal and uniform look.

Another good suggestion for creating a formal look is to keep different letter styles in different rows or different guidelines. This works well when creating a lettering artwork that fills a page, keeping each row of letters the same.

While you can play around with different letter variations, using guidelines to keep letters the same is another suggestion.

However, the most successful way of creating a formalized brush lettering drawing is by using guidelines in the first place. Keeping letters more straight gives the brush lettering a more professional quality and can be a great technique for formally-styled hand lettering. Again, you can change the different letter styles within a brush lettering artwork, where you change the lettering style for each word.

However, using horizontal guidelines on the page is the best way to keep a text uniform and well placed on a page.

Inconsistency for Casual Styled Lettering

Again, we can use the tool of inconsistency to give ourselves a little more freedom with hand lettering. Especially, with brush lettering, we can play around with subtle curves in the letter placement, different lettering styles in a single row, and breaking letters up in an individual word.

Inconsistency can be applied in various ways, it’s all a matter of tweaking the rules.

Faux Calligraphy

Moving from brush lettering to a different calligraphy-styled text such as faux calligraphy is a good transition. Now that you are acquainted with the strokes that make up letters within the calligraphy-styled text, you can assemble these letters with a new lettering style.

Faux calligraphy is a great way to construct letters because it can be done with simple tools, such as a pencil and pen.

However, this time, we won’t make thicker lines with a single stroke. Rather, we will draw them into an already existing letter with lines that can be colored in. Let us take a look at how to draw a faux calligraphy text.

How to Draw Faux Calligraphy

Faux calligraphy is a great way to learn a more classical form of calligraphy. This is because the process is much easier than normal calligraphy. The main difference is that instead of making a thick stroke with a brush, you add them in by drawing a set of lines in each letter that can be colored in. Similar to how you draw letters such as in serif-styled lettering.

However, this time, we are going to construct a letter using the calligraphy basic strokes, and then add in the thicker areas within each letter.

Step 1: Writing a Word With the Basic Strokes

You can begin by making a simple horizontal line on the page, on which you can write a word. You can write any word. We want to write this word with our pencils, the same way we would construct calligraphy-styled letters. If you want to reacquaint yourself with the strokes, refer back to the brush lettering section.

Step 2: Drawing in the Thicker Stroke Lines

Once our letter is written in pencil, we can then go over them with our micron pen. You want to take note of where the thick lines would be placed within each letter. Once we understand where the thicker letters will be placed within each letter, we will then draw them in with our pens.

When you begin to draw in each thicker line within each letter, you want to make sure you keep the thickness consistent. You want to make sure you place these lines where the thicker lines would exist within each letter.

Take your time as you draw in each set of lines for each letter, making sure there is consistency.

With faux calligraphy, it’s an easier way of creating calligraphy text. This is because we don’t need calligraphy tools for one, but we also don’t need to worry about making a perfect stroke the first time. You can take your time drawing in the lines for each letter to create thicker strokes.

Step 3: Filling in the Thicker Strokes

We should have at this point a calligraphy-styled word, where all the thick strokes are empty or a better way of thinking about it is hollow. From here we can then fill in the thicker stroke areas with our pens or whatever tool that you have.

This is the general process of creating faux calligraphy-style lettering.

Consistency for Formal Styled Lettering

To make the lettering style more professional and formal, we can use guidelines to draw our faux calligraphy words. We do this by creating a grid where there are equal-sized blocks. You can have the grid straight or slanted, it’s all a matter of preference and how you would like your lettering to be positioned.

If you want to have your text slanted in a more calligraphic style, you can have a slanted grid.

From there we can proceed to carefully write out our calligraphy text within the grid lines. Using the grid lines, we can manage consistency within our letters a little more effectively. This will give the text a more coherent and uniform look which is the more formal approach to faux calligraphy lettering. You can also use the grid to add other letters above or below your current text.

Using a grid is a great way to place letters on a page.

A grid allows you to keep the letter sizes are the same whilst the positioning is also uniform. You really want to take your time to draw letters in pencil first before going over them in pen.

Once our letters are drawn on the page within the grid, we can then proceed to add the thick lines within each letter. Again, you want to make sure that when you add in the lines to create thicker strokes within each letter, they are consistent in thickness.

From here, we can proceed to go over our text with our pens, making sure that we take our time. With faux calligraphy, you really want to establish the text in pencil.

From there, it’s more a matter of outlining and filling in the text.

Lastly, you can fill in the text. Again, for a uniform look, you want to make sure the text is drawn correctly in pencil, making sure spacing, and position is accurate and consistent. From there, you can outline your text and fill it in with your choice of color.

