DRAWING AND PAINT

Tips to Improve Sketching Skills

Today's article about improving your sketching skills.

To sketch quickly learn to sketch from your shoulder. Most people learn to sketch on small pieces of paper, usually no bigger than A4, sketching small images. Because the images are small, people tend to learn how to sketch from the wrist. Drawing a long line tends to consist of lots of small movements from your wrist, as you move your arm along. If you look carefully at these lines they consist of lots of small arches.

Sketching from your shoulder means that you can draw lines in one continuous movement. Instead of drawing by moving your wrist, keep your wrist still and move your entire arm in one long movement from your shoulder. It's not an easy skill to master but once you have, you definitely will see the benefit.

A good way to learn is to practice drawing on large A2 sheets of paper and have the paper vertical. This means that you can't rest your wrist on the page encouraging you to use your shoulder when drawing.

There is a simple exercise that can help. Draw a series of opposing vertical and horizontal dots at each end of a piece of paper. Practice drawing a continuous line from one dot on one side of the paper to the dot on the opposite side of the paper. Gaining confidence in your drawing action is vital to improving your sketching skills.