Below are 5 tips that I have put together to help you improve your (design) sketching. This piece is tailored towards designers but will benefit creatives from other disciplines too. If you’re an artist or illustrator or if you’re just looking on how to improve artwork (sketching) for that matter I recommend you read the 7 steps to instantly improve your artwork blog as well — as it gives you a more in depth look on how to improve your artwork. So whether you’re generating ideas for a project or looking to improve your drawing skills so you can finally create that drawing of a dog, or drawing lips, drawing hands, or even drawing noses, this piece is intended to help you achieve those goals with greater ability. I am sure by the end of reading your drawing skills will have improved.
This piece is broken down into 5 sections:
A reminder, there are many ways to skin a cat. The same concept goes with drawing, sketching and creating for that matter. There is certainly no one right way to do so but these tips to improve drawing skills will help you.
So my first tip — don’t be afraid about making mistakes. If you are it will show through the way you draw and your final sketch will suffer for it. You want to try and achieve long flowing lines and not tentative short “furry” lines. Don’t get this confused with loose construction lines which help to get you into the flow and feeling of drawing. To help you achieve long flowing lines, I suggest that you use whole arm to draw rather than sketching from your wrist.
This leads nicely onto drawing through the form. By drawing through the form, i mean, don’t stop at the intersection of another line. This will give your drawings more life and appeal, they will not feel as stiff as they used to be. Don’t worry about the lines ruining your sketch as this can be altered later with various methods.
Think in shapes. For example when drawing eyes, don’t draw the symbol of an eye, observe the different shapes created from highlights and shadows and draw those instead. If you’re a designer take this same concept when practising or sketching ideas. Think in shapes when constructing your design or breaking down other designers sketches. This is very much how a traditional artist would work the 7 steps to instantly improve your artwork blog will give you a greater insight.
If you’re looking for an instant result then this next tip is for you. All you have to do is use toned paper! It’s that simple. Why will toned paper benefit you? Unlike white paper, toned paper grants you the ability to add highlights, whereas white paper only allows you to create darker marks. This is great for all types of drawing. For instance if you’re developing a product and really want to show off the form of the product, highlights and shadows are key for doing so. If you’re an artist it works in the same way describing the form of an object whether it be a skull drawing, butterfly drawing or drawing hands highlights and shadows are vital. But use it sparingly for maximum impact.
Don’t to forget to vary the weight of your lines! This is a great art drawing technique to improve drawing and can add nice visual interest and contrast to your sketches. An effective way to use this for example is if an object is closer to the foreground you can symbolise this with a heavier line weight and for an object further away you can use a lighter line. This method can also be used for parts within an object that are closer to you than others.
Furthermore it is a great way to distinguish what is important by using darker tones and thicker lines for forms that you want to stand out. One other way in which you can vary line weight is if you can’t see the other side of an edge you can illustrate a darker line to symbolise that as well.
I think this goes without saying but repetition and practice is the key to making progress. How often should I draw? I would aim to try and draw everyday, if its 1 sketch or 100, they all help. I recommend keeping a sketchbook as over time you will see the progress. Don’t expect to see dramatic results within those 100 sketches or even 1000 sketches, you will be making a lot of bad sketches but don’t worry because over time they will improve. Don’t go comparing your first drawings to the end products of professional that has been working in the industry for years. Your design sketches aren’t meant to look like a work of art they are meant to communicate an idea. You can spend more time on your presentational sketches further down the process.
Aim to finish your drawings rather than seek perfection in them. This will make you become more productive and allow you more time to develop and improve on other drawings rather than delaying on small details in one drawing. You will then learn from what you did well and what needs improving on, don’t forget you can always go back and edit later — done is not over.
Start drawing from life. This will help you have a clearer understanding of the form that photos can’t communicate to you. Whether it’s still products and objects or sketching people (figure drawing will force your to capture the overall gesture over a short time a good way to develop or quick hand mark making) it will all be beneficial and inform your work. Place a couple interesting objects in front of you, and take the time to observe and sketch them in detail. Pay attention to their texture, and how the light interacts, and just illustrate them with just a pen or pencil. Just because you’re in one discipline doesn’t mean others can’t help you progress.
