The Beginner's Fast Start Guide Hi and thank you for downloading this Beginner's Fast Start Guide.

This guide was designed to help begining artist who just started drawing or people who started drawing when they were kids but gave it up for a long time and is looking for a quick and easy way to get back into the game.

This guide will give you all the essential knowledge you need to know in order to start your drawing journey in the right direction.

Now you won't have to waste time being frustrated and confused looking for bit and pieces of information all over the place.

Everything you need to know to get started has been consolidated into one place.

With that in mind, let's get started.

Choosing Your Art Supplies When it comes to art supplies, there are so many different tools you can choose from that you can easily get sucked into a buying frenzy before you even started drawing anything. But the truth is, there is only a few essential tools you need to get started and they are a pencil and paper.

Selecting Your Pencil: 2B Or Not 2B

If you've every read or watched any drawing tutorial, you've probably heard the word "2B" or "4B" refered to often.

If you've ever wondered what this meant, then you're in luck. Here is the whole pencil system in a nutshell.

Pencils range in hardest and is denoted by a grade (2B or 4B, etc.). The hardness scale looks like this:

9H, 8H, 7H, 6H, 5H, 4H, 3H, 2H, H, F, HB, B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, 6B, 7B, 8B, 9B

9H is the hardest and 9B is the softest. In the US there is another number only system that is used but you don't need to be concerned about it. Just know that the #2 pencil that is commonly used for writing is the equivalent hardness of an HB pencil.

The softer the pencil, the darker the tone you are able to make with it.

Here's a illustration to show you the difference in darkness that comes with each pencil:

So which pencil should you get?

When it comes to pencil, less is more. You don't want to be using a whole bunch of different pencils while drawing because you'll grow to rely on them as a crutch.

Instead you should you only 1-2 pencil and rely on your drawing skills to create the different tones.

When choosing a pencil, the hardest grade you would want to get is an HB. I recommend that you start out in the 2B - 6B range and see how that feels.

As time goes on, you'll want to experiment with different pencils, but you'll eventually select your favorite and stick with that.

If you don't feel like shopping around, I recommend the Prismacolors COL-ERASE pencil. You can't really go wrong get it.

I also like to draw using a .5mm mechinical (or lead) pencil using 2B lead. It's great for making fine lines and you never have to shapen it.

When chosing a mechanical pencil, the brand doesn't really matter much. They all work pretty much the same.

What's important is the grip of the pencil and how it feels on your hand. So play around with a few and see how it feels to you.

Selecting The Right Drawing Paper

Your drawing paper is just as important as your pencil, so once again you'll want to experiment and see which one feels best for you.

But for now I'll recommend 2 drawing pads that are a great place to start.

If you are on a budget, I recommend the Strathmore 400 Series Drawing Premium Recycled 80bl pad.

I also like the Strathmore 11-Inch by 14-Inch Bristol Smooth Paper Pad. It's great for drawing realistic pencil portrait because the smoothness of the paper really lends itself to blending.

And that's basically all the material you need to get started. Now are there other art supplies out there that you could get?

Of course!

But the need for them will come with time. For now, this is all you need.

OK, now that we got the art material out of the way, let's get to the fun stuff!

Developing Your Hand-Eye Coordination And Dexterity If you haven't been drawing in a while, your hand coordination can be a bit rusty. And it can be somewhat frustrating or overwhelming to just jump right in and tackle a drawing project.

So I'm going to give you a set of simple drawing exercises you can do to strengthen your hand-eye coordination and improve your hand dexterity.

These exercises are great for developing your fundamental drawing skills. The analogy that I like to use is this:

A boxing coach doesn't just throw his fighter in the ring right away and expect him to win. Most likely, the boxer will just get beat up, become frustrated, and want to quit.

Instead, the coach gives the box a set of exercises to do, like doing push-ups, practicing jabs, and training with a speed punching bag. These exercises will give him the fundamental skills he needs and make him a better fighter overall.

In the same way, these exercises I'm giving you are the artist's equivalent of push-ups and practicing jabs. As you continue to practice these exercises, your overall skills as an artist will improve and everything that you draw will become easier, weather it's figure drawing, portraits, or landscape.

