7 Drawing Techniques - Part 1

Here's a quick note on the seven drawing techniques. These techniques are good not only for sketches but they are actually techniques that can be applied to any drawing; be it a sketch, a watercolor painting, or an oil painting.

Armed with these techniques, you'll soon be able to work on any drawing or painting and "craft" out a superior work of art, just like a craftsman would.

Familiarize yourself with these techniques, and learn how to execute them. We'll be discussing them on and off in other drawing/painting tutorials.

Measuring Technique

Measuring technique is applied to a drawing to maintain the proportion of the subjects (see section 2.3). In practice, subject measurements do not have to have exact measurements (e.g. 2.03cm). This is not engineering or architecture, it's art.

You'll see that it's not difficult to employ measuring techniques to your art pieces. Here's a step by step guide:

1. Choose a key reference object. For instance, if you're drawing a human figure, you can use the length of the head as a reference. Anything you draw afterwards will be directly proportionate to the head.

2. Choose any slim object that can be conveniently used. You can use a pencil (we see artists using quite often on TV and in books) or a straight ruler. Hold it upright (90 deg. Perpendicular to the ground), and use your thumb as a marker to mark the distance.

Use the thumb as a marker

3. Repeat the use of your measuring tool for measuring any distance between two points.

Using this 3-step approach, you can now draw any objects in proportion to your key reference object.