You Need Patience for Realistic Drawing

It’s easy in today’s world to take a look at all of the drawings and paintings that are created by amazing artists all over the world. They share their artworks on YouTube and other social media sites, and usually they’ll show you a time-lapse version of the art creation process. This fools some of us into believing that creating art in a realistic manner can be done in a short period of time.

The truth is that that’s not the case at all. In fact, creating a realistic drawing or painting does take time. In fact, a lot of time – probably more time than you might imagine. So, the mindset we need to have as artists is we need to be patient. This is going to be difficult for some of us to be patient, but if you’re just a little bit more patient with your drawings, you will see improvements. In fact, it’s the easiest way to get better at drawing and painting. Just slow down, be patient, and take each step of the process slowly.

I’m going to share with you one of the modules from one of our courses. The course is Realistic Pencil Drawing, and in this course, we share how to create realistic pencil drawings. This particular exercise is just one small fraction of the course, but it’s an exercise designed to help you get better at being patient. And if you do this exercise and carry the concepts over to your own drawings and paintings, I guarantee you’ll see improvement immediately.

Drawing Exercise to Increase Patience

How do we become more patient with our drawings and paintings? Well, the answer is we need to practice patience, and if we practice it, we’ll get better at it.

In this exercise, we’ll work from a photo reference. You’re not going to know exactly what it is we’re drawing. I’ll reveal that at the end. What I want you to do is just concentrate on the lines, shapes, and values that you see. I want you to create a 3″ by 3″ drawing. But here’s the catch. I want you to spend at least two hours drawing this 3″ by 3″ square with graphite. Take your time, work slowly and be patient.

Here’s a look at the reference photo…

Draw the Contours

We’ll begin by drawing the contours, or outlines, of the subject. We simply need to pay attention to the larger shapes and their boundaries. Draw lightly and loosely in the beginning and use the outer edges of our 3″ by 3″ swatch to make comparisons.

Begin Shading

Next, begin gently adding graphite with the pencil. You can use a blending tool to work the material into the surface to create a smoother appearance. Pay attention to relationships of different values and try to match the darkness and the shape as closely as possible. You should continually move your eyes back and forth from the reference to the drawing paper. Remember, drawing accurately is about observation.

Once we have the larger section covered with graphite, move on to the next section. Here again, we’ll gradually build up darker tones and values. Start lightly and then gradually make the values darker. Be patient and work slowly, concentrating on the texture that produced by the pencil and the surface of the paper.

Add Details with a Sharp Pencil

Now we can add the details and finish of the last section. The detail here resembles a pattern with crisp, deliberate lines. In order to have complete control and mimic the lines that we see as marks, our pencil should be sharp. Sharpen as frequently as possible to replicate the observed pattern.

See also: How to Sharpen Any Pencil

Revealing the Image

Now our small drawing is finished. So what is this? Well, it’s part of a much larger image, of course. We are actually zoomed in really close. If we zoom out, we can see that this is a small section of a larger photo reference.

Now imagine for a moment that we took this small section and drew it in this manner on a large sheet of paper, and this was instead a three-inch by three-inch section of this larger drawing. As you can see, we would end up with a highly realistic pencil drawing.

Realistic Drawing Hack – Conclusion

Hopefully, you now see how important it is to be patient with a realistic drawing. It simply takes time to create a convincing drawing. So, if realism is what you are after, you better be patient. But being patient just might be the big difference maker, and the peice that you’ve been missing.

Drawing a Skull with Charcoal

In this lesson, we’ll work on stipple paper by the Bee Paper Company and complete the drawing of a skull with charcoal. We’ll only use compressed charcoal pencils and sticks. This unique paper features a very unique surface that is heavily textured, which will be important in our final drawing.

Here’s a look at the completed drawing…

See also: How to Draw a Glass of Water with Graphite and Charcoal

Here’s a look at the photo reference…

Graphite Pencil Sketch

We’ll begin the drawing with a HB graphite pencil. I want my marks to be visible, but I want them to be light. We begin by finding a location for the top of our skull and the bottom of our skull.

Then we find the areas where we see strong contrast. I draw lines where I see an edge or a difference in value between dark and light locations. Details are purposely left out. While I’m striving for accuracy, I’m also leaving myself open to some discrepancies between the photo reference and the drawing.

Shading with Charcoal

With my graphite sketch in place, I can switch over to a charcoal pencil for shading and texture. There is no blending or smudging, I’m just going to work with the texture of the paper.

I’m paying attention to the areas of highlight or the areas of lightest value. We want to leave these areas open as we’re adding the charcoal. You’ll also notice that I’m starting on the left side of the picture plane to work my way to the right and lower down the picture plane. I’m doing this simply to keep the palm of my hand out of the way of the drawing so I don’t smear any of the graphite that I’ve applied.

I’m going to go ahead and put a little bit of the dark value behind the back edge of the skull so that I have some contrast there. That will help me better evaluate the values as I add them to the drawing.