Now, i said that these exercise are to help people who haven't drawn in a long time and are rusty, but even if you are an experience artists who draws a lot, you will still find these exercises very valuable.

In the same way that a champion box still continues to train with push-ups and running laps, you too should incorporate these exercises into your daily art routine.

OK, let's get on to the exercises...

Fast Start Drawing Exercises Exercises #1: Staying On The Road

To do this exercises, first draw a smooth, curvy shape on your paper. Something that looks like this:

Then take your pencil and go over the shape making sure to stay on the line as best you can. Just keep going over the line again and again in multiple loops.

Here an example of the wrong way to do this:

Once you become comfortable (or bored) with that shape, draw another shape and repeat the process.

This exercises will improve your hand eye coordination and dexterity by forcing you to engage tiny muscles in your hand.

You can also use this exercise as a great way to warm up before you draw. Practice this everyday for about 5 minutes

Exercise #2: Developing The Artist's Touch

Once you are comfortable with the last exercise, it's time to add another layer of difficulty to it.

Draw another curvy shape on your paper, but this time, I want you to start with a dark tone for you line, and then gradually lighten it until you end up with a very light line.

It should look something like this:

Now go over this shape with your pencil just like in the previous exercises. Except this time, also pay attention to how much pressure you are putting on your pencil. Vary the pressure gradually so that you can give each segment of the shape a different tone.

This exercise will help you develop the artist's touch (the ability to gracefully vary the tone of your drawing).

This ability to vary the lightness and darkness of your pencil stroke is also the secret to drawing really realistic, three dimensional drawings.

Exercise #3: Mastering The Fundamental Shapes Of Drawing

Now that you are comfortable with the last 2 exercise, it's time to increase the difficulty level even more.

When drawing the human figure, you will notice that certain shapes appear over and over again. You can think of these shapes as the fundamental building blocks of the human figure and it would help you tremendously to be able to draw them easily.

So in this exercise, you will repeat the process you went through in Exercise #2, except this time, instead of a curvy shape that you just make up, I want you to practice using the fundamental shapes of figure drawing.

And these shapes are: the circle, the oval, the rounded triangle, the cylinder, and the peanut shape.

The peanut shape in particular will be very helpful to you in figure drawing as it is great for representing the torso.

These shapes also comes in varying dimensions. For example, an oval could be a very long oval or a more rounded oval. So make sure you play around with the shapes so that you become comfortable creating all sorts of different versions of a shape.

By moving your hand in these shapes repeatedly, you will find that you need to drawing in in your figure drawing, you'll be able to produce them easily and accurately. And as a result, your figures will look much better.

Exercise #4: Matching Shapes

This next exercise will train your hand eye coordination and help you develop the skill that will allow you to look at any object and replicate it on paper.

To do this exercise, first drawing any shape you want using straight lines and angles. You can make the shape as complicated or simple as you are comfortable with. It should look something like this.

Then right next to the shape you just drew, try to replicate it as closely as possible.

You might find that this is harder than it sounds. Just keep practice and repeat this process with brand new shapes.

This skill will also help you get very good at matching negative space.

When doing these exercises, you might find them rather easy to do. That's great! Keep doing them.

On the other hand, you might find them really difficult and awkward. That's even BETTER! This just means that once you become comfortable with them, your drawing skills will improve that much more.

The reason, these exercises feel awkward, is because your brain have not yet formed strong neurological connections with all the muscles in your hand. But as you do these exercises, you are telling your brain to starting building these connections so that you can have better control over your hand.

A common thing you might notice is that you could be practicing for an hour or two without seeing any noticeable improvement.

But then you go to bed, wake up the next day, and find that you can easily do the very same things that you were struggling with just yesterday.

What's happening is during the day, your brain is trying to form neurological connections but they are still not very strong yet. And as you sleep at night, your body has a chance to rest and rejuvenate, and so those connections are able to be solidified.

Just keep practicing consistently for a week or so and you will see a huge difference.

Understanding The Fundamental Of Shading The Six Different Methods For Shading

There are essentially two different ways to draw. You can drawing using LINES or TONES. A good artist should be able the do both.