Inconsistency for Casual Styled Lettering

Again, inconsistency is your best tool for making quirky style lettering. This is where we can be playful with how we draw the words. Again, play around with the rules, however, you want to maintain the faux quality by adding in the lines that indicate thick sections in each letter.

A great suggestion is to write out a text without any guidelines.

As you write out your lettering, consider the form of words and how they pair together on a page. This means that you can add slight curvature to your letters formations and how they are positioned on the page. Allow yourself to play around with different ways of implementing inconsistencies within your text.

You can also play around with how thick you make your letters as you draw the faux lines in each letter.

You can change the thickness of each letter to give your text a weird fantastical quality. Once you understand the rules, you can play around with how you draw the different letters. That is completely up to you. Once your letters are drawn you can then outline your letters.

Lastly, you can then proceed to fill in your text. You can also play around with different colors or even leave some of their thick sections open and unfilled. Once you know how to use the rules of hand lettering, you can then experiment with them and tweak them to suit your own desired look for lettering.

Tips to Remember

• Use these different lettering styles to make your own. These lettering styles can easily, be tweaked with your own twist, so explore various adaptations.
• Experiment with combinations and adaptations. Use this tutorial as a resource not a rule, this means playing around using different techniques from the different lettering styles.
• Take your time. Hand lettering is a drawing process, not a writing process, so you want to be slow and attentive with your mark-making.
• Start with pencil marks. Developing a text in pencil first is always a great way to develop a beautiful lettering drawing.
• Most importantly, have fun. Again, this is a resource for you to use and apply to your own lettering styles in your own way.

Practicing different types of letter styles is a great exercise for refining your hand lettering skills and understanding how different letter styles pair together. Playing around with different combinations can give you a better sense of how to construct interesting and unique hand lettering artworks. Working on variations in your letter styles is also a great way to learn about how letters work on various scales. Most important thing is that you explore and experiment with different letter styles, which is how you find your own unique way of lettering.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Are Good Lettering Styles to Learn?

There are many lettering styles to learn, however, learning lettering styles that have simple lines and then some that have wavy and curvy lines gives you a good foundation for most lettering categories. So, lettering styles like serif and block lettering paired with brush and calligraphy-styled lettering provides you with more shape and line ranges. By learning these basic lettering styles, you are also learning types of lettering that are easily adaptable and can be changed with your own personal tweaking. Lettering is an interpretive activity, which means that there is no specific lettering style to learn that is better than the next. It is better to learn some and then use the different techniques to create your own interesting lettering styles. Remember, experimentation is key when it comes to lettering.

How Do I Advance My Hand Lettering Skills?

With hand lettering, the best way to advance your skills is simply by doing it regularly. Practice is the best way to enhance your lettering skills. Another great suggestion is to think about formalized and informalized lettering. With lettering, consistency equals professionalism, whereas inconsistency is a little less professional. So, if your intention is to create lettering that looks formal and professional work with grids and lines to get used to formalizing your lettering style. However, when you want to create something more playful, changing lines and creating more inconsistent letter formations can be a fun and quirky method for a lettering style. Utilizing both approaches can be a great way to create something more professional and something more personal and fun.

What Are the Different Styles of Lettering?

The simpler lettering styles are serif and block lettering. These lettering styles are easy to draw and can easily be modified. Learning how to do the simpler lettering styles like block lettering and serif provides a good base for other lettering types that are similar. These types of lettering also are formed with fundamental techniques that can easily be utilized in different types of lettering such as graffiti, gothic, vintage, and many others. More loose lettering styles include calligraphy-style letterings such as brush lettering, modern calligraphy, and faux calligraphy. These are more modern renditions of traditional calligraphy, as they use the traditional calligraphy strokes in a loose and modern adaptation. Understanding lettering types such as these also provide you with fundamental techniques that can be applied to formalized lettering activities. So, having a combination of skills from different lettering styles can provide you with a great lettering arsenal for your own lettering activities.

The post Lettering Styles – Guide to Types of Hand-Lettering% first appeared on Art in Context.

An Easy Guide to Applying Shadows to Letters

In this tutorial on how to shadow letters, we will go through some simple techniques as well as some slightly more intricate techniques. What is great about letter shadowing is that it is not difficult at all, and with a few shadowed letters our text can be turned into a beautiful work of art.

As we learn how to shadow words, we are also learning how to give letters depth and how to understand the concept of the light source.

Once we understand the concept of the light source, we will see that the process of placing shadows within any text becomes much simpler. We will break down simple techniques such as drop shadow letters, that fall under the text, to more unique forms of letter shadowing such as overlapping shadows. However, as long as we have the right materials for this tutorial, we will find the process of how to shadow letters to be very simple.

