Expert: Patti - 1/15/2009

Question
I am the one who loves art in all forms...i would love to
paint,illustrate,sketh,draw all those visulas that i see in
my dreams and thoughts which keep me awake at nights..all
beautiful things..wonderful concepts to paint ithink
of..but i dont know how to put into pictures..cannot
draw..i wish i could do that.but all art courses require
portfolio which i cannot prepare..but i am sure i can do
magic if i am taught how to paint..especially the human
figures etc.. please help me how to start, where to start,
what should be my first steps...

Answer
Hi Hershey,

I think it's great that you're wanting to learn to draw and paint.

The biggest thing you can do to improve, is to practice as often as possible. Don't worry if your drawings don't look as good as you'd like them to, what matters most is that you enjoy drawing, and you draw a lot. Just by drawing your work WILL improve.

Start out working with just pencil on paper. A good thing to get (and they're inexpensive) is a Kneaded Eraser. This kind of eraser doesn't leave any eraser dirt on your paper. Another good drawing tool is a mechanical pencil. This kind of pencil doesn't need a pencil sharpener. Depending on what kind of leads you fill the pencil with, you can draw with soft lead, which is blend-able called "B", medium hardness called "HB", or a hard lead that is called "H". You can see the different grades of pencil lead here:
http://www.pencils.com/pencil-information/hb-graphite-grading-scale

Another good drawing pencil is called "Ebony", it's a rich dark lead that is easy to blend.

It would be helpful if you were to learn some basic drawing skills before doing your first painting. You also might enjoy working in pastels, which are sort of like crayons, only their colors are very blend-able, like paint.

I've found some free on line tutorials you can use to learn some of the basics of drawing:

http://www.learn-to-draw.com/

http://media.academyart.edu/freeclass/

http://www.teachartathome.com/NewFreeLessons.html

http://drawsketch.about.com/od/learntodraw/Beginner_Drawing_Lessons_Learn_To_Dra...

http://drawsketch.about.com/od/drawingportraits/Portrait_Drawing_Drawing_Faces.h...

http://www.homeschoolarts.com/graphite.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8943613/Andrew-LoomisFun-With-a-Pencil-How-Everybody-C...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9632932/Pencil-Drawing-Techniques

I hope that helps!
Feel free to get back to me if I can be of any further help.

-Patti