In the previous section, I gave you some great exercises for developing your line drawing skills. In this section, we are going to cover how to drawing using tone (also known as shading).

The first thing you should know is that there are 6 different methods of shading. They all have their pros and cons and each has it's own place.

They are:

1) Diagonal Shading

2) Verticle Lines

3) Cross Hatching

4) Scribbling

5) Directional Shading

6) Stippling

Let's go over each one:

Diagonal Shading:

In this method of shading, you create shadows by filling them in with diagonal lines.You can vary the darkness by controlling the space between each diagonal lines. The more line you put in and the closer they are to each other, the darker the tone.

This is a very fast and easy way to shade and it's one of my favorite. You can use this style on drawings that you don't have a lot of time to work on shading for and it will still look great.

Downward Vertical Lines:

This method is similar to diagonal shading. The only difference is that you are using vertical lines instead of diagonals.

This technique is a little more stylized and can give your drawing a slick, clean look.

Cross Hatching:

Anther very stylized way to shading is cross hatching. Here you are using short intersecting diagonal lines to fill in the shadows.

It's an old school method and can give your drawing a very interesting texture.When done right it can look gorgeous, however, this method is a little more time consuming than the previous two.

Scribbling:

With scribbling, you are filling in the shadow by making a bunch of circles and figure eight's. Basically, you are moving you pencil quickly and chaotically throughout the space (without lifting the pencil) and you continue in this way until you get the tone that you are looking for.

Unlike the other stylized methods where the viewer can see the lines that you used in shading, with scribbling, the lines are pretty much invisible. All the viewer sees is a dark, even tone. This technique is great for when you want to go for a realistic, smooth look and don't want the audience to be aware of your shading.

Directional Shading:

A great method of shading that will give your drawing a very dimensional look is directional shading. Here you are shading using pencil strokes that follow the shape of whatever you are shading. This method is great for figure drawing.

Stippling:

And lastly, we have stippling. With stippling you basically fill in the shadows using individual pots. As you can probably guess, this method is extremely time consuming and for that reason I rarely use it. But it does look great and it have it's place.

Stippling is great for shading texture for none organic materials like stone or concrete.

So there you have it. These are all the different ways that you can apply tone. Which method you use will depended on your subject matter, your style, and how much time you have to spend on a drawing. Ultimately you want to learn to use them all and incorporate multiple shading methods into each of your drawings.

Shading Exercise #1: Matching Value

Now that you understand the basics of shading, I'm going to give you some actionable exercises that you can do to hone your shading skills.

The first exercises is able being able to match value. Matching value is one of the most important skill in drawing.

You must be able to look at a picture that is of a certain darkness and match that shade on your paper. And in order to be able to do that, you must practice and train your eyes to discern different shades of gray.

Below is a picture of a gray scale. It shows you the different shades of gray ranging from a value of 1 (darkest) to a value of 10 (lightest).

You can print out the gray scale on this page (or buy one at your locate art store) and practice matching each value on a drawing paper.

If you find this task very difficult, don't be discourage. Everyone experience this at first. Your eyes are just not used to discriminating different shades yet. But keep practicing a little bit every day and your brain will automatically adjust.

One tip that you might find helpful is to squint your eyes while looking at the gray scales. This will blur out the details and make it easier for you to focus on the shade.

Exercise #2: Creating Your Own Gray Scale

Once you become comfortable with the last exercise, it's time to train yourself to be able to smoothly transition between the different shades.

In this exercise, you will be creating your own version of the gray scale. Start with the darkest shade on the scale and then as you go down the line gradualy lighten the tone until you get the other end of the scale.

Then do this again, starting with the lightest shade. Keep practicing until you can do this smoothly.

So there you have it. The exercies I've given you in this fast start guide will give you the fundamental skills and confident to get your figure drawing and portrait drawing journey to a flying start.

Common Drawing Vocabularies & Concepts Defined Atmospheric/Aerial Perspective - Aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it is viewed from a distance.

As the distance between an object and a viewer increases, the contrast between the object and its background decreases, and the contrast of any markings or details within the object also decreases.

