Drawing exercises that can make anyone an artist.
People often say “it’s hard to draw!”, but is that the case in reality? Well, for the non-artists the culture of drawing is not continued or extended beyond their early childhood. Talking about the creative people who work in mediums apart from drawing, these reasons are more or less the same, however, it goes much farther to practice. Creatively learning people continue to draw even beyond their childhood for a longer period, yet, their specific areas of focus might not have included drawing, and is hence, left unpracticed. In any case, practising would foster both confidence and comfort in drawing. Given below are some drawing exercises that you can check out if you wish to become an artist.
- Doodling
Doodling is pencil art that anyone and everyone can practice by making simple designs and shapes. It is as easy as putting your pencil or pen to paper and randomly making a pencil sketch of anything that comes to your mind. It’s not a compulsion to make straight lines since doodling comes in any shape, form, or colour. Doodling helps to increase your visual literacy and process ideas, hence, go ahead and experiment with different drawing tools and materials and draw anything you wish to! You can also check out some doodle drawing tutorials to get a gist of how to proceed with doodling.
2. Entopic graphomania
Entopic graphomania is a simple drawing exercise that is based on a Surrealist game. All you need to do is grab a sheet of paper and start to place dots on specific words or letters from a book, an old paperback, or anything that has markings. You decide on what kind of markings, letters, or words you want. Connect the dots with either curved, straight, or zigzag lines to make a pattern. This exercise reveals hidden patterns, shows you how different choices can make differences, and would also help you to engage in randomness for taking your work ahead.
3. Non-dominant hand
If you’ve been practising drawing for some time and feel uninspired or stuck, it’s time to reinvent and discover something new! Go all out and change your habit by using papers and tools that are exactly the opposite such as using the ink of a faulty pen on a hot press paper that is a tad bit spongy. You can also try using your non-dominant hand without any photo reference and draw anything that comes to your hand. This way you can break down the image in creative ways and draw without any restrictions.
4. One day one theme
For practising this drawing exercise decide on a theme or an object and only draw that during the day. You try to vary your approach in the practice by inculcating a colour or size of something, an animate or inanimate object, things that start with a specific letter, or the things that make you laugh or are scary. You can also try to use synonyms, for example, the things that emotionally move you versus the things that physically move you, such as different modes of transportation. The more you give it a thought, the more you would exercise your concept-building abilities and your hand skills. You can also check out some drawing lessons online to understand how to draw on your desired theme.
5. Word Stacks
Take 25 blank index cards and cut them into one-thirds. Print an adjective on each card from the first stack. On the second one print a noun and the last one prints a verb. Shuffle each stack separately and draw one card each from each stack. Put them next to one another so that it forms a phrase, for example, pretty/ball/smiling, and draw it. It’s quite possible that it wouldn’t turn out into fine art but it would help in cultivating basic skills and build your confidence.
