12 Drawing Exercises to Improve Your Art Skills! Warm-Up Practice

huge thank you to squarespace for sponsoring today's video if you have tons of drawings and paintings that you'd like to display squarespace is an all-in-one platform where you can do just that i've been using squarespace for many years now and i love that i can both display my gallery and my shop their award-winning templates are not only user-friendly but also seamlessly designed when uploading my latest 320 marker piece for pre-order i was able to do this instantly and quickly even from my mobile device if you're looking for a place to beautifully display your drawings and paintings give squarespace a try by going to squarespace.com and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com just carp for 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain let's jump right into some helpful tips i put together are you looking to improve your drawing skills reminding yourself a foundation before getting too complex can help set you in the right direction i've put together 12 easy drawing warmups to help you with your drawing experience these are often overlooked and may seem redundant however these are great for all levels and you only need a few minutes to put these into practice in fact if you look closely these exercises make up more complex artworks which is why i believe these tips are important to shine line on to help with both visual creativity and hand mobility [Music] like any athlete before beginning training they start with warm-ups and as artists there's so much we can do for warm-ups as well a quick tip that i often need to remind myself is to give my hands a nice stretch and some light movements will help especially if you plan on drawing for a longer period of time if you ever find yourself having any tension in your wrist this will help alleviate that and speaking of which this brings me to the first exercise [Music] for exercise number one we're going to practice freehand circles but before we do that we have to practice on how we actually use our arm when we draw this may sound silly but the way that we hold our pencil and use our pencil plays a huge role on how we can actually draw try holding your pencil a bit further rather than keeping a closer grip this will allow you to alternate pressure and it won't keep you restricted when drawing it may be uncomfortable at first but it's great for getting in the big picture and also staying loose play around with the way you hold your pencil and you'll see how it affects your drawings notice how i'm also drawing from my shoulder this is super important because you're not keeping your wrist restricted but instead moving your whole arm through your shoulder which allows you for greater range and greater mobility i recommend trying this on a tilted surface like an easel or you can also stand above your desk and to put this to the test try out some freehand circles in various sizes hold your pencil a little bit further keep your stable and draw from your shoulder here i'm creating this range of motion with my hand but as you can see i'm staying still with my wrist and it becomes a little bit more difficult until i start moving my hand from my shoulder when holding her pencil closer to the point we can find herself hunching over our drawings and this can hurt our posture and our wrist of course there are certain techniques where we must hold the pencil a little bit closer for more precision but for initial sketches when we're doing our freehand circles holding it a bit further and using your arm from your shoulder is super helpful try both so you'll feel the difference you also may be wondering why i chose freehand circles but with any drawing i love breaking it down into shapes whether it's a portrait or an animal or an eye or an ear somewhere in those there will be a circle practicing these will allow you to have a great foundation in your drawings and you'll see less distortion in your portraits and other pieces of course there's different ways of stylizing things and that's for another time but nevertheless trying out a few of these in all sorts of different sizes will be useful no matter what you're drawing [Music] for the second exercise we will be doing something completely opposite feel free to use any of your favorite drawing supply because we will be practicing cross hatching hatching is a great exercise to practice since this technique was used by the masters of the renaissance and is also used by many artists of today in case you're not familiar with cross hatching this is where you place a bunch of lines next to one another to create values the further away you place the lines parallel to one another the lighter the value and the closer you place the lines together the darker in the previous exercise we practiced drawing from the shoulder and now we're switching gears to use our wrist to create these little hatches and this will allow us to switch gears and introduce a different kind of muscle mobility for this exercise i recommend trying a variety of lines parallel to one another and do your best to keep the same distance throughout then you can try crossing the other way throughout try some longer lines and then try some little short ones try going side to side up and down crisscross the overall objective is to play around and get your hand used to those gestures have some fun with it use different art supplies play around with different colors and get acquainted on how the tips of each different art supply work the only way you'll get comfortable with this and having your hand work in motions this way is if you practice and keep experimenting on your own it'll take time to create these motions and soon it becomes muscle memory here are some more examples of other lines and hatches you can practice and to keep things interesting i recommend switching up the art supplies as well as the kind of colors you use these are some great basics to start with but if you're interested in some more