GETTING STARTED

If you have never tried doing any art since leaving school, you are missing out on a great way to relieve tension, express your thoughts, or just have fun playing around with shapes and colour. There are so many variations of mediums to use, so what is best to start with?

PENCIL, PEN, CHARCOAL These are by no means the only drawing mediums,but they are the most common. In later blogs I will talk about each in more detail, but as a general overview, lets look at each.

PENCIL

Best to start with pencils, they are the easiest to control, and you can rub out mistakes. Buy yourself a couple of good art ones, such as a 2B and 4B. Don’t use an ordinary HB, it can’t cope with good shading. Try blending from dark to light within easy shapes like an oval, square or triangle. Drawing complex images such as faces comes after lots of basic practice. Buy a sketchbook with decent cartridge paper and fill it with pencil work.

PEN

Using a pen is very different from pencil. Areas of darkness are created by the amount of cross hatching you apply. It is possible to dilute ink and wash in shadow areas, but this becomes another technique on it’s own. The biggest problem is you cannot really rub anything out, so you need to be very certain ,before applying marks.

CHARCOAL

Nice and messy, ideal for creating large areas of tone. Get some large sheets of paper and don’t try and be too precise. You will end up with more on your hands than on the paper.

We will look at other forms of drawing,such as pastel,in future blogs. But for now,don’t try to dive into watercolours, acrylic or oil painting,till you have freed up your hand to draw all sorts of images, using all three of the mediums mentioned. Set yourself a drawing a day, even if it is only a quick sketch.