Necessary Materials

In this tutorial, we will work with a few materials to make the process of drawing shadow words simple for us. We want to have a light 2H pencil, to draw lines for demarcating areas around the text that our shadows will be placed in. We want to have three Copic markers, one of them should be a specific grey marker.

Try to have another two markers, such as red and blue, so that you can explore how different color texts can be transformed through the process of making them shadowed letters.

We will also want a micron pen for darker letter shadowing, we want a pen anywhere between 6 mm and 12 mm in thickness. We will also be drawing shadows on letters, which we will be doing with a simple ballpoint pen. Lastly, we will want some paper, you can use whichever paper is available to you, however, thicker paper is often best when working with Copic markers. Since this tutorial is about you practicing, don’t worry too much about any special paper. However, the essential items can be found through the links below:

• N4 Neutral Gray Copic Marker
• Blue Copic Marker
• Red Copic Marker
• Ballpoint pen
• Micron 12mm pen
• Pencil
• Paper (Any paper will do)

Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Shadow Letters

In this tutorial, we will go through three processes of shadowing letters, all three are very simple and easy to follow through the steps. We will then create a fourth text; this will be a combination of all three techniques.

By making a text with a combination of all three techniques, we will see how it makes the text more vivid and beautiful.

However, before we get into the three different letter shadowing techniques, we need to first understand the concept of light. By understanding the light source, we will understand where to place the shadows on letters. Now that we know what to expect, let us see how the concept of light works within our various shadowed letters.

Understanding Light

Before we go through the different steps, we first want to understand the concept of light. When we consider how light shines on an object, we fundamentally know that the light is on the opposite side of the shadow. If there is a shadow on one side of an object, we know that the light source is on the other side of that object. This is the same for shadowed letters, if we add shadows on the right side of a letter, this means that our light source is on the left side of the letter. We can see this concept within demarcated lines around the letter within the image below.

What we want to de is utilize the tools we have to give a more realistic rendition of the shadow. This is where we will utilize our tools, to better represent the shadowed letters. As long as we understand that the light source is on one side of a text, we know that the shadows will appear on the other side of that text. Below is another example to better illustrate this point.

Now that we are aware of this concept let us go through a few different techniques and see how we can achieve different shadows within our letters.

Basic Shadow

The basic shadow technique is very simple. This shadowing technique is a great way to give the text a lifting effect. Basic shadows also give the text a three-dimensional quality, which makes the text seem interesting and unique. Let us see how we achieve this basic shadow effect.

Step 1: Write Out a Word

Let us begin by writing a word, for this exercise, let us write the word ‘shade’. You don’t have to write this word, but it might be helpful to write the same word as is shown in the tutorial. You can write this text in any kind of font or hand lettering style, however, try to keep it simple.

Step 2: Draw the Shadow Indicating Lines

Once we have our word written out, we want to now use the concept of the light source and proceed to draw shadow indicating lines on the side of our text that will have the shadows. We can use our pencils and proceed to draw indicative lines keeping them consistent on one side of the letters.

Remember, these lines would remain on the side of the letter opposite to the side that the light source would be present.

Step 3: Apply Shadowing to Letters

Once we have drawn the lines, indicating where we will place our shadows, we can proceed to do so with our neutral grey Copic markers. Remember, if your light source is at an angle slightly above your lettering on one side, this means that the shadowing will fade as it reaches the areas that are visible to the light.

Take your time applying these grey marks around the letters. Remember, you can use both ends of your Copic marker to gauge the width of your shadowing around each letter. As long as the shadow is present on the opposite side you have chosen your light source to be then your shadowed letters will look effective.

There you have it – basic shadowing!

Vivid Shadowing and Compound Shadowing

This technique follows the same process as that of the basic shadow approach. However, this time we will use our micron pen to add a darker shadowing with the letters.

By doing this, we give more contrast to the text which gives both dimension and vivid quality that makes the letters pop.

Step 1: Write Out a Word

This time take a different color marker and proceed to write out a word. Again, just to make it easier, let us use the same word for this exercise. Another good suggestion is to keep your letter style simple, as the aim is to get used to the letter shadowed letters techniques.

Step 2: Draw the Shadow Indicating Lines

Now that we understand how to place the pencil marks that indicate where our shadows will be we can proceed to draw them on the side of the letters that we choose. However, try drawing them on the other side of the letters, different from the side you drew them on in the first technique.

Step 3: Apply Shadowing to Letters

We can now proceed toad in the shadow lines using our micron pens. We want to try to stay along the ridge of each letter as we add in these dark pen marks.

