How to Start Drawing Things

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Rofai is a community member who happens to be an artist. He wanted me to pass along his tips to all of you who may be thinking about learning to draw. I personally can’t draw, not even a stick figure. But Wicket is an artist extraordinnaire!

• Do you have enough supplies? Some recommended supplies would be a pencil for sketching, a darker pencil for detail, a pencil sharpener, a ruler, an eraser (those ones that look like mini bricks), a protractor, a compass, colored pencils, enough blank paper (obviously), and anything else that you may think you need. I do NOT recommend crayons or markers. Hopefully you started off with crayons and markers in early elementary school. By this time, you should be using colored pencils.
• Place your supplies in a place where you can access them efficiently. If you’re right handed, you might want to place everything somewhere on the right side of the table (or whatever you’re using), same if you’re left handed. Have everything within easy reach, so you don’t have to over-extend your arms. Keep a drink nearby, but not on the table with you.
• Be sure to have enough elbow room. You don’t want to be working on something and get this line across your paper because someone bumped your elbow. My recommendation is to work alone. If you’re working on something during a party, or if you have a friend over… leave your personal space well beyond your boundaries.
• Color in one direction!! Remember in elementary school when you used to color and it was just… *pewk* b/c you would color in this direction, and that, and it was just horrible? Well coloring in one direction, for the whole picture, makes it look nice and professional. So just move the pencil up and down, or side to side, but remember, which ever way you go, you have to stay that way for every part of your picture.
• Shading is always a good technique when drawing. You don’t want your drawing to look plain, bold, and 2-dimensional. Shading makes it look more 3d. One way to shade is to take your pencil, start in the corner (or side) you want to be the darkest, then starting there, start coloring dark (by pressing the pencil hard enough), then slowly move along, in one direction, and get lighter as you move. Then take your finger (or two fingers, w/e) and just rub in the area you just colored. This makes your shade look very nice, and makes it look like it’s professionally printed.

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