The colors of the object also become less saturated and shift towards the background color, which is usually blue, but under some conditions may be some other color (for example, at sunrise or sunset distant colors may shift towards red).

Block In - The Block-In in figure drawing acts as an organizational blue print or tool for the artist. The Block-In organizes the drawing and gives the form guidelines for the artist. The Block-In is a simplified 2D drawing of the 3D person or subject you are drawing. The block in is designed in observation to the model.

Charcoal - Drawing pencils are often considered sturdy, reliable and precise. Charcoal, on the other hand, is a wild counterpart: it’s bold, daring and dramatic. It’s much darker than any pencil and has a richness, making drawing with charcoal completely unique experience

Collage - An artistic composition made of various materials (e.g., paper, cloth, or wood) glued on a surface.

Complementary Colors - Colors opposite one another on the color wheel. Red/green, blue/orange, yellow/violet are complementary colors.

Composition - The overall placement and organization of elements in a work of art, as well as the interrelationships between individual elements.

Contrast - Differences between two or more elements (e.g., value, color, texture) in a composition; juxtaposition of dissimilar elements in a work of art. Also refers the degree of difference between the lightest and darkest areas of an image.

Contour Line Drawings - Drawing that represents the edges and ridges of a form, without tonal variation, shading, etc.

Easel - An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it. It is a common tool for artists to rest their canvas on as they draw or paint.

Focal Point - The place in a work of art at which attention becomes focused because of an element emphasized in some way.

Form - (1) The particular characteristics of an artwork’s visual elements (as distinguished from its subject matter or content). (2) A three-dimensional volume or the illusion of three dimensions; related to shape (which is 2-D).

Foreshortening - Foreshortening occurs when an object appears compressed when seen from a particular viewpoint, and the effect of perspective causes distortion. Foreshortening is a particularly effective artistic device, used to give the impression of three-dimensional volume and create drama in a picture.

Foreshortening is most successful when accurately rendered on the picture plane to create the illusion of a figure in space.

Gesture Drawing - The drawing of lines quickly and loosely to show movement in a subject.

Hatching - A method of shading where the artist uses straight diagonal lines to fill in the shadows. This is a quick and easy way to add shading to a drawing and is great for quick sketches that doesn't require a lot of realism.

Monochromatic - Use of only one hue or color, that can vary in value or intensity.

Motif - A repeated pattern, often creating a sense of rhythm.

Negative Space - Shapes or spaces that are or represent the areas unoccupied by objects.

One-Point Perspective - A way to show 3-D objects on a 2-D surface, lines appear to go away from the viewer meet at a single point on the horizon known as the vanishing point.

Perspective - A system for representing three-dimensional objects viewed in spatial recession on a two-dimensional surface.

Plane - The different flat surfaces on an object that points in different directions. It is important for artist to be aware of the different planes on the subject they are drawing as this will affect the shading. A plane that is pointing towards a light source will be much brighter and a plane that is point away from it.

Point of View - The angle from which a viewer sees the objects or scene in an image.

Primary Colors - Red, yellow, and blue. From these all other colors are created.

Proportion - The scale relationships of one part to the whole and of one part to another. In images of figures, the appropriate balance between the size of body and its limbs.

Render - To add shading to a drawing to make it look 3D and realistic

Scale - Relative size, proportion; the determination of measurements of dimensions within a design or artwork.

Secondary Colors - Colors that are created by the mixture of two primary colors, i.e. red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green, blue and red make violet, etc.

Spray Fixative - A protective spray that you on your pencil drawing to help protect it. The spray acts as a cover to prevent the graphite on the drawing from smudging.

Still Life Drawing - A specific type of visual artwork representing one or more inanimate objects.

Texture - The surface quality of materials, either actual (tactile) or implied (visual). It is one of the elements of art.

Tone - Color with gray added to it.

Two-Point Perspective - A visual system of representation designed to show 3-D objects on a 2-D surface. This illusion of space and volume utilizes two vanishing points on the horizon line.

Value - Lightness or darkness of a hue or neutral color. A value scale shows the range of values from black to white and light to dark.

Value Scale - A value scale shows the range of values from black to white and light to dark.

Vanishing Point - In perspective drawing, a point at which receding lines seem to converge.