in-depth techniques i have some over on my patreon including worksheets and exclusive videos [Music] to go back to using some colored pencil i wanted to share how holding your pencil a little bit further can allow some great variety and texture when you're drawing as well in these hatches i'm applying more pressure in the beginning and then flicking my pencil out which allows more expressive lines the possibilities are endless so play around and just have fun with it being aware of the simple idea that the way that we tilt hold and arrange our pencil on the paper can provide great variety especially when you're cross hatching i also then recommend trying out some 3d shapes like a sphere or a cube try these out for a few minutes every day or just a bit when you have time this way you can then apply it to some more complex pieces cross hatching is one of my favorite techniques and i use it tons in my sketchbook especially when i'm on the go and personally i find it very soothing [Music] let's now take a look at exercise number three for this one grab any pen or marker and we will be doing a continuous line drawing continuous line drawings are drawings made with one line where we do not lift the pen off the paper this is great to practice for observation and it builds a ton of confidence since we don't have any time for overthinking the only objective is to not lift the pen off the paper you'll begin to notice that although it's a challenge you become more confident in the way you place your lines and even the way you observe i personally love doing this exercise with a marker or a pen since there is something daring about that we can't erase after all in a way we're problem solving here because we're thinking of ways we can position our hand to really observe our image and we're studying our subject simultaneously making this another great exercise to add to the variety a mix of drawing warm-ups and here are some more figure studies where i applied the same technique although these were quick sketches i realized i learned a lot and that's why i'm sharing it with you today and i hope it'll help you too if you've gotten any value from this video so far or learned something new hit that like button it really helps support the channel and subscribe so you don't miss any new videos [Music] this fourth exercise may be one that i live by i mentioned this tons in previous videos and i couldn't stress enough the importance of value scales start with a long rectangle and then divide them into sections i like to do eight or nine sections once you've done that i label it from one to nine and these numbers will be our helping guides when we begin shading for this exercise we'll be shading from light to dark and the goal is to have no values repeat once again this may seem very simple and redundant however this is excellent to get the hang of pressure whenever you're using your pencil it takes some time to get comfortable with consistent pressure throughout but i promise that trying out this warm-up will help with things such as blending shading and just generally your ability to handle the pencil i also recommend you try this out with a colored pencil just so you see how the different mediums perform [Music] for this exercise we will be getting into the zone and after we'll doodle and noodle and just draw whatever feels good with no pressure i like to zone out with my favorite music or podcast so i invite you to put on whatever you like in the background whatever helps you focus and zone out most and then just enjoy the process and let the pen lead the way [Music] often times when i sat down to do this and mostly always i end up getting lost in the process and falling in love with the finished result here are some examples of that [Music] for the sixth exercise we will be using our non-dominant hand to draw i'm a right-hand draw with my right hand so i will be using my left hand to draw and you may have some serious questions as to why believe it or not this will allow us to use different parts of our brain different muscles and chances are it won't come out as great as our right hand which will give us an immediate confident boost just kidding but for this grab an object on your desk anything at all place it in front of you and just begin drawing but i first got to try this with my art teacher in art school and he made us draw a whole model with our left hand we were also confused as to why he was making us do this but in the end we realized how important it was and how great we felt after and it was just a fun and interesting experiment it will be a bit awkward it will be a bit uncomfortable you will feel like your other hand does not work but as always i love to see the positive in everything look at how loose and fluid the lines become it's similar to when we're kids and we don't have much muscle mobility especially when holding a pencil so i believe that drawing with your non-dominant hand shows you the beauty of carefree line making and also providing yourself a good laugh [Music] here's the finished drawing with my non-dominant hand i actually love the messiness of it and seeing this inspires me to try this out and incorporate it with my right hand [Music] for this next drawing exercise we'll be doing short drawings but timed drawings i like to start with three minutes and i also have a jar full of random drawing prompts i pulled one at random and we have a wizard duck so i place one in front of me and begin drawing i use no references and strictly rely on training my imagination muscles and i set a goal to make sure i finish the drawing within 3 minutes no matter what again no room for overthinking but lots of room for moving the hand around and getting many drawings done in a short period of time sometimes i tend to seek perfection in every single drawing but doing this exercise allows me to loosen up and remind myself that it's okay to create messy sketches and the timer is a really great help with that i play around with some one minute