Be inspired and copy others! When I talk about copying others I mean, learn from them. Create what they did so you can see how they got to their end product to help you improve your drawing skills. But make sure it is for your own personal learning and stays within your sketchbook. Here are a few artists that have inspired me maybe they will do the same for you.
Don’t just draw from the same angle. Easy drawing never helped anyone. Change it up, see things from another light give yourself a challenge you never know what you may discover.
Speaking of challenges thats exactly what you want to do. Get yourself out of the comfort zone and give yourself a test, to push yourself and force yourself to make decisions and overcome problems which you will then benefit from. So face your fears and keep taking a step up on each drawing or artwork. But don’t forget to enjoy it! It is a great privilege and skill to have a blank canvas in front of you and transfer whats in your mind onto that page and transform it into something amazing - literally creating something out of nothing.
Don’t be worried about being rough when drawing. Being loose can be a good thing as it allows new ideas to be explored, this is part of ideation design thinking. Let your brain and hands go free and add some lines that you wouldn’t have before. Thats the most important part, is just getting as many ideas down on the page, thats the key to the ideation process. Being abstract and loose at the initial ideation stages is a good thing. It maintains emotion and feel to your work. Remember this is not a final rendered piece, it is a platform in which you can develop ideas.
If you’re all out of imagination. A good way to draw easy ideas is by sketching a few abstract shapes on the page and try and connect them in a cohesive way, turn them into the subject of what you want to draw. You will get some really weird and interesting results but some may surprise you. It’s a great way to generate creative drawings or creative design ideas.
This method is a great fun way to start drawing if you’re stuck on what to draw. All you have to say is what if. For example, what if you were drawing hands that tried catching chocolate that were flying in the air. Or, you sketch a figure study class but all the humans turn into pencils drawing images. There are so many possibilities with this method so let your imagination run wild, the best thing is you can draw in what ever style you want so if you like drawing anime, draw in a anime style!
When developing design ideas in the ideation process you can trace the previous version and manipulate the updated version thats on top. Not only is this a good way to develop your designs but also a great way to improve your sketching ability. It can help train your eye to understand the actual shapes of items, you may even be surprised at some details you’d been overlooking. The good thing about this is that you can do it traditionally with tracing paper or digitally by decreasing the opacity of the previous layer, which leads nicely to point 4.
Digital has taken over the way many people work, so it makes sense that you adopt and learn digital drawing skills. There are many benefits to adopting a digital workflow:
Traditional still has its place in the world. As you can’t rely on the computer to cover up for basic drawing skills. Here are some benefits and drawbacks to working traditional:
Different marks suggest different emotions and feelings. For example larger brushes and nibs with limited movement are suggested to be more aggressive and bold whereas drawing with ballpoint techniques will provide you with a more precise and controlled look. Don’t restrict yourself to what tools you use, experiment and play around to see what works. A great artist and designer who’s work is very much about experimentation is James Victore, I recommend you take some inspiration from his work.
After all of your experimentation is done. It’s time to decide on the right tool for the job. For example if I’m planning and drawing easy construction lines that I don’t want to appear in the final piece I probably would use sketching pencils. But if I wanted something more permanent I would use sketching pens. Just like a builder pick the right tool for the job it makes all the difference.
If your working digitally this one is a must for you! Don’t be restricted to the standard Photoshop brushes when illustrating, because they aren’t the right tool for the job and will end up making your work look worse off.
There are plenty alternative brush packs out there that you are able to download. Good brush packs will take a decent drawing and instantly make it 10x better or more realistic just because of the tool that you are using. This is extremely beneficial if your creating digital art or sketching ideas as the majority of time you will be asked to show your thought process and ideation stages, for that reason you don’t want to present poor looking drawings as that will ruin the overall professionalism of your work. A lot of the success to a project is quite often down to the presentation.
If you are looking to instantly level up your sketches I suggest taking a look at The Draftsman’s Tool Kit. This Photoshop pencil brush pack was specifically designed to help designers, artists and creatives like you. It provides you with 20 different types of hyper-realistic pencils that replicate the traditional look and feel of sketching pencils.
To help you out below is a FREE downloadable brush from The Draftsman’s Tool Kit digital brush pack.