Again, you can play around with how thick or thin you want your shadow lines to be, as long as they are on the same side of each letter.

Proceed to do this with each letter. Again, remember that, if your light source is slightly raised on one side of the text, there will be slight shadowing that falls under each letter. This means that letter shadowing can wrap around the letters a little bit.

As long as the shadows are opposite to the side of the light source then it will look accurate.

Step 4: Compound Shadows

This is where we apply the process of the first technique to the current shadow’s technique for these letters. By doing this, we are creating more depth within the lettering, giving it more dimension. This additional shadowing makes the text pop.

We do this by taking our neutral gray Copic marker and proceeding to add shadows on the same side of the current shadows.

Remember, that you want to keep the grey and black shadows on one side of the text. You also want to try and make them flow into each other in the areas where the shadows end. Make sure you utilize both ends of your Copic marker to achieve an effective shadowing around the letters.

That’s how you add vivid and compound shadows.

Overlapping Shadows

This technique is a little more intricate as it requires, firstly, a text with overlapping features. Secondly, it is a shading process done with a ballpoint pen as opposed to lines drawn with a marker. However, the process is simple once you understand the concept of the cross-hatching method used to achieve the shadowing effect. Let us go through the few steps that explain it in further detail.

Step 1: Write Out a Word

This time we want to write out our word with some twirls within our letters. Think of it as writing out a word in cursive with your Copic marker. You can play around with different thicknesses within the various lines of each letter and the overlapping features. Use both sides of the Copic marker to make an interesting overlapping letter arrangement.

However, let’s try to use the same letter “shade” as seen in the tutorial. This perhaps might make it easier to follow.

Step 2: Draw the Shadow Indicating Lines

This time the lines we draw are going to be placed on the letters. We don’t need to worry about the light concept for this letter shadowing technique. What we want to do is draw a line along with all the areas where your letters overlap. This means we are drawing a pencil line that completes the overlapping feature within each letter.

We can also do this for any areas within letters that seem as if they are connected by two parts. This means that we can create overlapping qualities within certain letters if they seem to have separate components that they are made of.

For example, the letter “H” is made up of a line and an arch that can be distinguished by a pencil line.

Step 3: Apply Shadowing to Letters

This time, how we will apply the shadowing to the letters is by shading from the pencil lines that define the overlapping features. We want to proceed to take our ballpoint pens and begin to shade in a gradient that flows outwardly from the pencil lines. We want the gradient to go from dark to light. We do this by paying attention to the pressures that we apply to the pen.

The aim is to create a gradient that goes from dark to light. The darkest parts are close to the pencil lines, giving the effect of a shadow underneath the overlapping feature within the letter. As we shade throughout the flow of the letter, we can lighten the gradient.

This will give the impression that the overlapping qualities within the letters are casting a shadow onto the letter itself.

You can do carry on this process throughout each letter of the word. Remember, as your shade make sure you are shading from the overlapping features that flow over the letter. You want to make sure that the shadowing falls underneath the overlapping feature. 

Take your time with this shading process and pay attention to the pressure that you apply to the pen whilst shading.

Carry on this process until you have gone through each letter of the word. You can also extend the shadow throughout the form of each letter as long as you want. The shadowing can be elongated or short, both will have a different visual quality. Play around with this technique, just remember that the aim is to make a gradient that flows from the overlapping feature.

Combination

Now that we know how the different shadowed letters techniques work, we can play around with them all in a single image. We will now proceed to make a new word where we utilize all the different techniques we have learned. Creating a text with a combination of the different shadow techniques is a great way to develop an art-styled text that can make the letters more interesting and unique.

Let us go through each step and see how we can transform a text using a combination of the different techniques.

Step 1: Write Out a Word

Since we will be using all the shadowing techniques for this word, we want to make sure we have twirls within our text again for the overlapping shadows. Again, you want to think of the twirls like cursive, where there are overlapping features within some letters. Write out the same word ‘shade’ using your Copic marker.

Step 2: Adding Darker Shadows

Once we have our word written out, let us begin with the darkest shadowing first. This is where we take our micron pen and proceed to add dark lining along one side of each feature. Remember to keep the concept of a light source in your mind when adding the shadows.

At this point, it is not necessary to add pencil lines that demarcate the shadowed side, however, you can if you need to.

Step 3: Adding Lighter Shadows

Once we have added our darkest shadows along the side of each letter, we can proceed to add the lighter shadowing with our neutral grey marker. Remember, that these shadows will be placed on the same side of the darker shadows. If you find a letter overlapping onto another letter allow the shadowing to go over that letter as well.