drawings as well trying some observational studies from life of your own hand is a great idea and i do these often to help keep myself in shape these are not meant to be perfect which is great because if you're someone who is just not able to begin try getting a timer out and simply making a bunch of messy drawings i promise that this exercise will help you [Music] for this exercise we will strictly rely on line variation i grabbed a fine liner a brush nib and a chisel nib and during this exercise the goal is just to create some random lines while changing the pressure you put onto the pen as you can see i'm starting off light and when i press a little more i can get some great variation you'll begin to notice how some supplies can give you a nice even stroke and others can give you a nice brush effect depending on the texture of your paper and what you're using you'll learn the endless options for variations try your best to create as many different lines as possible i like to do this before any finished artwork and even one getting a new art supply because once i play around i'm able to see how i can apply this to the finished piece the key is to grab as many random supplies and create as much variation as possible each tool can be useful for different things so when getting super familiar with how each works and the possibilities of each you'll be more confident to start your drawings instead of being nervous or confused on where to even start and what to even use this way you've already become friends and are acquainted up next is exercise number nine for this one we will be doing silhouettes grab any thick black marker and get your reference of a silhouette any subject is perfect as long as it's completely in shadow this drawing exercise is super beneficial because it allows you to focus on the overall shape rather than the details inside you'll also practice your composition skills since you'll be focusing on positive and negative space positive space is the figure itself and the negative space is the background try this out to improve on building form [Music] exercise number 10 is all about creating grids and checker boards this is great to warm up with especially if you want to build a steady arm and i also think they make pretty cool patterns create some flat square shapes and then create some shapes where it's distorted do your best to keep these as parallel as possible and then try some out where you distort it so you can tell the difference shade them in in one direction in a checkerboard pattern and this is also a great practice for your muscle memory at times we may want our lines to be straight and parallel so i believe practicing this exercise will help with that after trying out some shapes built on straight lines try some inorganic shapes with funky curves and challenge yourself to make a grid from them i've included this exercise in the mix because i feel like it allows you to think in terms of shapes and fluid lines you'll learn that the distance in between the lines you place play a huge role in the illusion created with these drawings [Music] this is also a great practice when doing perspective draw a triangle and have all the lines meet at one point drawing this freehand will get a little shaky and it won't be perfect but the important thing is is that you're practicing the movement of your hand and in result gaining even more muscle memory and in my opinion i think these make great little pieces on their own [Music] now let's train our hand eye coordination with some symmetry i like to practice this with some geometric shapes and drawing a light dotted line in the places where it would be sliced will help me visualize the symmetry think of these dotted lines as imaginary lines and if you were to fold them against that dotted line they would be exactly the same practice this with some simple shapes and then some random more complex shapes that come from your imagination you may be thinking why on earth are we drawing something so simple well believe it or not we use symmetry whenever we draw more complex 3d objects it's often used in still lives in figures and when you train your visual language to see this it can prevent things like portraits or figures to look lopsided when you're drawing and it's great to keep in mind [Music] last but not least for this final exercise i like to call mix and match choose two exercises that i've mentioned in this video and combine them into one exercise to demonstrate i chose exercise number three which is the continuous line drawing and exercise number 10 which is to create a grid this was challenging since i couldn't take my pencil off the paper but it felt like a new discovery and it was very freeing it's amazing how revisiting the basics can help build your foundation along the way after assessing the techniques i use everyday drawing and putting together these 12 exercises you'll see how often they appear when doing more complex intricate work if you try these out be sure to tag me on instagram i'd love to see how yours come out refer back to these at any time for a few minutes throughout the day the great thing is is you don't need any fancy art supplies or any fancy paper any variety will do don't forget to leave a comment below i hope you're staying creative and motivated and most importantly staying positive i'll see you in the next one bye [Music] you

Channel: Jess Karp

Views: 1,831,939

Keywords: fill your sketchbook, how to draw, how to sketch, art supplies, sketchbook tour, how to fill your sketchbook, how to paint, tips for art, tips to paint, painting tips, drawing tips, how to make art, artist, artwork, helpful tips for artists, helpful art tips, sketchbook, how to draw in your sketchbook, best sketchbooks, best supplies, ways to draw, how to gain inspiration, sketchbook ideas, ideas for art, ideas for drawing, inspiration, how to, drawing in your book, doodle

Id: WRQ8_oVt9nM

Length: 19min 0sec (1140 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 18 2021