Creating art is always super fun, but are you tired of your art turning out not like you’d like? The reason may be quite simple and easy to fix. Here’s some ways to get better as well as a good starter art kit for drawing mediums.
Become a Better artist Kit
One important thing to become better at art is to use decent supplies. This doesn’t mean you can’t make art with cheap supplies though. Crayola makes some of the best cheap colored pencils for its price range. However, a small cheap Prismacolor set is always super nice to have. You can buy a really good set for under 20 dollars at Sam’s Club or here on Amazon. Another handful of things I would recommend is a Copic brush pen, a white ink pen, a good kneaded eraser and a high polymer eraser, a basic set of drawing pencils, as well as optionally watercolor pencils and pastel pencils.
Using the Right Paper for the Right Medium
Alright, so if you’ve ever bought a drawing pad from the craft store, you’ll notice on the front it will usually say something like “98 lb”. What does this mean? It means it can handle less product than other papers. 98 lb is a good mixed media paper, and is ideal for things like pastels and pencils, but not so good with watercolor or acrylic paints. These art pads have different textures and colors as well. Think about what kind of mediums you’d like to try out and make sure to get paper to use it on to avoid your art warping or soaking through your paper. This also applies to markers. Speaking of which, these markers I found at the dollar store are really good, I highly recommend them as they left no streaky mess on the paper.
How to Become a Better Artist by Making your art pop
Your outline is incredibly important. Sometimes, as you draw and erase and draw and erase, your drawing can start to look sort of sad and over scribbled. You can avoid this problem by drawing lightly and using thicker and more forgiving paper. As you develop lines you like, even if it’s just something small like a toenail or one finger, draw it slightly darker with your pencil. After your character is developed, try outlining it in black ink and see if it looks any better to you. Don’t forget if you color your photos and it looks a little flat that you can use a white gel pen to add highlights. Highlights and shine are just as important as shading, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Use Reference Photos
This step is really important to learning how to draw something you struggle with or never have drawn before. Even if you’ve drawn that animal many times, it may still not look right. Try finding a photo of what you want to draw and draw it directly. You can also draw something someone else has drawn for practice to help you get better. Remember, it’s ok to draw something someone else drew as long as you acknowledge the artist as the source of inspiration to give them credit, unless they specifically mention that they don’t want to see other drawings based from theirs.
Become a Better Artist Through Experimentation
Another thing that will help you improve as an artist is to try anything you can. Try sculpting, even if it’s just modeling clay from the dollar tree. Try pastels, try watercolor, try acrylic, try that app in the app store that claims you can draw for free using their tool. Every single medium will change your perspective on art and what you can do. Every medium challenges you to think differently and you will get better through practice. Mix your media, even. Draw something in pencil and then ink it and paint it with watercolor. Always keep an open mind and constantly push the boundaries of what you can do. Good luck and Happy Crafting!