- Hello there, and thanks for joining me.
I'm visual artist, Aaron Rutten,
and in this video, I'll share some tips
that you can use to improve your illustration skills.
First of all, you have to practice,
but there are different kinds of practice.
There's passive practice and active practice.
Passive practice means that you're going to get practice
doing what you would normally do anyways,
just drawing and doodling and not really trying to practice.
Whereas active practice is where you're intentionally
going through routines and drawing
particular kinds of techniques.
Drawing a bunch of different circles,
a bunch of different squares, a bunch of different lines,
and really aggressively trying to almost
exercise and build up your skills.
You can think of it like, when you're going for a walk,
maybe you're walking to your friend's house,
or you're walking to the bus stop,
you're walking to the store,
you're getting passive exercise.
You're not intentionally doing it to get a workout,
versus if you go to the gym and you're on the treadmill,
that's like active exercise.
There's really a difference between the two.
It's good to do both, you want to take some time to practice
by drawing things casually and doing things
that you want to do, but you also do want to go through
some routines and maybe practice.
For beginners, a good practice is tracing over objects
and different images and things like that.
I know people will say that tracing is bad,
but in my opinion, tracing is good
because it forces you to focus in on details.
And when you can focus in on details,
it makes you a better artist overall,
because then you understand the details
of the object that you're drawing.
It also helps to build your hand-eye coordination
and strengthens things like that.
Next, you have to draw consistently,
and you have to draw often.
You can't expect to get better if you're only
going to draw once a year or once a month.
You need to be drawing, you know, not necessarily
on a daily basis, but draw as often as you can.
When you have free time, use that free time to draw
rather than playing video games, or watching movies,
or hanging out on Facebook.
Again, you can think of it like exercise.
You're never going to get enough exercise
if you only exercise once a month.
That's something that you need to do multiple times a week
in order for it to make a difference.
The next tip is to emulate art
that you enjoy to get new experiences.
For example, if you like impressionism
and you've never done it before,
try to do an impressionist painting.
If you've never painted a portrait before,
try to paint a portrait.
You don't have to go into it expecting that you're going
to be the best portrait painter in the world.
Just do it, and just try it, and you might find
that maybe there's some things that you're good at.
Or maybe there's certain elements from those genres,
or those particular subjects, or those styles
that you can draw from and use to improve
your illustration skills for other types of art
that you make.
The next tip is to get a sketch book.
That could be a physical sketchbook, you know,
actual paper and pencils and pens,
or you could have a digital sketchbook.
That could still be your desktop computer,
it doesn't necessarily have to be a tablet.
But if you have a tablet or a phone,
or something that you can sketch on,
that's going to make it a lot easier
for you to cram in some extra time drawing
because you might be on your way to school,
or on your way to work, and if you can bust out your phone
and draw on your phone a little bit,
that's giving you a little bit more practice.
Plus, it's letting you try something new
and kind of challenging you a little bit
to get outside of your comfort zone.
One of the best tips that I can recommend,
it's something that I use personally to help improve
my illustration skills, is to draw random words.
Go online and use a random word generator,
and draw that word, because you're going to be drawing a lot
of things that you've never thought to draw before.
And by drawing different things
that you've never drawn before, it really does give you
a little more training and a little more experience
and some insight that you can use for illustrating things
that you like to draw on a regular basis.
The next tip that I have for you is to doodle.
You don't have to draw completely finished masterpieces.
Just draw little doodles and scribbles
and all kinds of fun things.
I like to bust out my sketchbooks with actual paper and pens
and just do these bold drawings
that aren't really about anything.
They don't represent realism, they're just a way
to let my mind wander.
And in doing that, I get lots of practice
drawing curves and straight lines, and meeting up endpoints
on lines and different things like that.
It is really, really good practice,
and it's a lot more calming and peaceful than stressing out
about having to draw something absolutely perfect.
Which brings me to my next point, don't focus on realism.
You don't have to draw realistically
to be considered a good artist.
You can draw things that are not realistic.
You can draw cartoons, you can do abstract art.
You can do anything that you want as an artist,
as long as you're enjoying doing it.
Another great tip is to draw spontaneously.
Don't worry about being so precise about everything.
Feel free to be loose when you're painting.
You always see those cartoons of painters going
(quick swooshing) and painting stuff really quickly.
Well that's because there's a lot of spontaneity
in those strokes and that translates into art
that looks more carefree and more natural
rather than something that you're trying really hard
to draw each line very, very perfectly.
Sometimes flaws make your art look better and more human.
Another great way to improve your illustration skills
is to be able to make observations.
You have to see like a camera, look at something,
and really try to take a snapshot in your mind
and memorize what color is that object,
what texture does that object have,
what's the form and the shape of that object?
And if you can learn to memorize those things,
that makes it a lot easier because then you can draw
from imagination and you have some idea
of how to shade and color things
when you're free-styling and drawing
without using a reference.
Another tip that kind of goes hand-in-hand with observation
is being able to look at an object
and simplify and break it down
into its most fundamental properties.
My body, for instance, is a whole bunch
of three-dimensional, primitive objects.
My fingers are cylinders, my head is spherical,
my neck is a cylinder.
You could consider that my torso here
is maybe kind of a cube shape.
So anything you can see, anything you can draw,
is all made out of 3D primitive shapes.
And once you understand how to shade a sphere,
you can shade a head.
Once you understand how to shade a cylinder,
you can shade arms and fingers.
But really once you understand those basics,
you can draw pretty much anything you want.
Another way to stay consistent
with your drawing practice is to do themes.
Have a theme for maybe a month or for a week.
That could be abstract art for a week.
Or you could do just anime for a week.
Or you could do just animals for a week
and force yourself to try to do all kinds
of different things within that theme.
That'll give you a lot of practice and it will give you
a reason to keep drawing and keep practicing.
And the last tip I have for you is to start
with easy subjects and then work your way
towards the more difficult subjects.
Don't go into a piece thinking,
I'm going to draw this Civil War recreation scene
with a hundred people fighting each other, and horses,
and cannons exploding, and backgrounds, and all that stuff,
because it's going to take you a really long time
to finish that piece and you're probably
going to get discouraged somewhere down the road.
Stick with something easy, draw one person,
or draw one animal, or draw one landscape
with very few objects in it, and then work your way up
towards something that's a little more complex
when you're more confident.
So there you go, those are some tips that will help you
improve your illustration skills.
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Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.