Before working too far down the front of the skull, I’m going to go ahead and add some tone and value to the top part of the skull. I’m using an extremely light touch with the charcoal pencil. You can see I’m holding the pencil very low down on the shaft so that it’s just barely making contact with the surface of the paper. As we make strokes with the pencil, we’re considering the cross contours or the plane in which each one of the marks is crossing over. This is going to affect the directional stroke that I make, and it’s also going to help create the illusion of form.

See also: Charcoal Drawing of a Skull in 45 Minutes

Working Down the Skull

As we continue to work our way down the picture plane, I’m going to add a little bit more of that dark background at the top. Then it’s back to the center part of the skull, working in one of the eye openings. In this eye opening on the right, we can see some subtle shifts of value inside. Since this sketch is loose and quick and since the surface dictates it, we’re not going to include all the details that we see. We just want an impression of the skull. We want a loose sketch, and this paper helps us to achieve that loose look.

Our light source is originating from the right side of the picture plane. This means that all of the parts of the skull that stick out or protrude are going to be lighter on the right side compared to the left side. Even still, we still need to make some of the values on the right side a little bit darker, so instead of leaving them white, we’re going to create areas of gray. We just want to make sure that our value contrast is there so that we preserve the illusion of the light source in the final drawing.

As we work down to the lower part of the skull and in the teeth section, I’m going to give an impression of the teeth, without defining all of the details. Since we only really clearly see the right side of the bottom of the jawbone, I’m only going to include a range of value here. On the left side, we’re going to focus mainly on the shadowed shapes that we see.

Finishing the Skull Drawing

Now we’ll finish the drawing by simply filling in the background with a heavy application of compressed charcoal.

Now our drawing of a skull with charcoal is complete.

Spooky Skull Sketch – Conclusion

A skull is certainly a spooky subject, but it’s also a great subject for practicing drawing. Every skull is slightly different and the light can be dramatically different. This provides a nice challenge. Skulls have been the subject of countless artworks and is one of my favorite things to draw. I hope this lesson helps you draw your own skull.

The Most Important Secret to Drawing

Who doesn’t want to be able to draw and do it well? The problem is that most people believe they can’t draw even though they’d love to be able to do it. Well, the good news is that drawing is a skill that anyone can learn and develop. And just like any other skill, drawing requires a bit of knowledge and practice. Now, the practice is up to you, but in this lesson, I’m going to give you one major piece of knowledge that may dramatically affect your drawing ability.

See also: Why You Believe You Can’t Draw and What to do About It

Many people believe that drawing is about making marks, and yes, this is true. You must make marks to make a drawing, but there’s a lot more to it than just making marks. Our drawings are the results of making marks on a surface, but the true essence to drawing is about what happens between your ears.

Michelangelo is quoted as saying, “A man or woman paints with his brains, not with his hands.” But what does this mean?

It means that our brains are actually more involved in the drawing process than our hands.

Drawing From Imagination

Now, let’s see if we can go deeper to understand the quote above. We’ll do a few drawing exercises. For all of our exercises, you’ll need a piece of paper and a pencil.

For our first drawing exercise, simply draw a hammer – just a plain old hammer from your imagination. Don’t look at anything to create this first drawing.

Your hammer might end up looking like this…

Now, this drawing does look like a hammer – right? But, it could be better – much better. So drawing purely from our imagination is not enough.

See also: Improve Your Drawing Skills in 6 Days

Drawing with 100% Observation

Now we’re going to create another drawing, but this time we’re going to have a few restrictions. This time we’ll actually look at a hammer. I’ll use a photo reference and we’ll look at it, but you can not look at your drawing paper.

Yes, you read that right. You can not look at your drawing paper. We’ll only be looking at the reference photo and not the drawing.

Here’s a look at the photo reference…

We’ll create this drawing using just one line. This means that once we place the pencil to the drawing surface, we can’t pick it up again. The goal here is to pick a place to start observing on the hammer and try to move your hand with your pencil at the same speed and angle in which your eyes move over the reference. This is called a blind contour line drawing.

Don’t worry about what your drawing will look like. Just concentrate on observing and moving your hand with the pencil.

This is what my drawing looks like (along with the first to compare)…

We now have two drawings, one from our imagination without any observation, and one that was created purely with 100% observation. Drawing accurately is somewhere in between these two drawings.

Now here’s the big secret… Drawing is at least 50% observation.

Drawing is about seeing and recording what we see in the form of marks.

Drawing with 50% Observation and 50% Mark-Making

Let’s create one final drawing and we’ll use the same reference photo, but this time we can look at the reference photo and we can look at our drawing paper. We can also pick up our pencil this time too.

Now we’re making comparisons between what we see in the reference and the marks that we’re making on the drawing paper. In fact, it’s a continuous process of going back and forth with our eyes between the photo reference and the drawing paper. All the answers are sitting there waiting for us in the photo reference. All we have to do is see them and place them in the correct location on the drawing paper.

Here’s a look at my drawing of a hammer using 50% observation and 50% mark-making…

This is the essence of drawing. It is all about observation – well, at least 50%.

#1 Secret to Drawing – Conclusion

The number one secret to drawing is that drawing is at least 50% observation. It’s about what happens between your ears a bit more than just making marks on the surface. When you’re practicing your drawing, you should also be practicing your observation skills because ultimately, drawing is about observation.