Top 10 Tips to Improve Your Drawing

Everyone started to draw when we were very young, around age 2 or 3. When we got older, we wanted to draw realistic things. We tried and failed when we saw the drawing as ugly. That is how some of us quit drawing.

I am facing changes this month (October) as I try new things, and I will practice my drawing skills along with other skills such as my guitar solos.

If you want to be better at drawing, then use these tips as you follow along.

1. Practice every day

   Even for a few minutes every day, it will help you learn techniques. If it doesn't look good, then try again and again. Don't give up like other kids do.

   Oh yes, I used to draw all the time. I'm not really sure why I stopped, because I never cared if they were bad anyway.

2. Experiment with texture, color, blending, light, and value

   It will make your drawings look realistic.

3. Sketch basic shapes before tracing in the details

   You can draw shapes and trace over them to make something you're creating that will look better than how you tried before.

4. Get creative

   Never be afraid to get creative. Use your own imagination for how you want it to be.

5. Draw from pictures

   Never trace a work, especially if it's a drawing made by another person that is copyrighted and you can't claim it as your own. But you can still draw from free images and your own ones too.

6. Study your source material

   I had to observe what things look like to get better. I didn't suddenly know how to draw them. I started with little things and kept piecing them together, like when drawing 90s and 2000s anime and noticing that the mouth is close to the nose.

   Then making the bottom edges and sections going upward from that darker makes the hair look more hair-like. For bodies of shallower water, the part in the sunlight will reflect and look blue. The shaded areas and sides of waves will show what's in the water, including the actual color of the water, which may be more greenish or brownish.

   If you are drawing the people you have drawn, use your original source to draw the person more easily.

7. Improve proportions

8. Get a sketchbook

   That will help you be able to draw more.

9. Use shading

   Imagine the objects as 3D and consider the direction of the light. It's like pouring paint on it from where the light source is. Where would it hit? Where would it not hit?

   Shading helps the drawing look realistic.

10. Get good quality pencils

    That will help make your drawings look realistic.

The Contenders

11. Be patient

    You can't get better if you give up completely. I come back from breaks I accidentally take and come back better. I guess it's from observing, or my spatial awareness and fine motor skills are getting better with age.