Remember that if your light source is placed slightly above on one side, there will also be slight shadowing that forms under the letters. Take your time with adding the lighter shadowing. Use both ends of your Copic marker, using the thinner side for capturing shadows in the small gaps in between letters.

Step 3: Adding Overlapping Shadows

Once we have completed the light shadowing within the letters, we can proceed to add the overlapping shadows within the letters. We do this by adding some line work in all the overlapping features with our pencils.

Remember, we want to use our pencils to define the features that overlap in each letter.

Once we have defined all of the overlapping areas with our pencils, we can proceed to shade in these areas with our ballpoint pens.

Remember, we want to create a gradient that fades from dark to light.

We do this by darkly shading in the areas closest to the overlapping feature, which we then proceed to lighten as we move through the rest of the letter. Use the pencil marks to guide your shading process, helping you know when to start shading from. You want to shade in the letter starting from the pencil marks, this way the darkest part of the gradient is close to the overlapping feature of each letter. As you shade, you can also extend the shading throughout each letter as much as you would like.

There you have it! A simple and easy tutorial on how to shadow letters! Once you understand the principle of each technique and how to achieve them using the concept of light to guide you, you will find that the process is quite simple.

Most importantly, remember to have fun experimenting with different techniques and combinations of shadowed letters.

Tips to Remember

• Get your text right first. Once you have your text drawn nicely, then you can proceed with adding shadow to the text.
• Take your time. When working with markers, once you make a mistake there is no going back. So, take your time.
• Shadows are always placed on the opposite side of the light source. Remember to add shadows on the other side of the text, not the same side of the light source.
• The shadows should be consistent on one side of a set of letters. The shadows should be placed on the right side of all letters or the left side of all letters for an accurate shadow effect.
• Use your pencil to demarcate the sides for shadowing. Using the pencil can help you to prevent any unwanted mistakes.
• Have fun. Explore combinations of letter shadowing and different styles of hand lettering for your shadowed letters techniques.

Learning how to shadow letters is so much fun! This is because it is quite easy once you understand the process of different letter shadowing techniques. This is a great addition to hand lettering artworks and projects and provides you with a unique perspective into giving letters a three-dimensional quality. There are a few ways to create shadows within a text, whether it be shadows on letters or drop shadow letters, this tutorial gives you a good foundation for both. Now that you have an understanding of how to shadow letters, you can take these skills and add shadowing to all kinds of texts, using the same steps you can confidently shadow letters A to Z.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do You Shadow Letters With Markers?

Firstly, you want to make sure that you have the right markers. Using a set of Copic markers will help you achieve the best results. This is because the ink is high quality and the Copic markers have two sides, which means you have the option to make your shadows either thick or thin. When it comes to the color of the text, that is completely up to you, however, it is important to have a neutral grey marker for the shadows. Once you have the right tools, then you would begin by writing out your text with a colored marker. From there you will identify which side of the text the light source would be. Once you know this, you can proceed to add shadowing with your neutral grey marker on the side of the text opposite to that of the light source. From there it is simply a matter of finessing the shape of the shadows to fall alongside the text as accurately as possible.

Do Shadows in Letters Make Letters Three-Dimensional?

Learning how to shadow letters is another way of learning how to make letters three-dimensional. This is because as we add shadows on letters or create drop shadow letters, it gives the letter the appearance of lifting off the page slightly. This is because the shadow indicates that there is a small gap between the surface of the letter and the shadow. Thus, learning how to shadow letters gives you a good intuition for the concept of three-dimensional as well. Learning letter shading within shadowed letter techniques like overlapping shadows gives another unique three-dimensional quality to the text. In this tutorial, you learn a few ways of letter shadowing which gives the text more depth and dimension.

What Are the Different Ways to Shadow Letters?

The basic shadow approach is when you add some light grey undertones along one side of each letter within a text. This creates drop shadow letters, which means that it gives the effect of the shadows placed directly under the text. Another method of letter shadowing is by using a micron pen or a black marker to create darker, more harsh shadows. This is when we follow the same process of a basic shadow approach, however, we use a darker tool to give the text a heightened contrast between the text and shadow. Another approach is when you add shadowing within the letters, whenever you create a text with overlapping features. We do this by shading with a ballpoint pen near the areas of a text that overlap. We achieve this by shading a gradient from dark to light. The aim is to create a gradient that moves away from the overlapping areas as the shading lightens as it moves through the form of the letter. These are a few ways to add shadows on letters, and you can always combine techniques.

The post How to Draw Shadow Letters – Learn Easy Shadowing Techniques% first appeared on Art in Context.