Important Steps on How to Draw

As a beginner artist there is a few steps on how to draw that you should try to keep in mind every time that you approach a new drawing or artistic project. It's often easy to become lost in the complex details of what you're trying to create, but by focusing on how to break a complex object down into simple shapes can make a drawing almost anything a lot more manageable.

Steps on How to Draw from Photos

Crop your Image Though this may seem easy, cropping your photos is a skill that you'll develop over time by looking at other good examples from other artists and by practicing with your own images. Cropping your image will help give your drawing more impact by removing unnecessary elements in your photo. This should give your drawing a more pleasing shape.

Break the Image Down Tonally

Use your eyes to squint at the picture you want to draw. This lets the image become fuzzy and you can more clearly see the light and dark values in general shapes that are important to the image.

From this blurry view, create some sketches to give yourself a starting point for your drawing. Also pay attention to the light and dark values into your best to break the image into three different tones of lights mids and darks.

Go from Large to Small

Work first on the larger details and then continue to add in smaller and smaller details. Working this way is good for a few different reasons. It lets you focus on broader details first and work on all parts of your image at the same time instead of having one area that has a lot of detail and then another large area that has little or no detail. This should help keep the overall look of your drawing more consistent because you're focusing on developing the entire image together as a whole instead of spending a lot of time detailing one small part.

Working this way is good for another reason that you may not have ever thought of. Because you have worked at adding the same level of detail throughout your entire image you will be free to call your drawing "finished" much sooner than if you had spent a lot of time detailing a section by section.

A finished drawing should have a consistent level of detail throughout the entire picture, so when you work this way you’re actually free to call your picture finished at any point. Some drawings may be more impressionistic than others because you choose to call it quits earlier but at least you have the option and you are free to move on to creating other new works.

I hope these simple steps on how to draw help you out when you are approaching your next drawing. As you evolve as an artist it's important that you make sure to take time to let your artistic mindset grow at the same time and use simple tips and tricks like the above to become a more accomplished artist.