Thao

Melanie Thao

Brendan Clery

ART 1020

25 Jul. 2019

Can drawing skills be cultivated?

Many children start drawing the moment they get a hold of paper and pencil. Whether it

be an out of proportion body, to a square house with flat skies and grass, to simple yet

aggressive scribbles, it is considered art. Many people tend to believe drawing skills are blessed

to someone at birth. In other cases, people are intimidated by the drawing field. Someone who

doesn’t draw can definitely learn how to draw! By giving the time to practice, learn the basics,

and determination, anyone can pick up drawing skills.

Practice makes perfect! Giving yourself a set time to practice is a great way to begin

your drawing journey. Per say, every weekend for 2 hours, this will become a good habit for you

and the skill you intend to cultivate. In the book of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, the

author, Betty Edwards shows the readers her students improvement within five days. She

shows their first self portrait next to their five days after class portraits. There is a significant

difference in line quality and value. Although it was just five days, we can show our own timeline

of our drawing skills and compare them to see improvement. No one is born with a set of oil

paint, a canvas, and a brush. The skills an artist has is learned by experience and sometimes

with a mentor.

Learning from someone who has experience can help you advance your skills more!

You’ll learn more of the basics such as value, perspective, color theory and most likely what

seems to be all of the boring stuff. But, these basics including what may look like the boring stuff
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are important too! One technique called triangulating, will be a continuous skill you will improve

on. You’ll see artists close one eye and hold up their pencil to their eye level. Yes, it may look

weird and a bit awkward, but this skill will improve your realness in a drawing. This helps you

plot out, fix your proportions and find the right angle of the object you intend to draw. When I

began my ‘professional’ journey I didn’t know how to triangulate at all. The first time I ever tried

it was when everyone was doing it but me and to be truthfully honest, I just copied what

everyone was doing. I faked it will I made it and now I know how to triangulate.

Throughout your drawing journey, you’ll find out that it’s pretty difficult to find something

to draw or have a difficult time on an object. Sometimes you’ll have instructors who will tell you,

don’t tone too much, you need to tone more, draw bigger, draw smaller and so many more. You

might sit on your donkey or stand at your easel and scream in your head: “what do you want

from me?!” . Or in other major cases, have the instructor grab their shammy and erase your full

on vine charcoal drawing in front of you. This is where determination comes along the journey.

You have to be determined to continue your education in the arts, in order to have decent

drawing skills. For instance, I myself have times where I want to give up on a drawing, when this

happens, I set that drawing aside for a few days and come back to it to see what I can improve

on. The point is, I’m coming back because I was determined to finish that drawing, I haven’t

given up just yet because I was committed to improve that drawing. If you are committed to

improving your drawing skills, then you will in a few years or months will have decent drawing

skills.

In conclusion, practice does indeed make perfect. As you continue, you will be able to

clearly see your improvement of your drawing skills because you’ve learned the basics. Yes

there will be times where you will want to give up, but stay determined! With practice and
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determination to learn the basics, anyone who is committed to improve their drawing skills will

be able to draw.