Learning Drawing - Where to Begin a Drawing?

Recently I was asked a question that seems common among beginning artists who just start to learn drawing: " how and where to begin a drawing??" Don't be mislead into believing this is a too simple and silly question. Although the answer may seem obvious, I've seen too many artists that fail because they don't follow these principles.

Once artists come up with a new drawing without an organized and structured format their drawing may fail to create impressions. Not that I have faith in structures and stringent rules. Sticking to some really plain and obvious rules when preparing a new drawing will make your work hassle free.

What urges you to draw?

First question yourself not only what you feel like drawing but also why do you desire to draw it? What is the message you're trying to give the viewer? Knowing the idea you're trying to put across to your viewers is a vital first step. For example, imagine that you want to draw the picture of a dog then ask yourself why? Is it to demonstrate how attractive he is? Is it to explain how clever a hunter he is? To show how dangerous he is? Is it in remembrance of him?

Having understood what to communicate the next step is to how you can use the elements and techniques you have to put across the message. You can utilize perspective, dark and shadows, colors, composition, add different details, use different drawing techniques etc.

Next you should endeavor to find out where your picture is going by making lots of small thumbnail sketches. Try numerous ways to create the drawing, see what actually looks good and what doesn't. Draw these sketches very fast. The idea is to put the overall composition into place, so you don't need to spend time adding a lot of details on them.

It's sometimes very difficult, even for professional artists, not to jump in advance and start on the last picture before things are really reflected through. But this situation often ends with that effort going into the drain once you've realized that your first plan didn't materialize the way you'd first contemplated. So it's a very good idea to use the preliminary steps when starting a drawing as it will save you a lot of work in the long run.

Getting on track with drawing

You have completed with sketching a composition you like to develop in a full-blown drawing? Then it's time to get started. This time it is not how fast you can draw but beauty you want to attempt for. And there are some guidelines that will help you to craft the beautiful drawing you want to create- without too many unfruitful attempts.

It's all in relation to the order in which to approach the different parts of your drawing ideally. All in all there are just two simple rules:

Begin with light tones, move to darker tones

This lets you to rectify little mistakes you've done early in the beginning as the darker tones can hide any of your mistakes.

Start with less details and focus on details later

In a large number of cases the drawings fail to make impression by wrong proportions, perspective and composition. So start first laying out the whole drawing without details just in faint lines. This makes definite you'll make all errors in perspective and proportions early in the procedure. If something goes really wrong then, you can make a fresh start without making too much work loss. And all lesser mistakes still can be remedied effortlessly as there are only faint lines and no details in drawing.

Even if you are knowledgeable and sketching for years, it will be perfect for you to refresh your mind about these tips once all over again. As a matter of fact, I'm forgetting these guiding principles frequently - and bringing in errors into my drawings that could have been prevented. And you'll observe these guidelines are even more useful, if you've just started to learn drawing.