Drawing Rocks

Welcome to my fifth and final blog post! In this post I'll be showing you all how to draw very detailed rocks. Although rocks can be very simple objects, yet you can add a lot of life to them and make them more than just rocks. This is probably the easiest out of all the drawings I've done in my blogs. There's only three simple steps to get to the amazing final result.

First of all, "sketch the outer shapes of the rocks" ( Willenbrink 80). This is the outline of all the rocks that you're going to draw. To make the rocks more interesting, you can vary the shape and sizes of the rocks.

Step 1

Secondly, we're going to add lines to show where the light hits the rocks (Willenbrink). In this drawing, the light is going to be coming from the right, leaving the left side of the rocks in the dark.

step 2

Finally, "add shading and shadows" (Willenbrink 80). Make the shading marks darking on the left side of the rocks to show the depth and add realism.

step 3

Overall, I enjoyed making this drawing a lot. It was very calming to do and it was also pretty easy. I would reccomend this to other people who are just looking for something simple.

Do you think that adding rocks like these to a drawing would improve it overall? why or why not?

Willenbrink, Mark, and Mary Willenbrink. Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing. Cincinnati, OH: North Light, 2006. Print.

How to Draw a Swan

Welcome to my fourth post! This time I'll be showing you guys how to draw a swan, so it's even better than just a duck. This drawing was pretty easy for me because of the skills that I've gained with this book. In just four easy steps, you'll have a beautiful swan.

Step 1

The first step, which is also the easiest is to sketch the basic shape of the body and the head (Willenbrink). To do this just do a small circle for the head and almost a whole oval for the body. Don't add the tail end to the body yet, you can add a more detailed tail later on.

Step 2

Now for the next step, we are going to connect the head to the body. We'll do this when we "add curved lines for the neck" (Willenbrink 77). The only thing you need to watch out for during this step is to make sure that the neck isn't too wide, you want it to be more narrow like how a real swan would look like.

step 3

In the third step, we're going some major details that will help distinguish what the swan is, such as feathers and an eye. For the feathers, you have to indicate the placement on the back of the body (Willenbrink).

Final swan

For the last step, we're going to clean up the drawing and add finishing details. This part is easy because all you have to do is add shading and more details. To clean it up, just erase the unnecessary lines.

In conclusion, I though that this swan was pretty easy to draw and I think I did a pretty good job with it. I could improve by making my final product a lot cleaner, and maybe add an interesting background for it.

Is there any animal that you're good at drawing? Is there any that you'd be interested in learning how to draw better?

Willenbrink, Mark, and Mary Willenbrink. Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing. Cincinnati, OH: North Light, 2006. Print.

Sketch a Leafy Tree

For my third post I decided that I wanted to draw a tree. I chose to do a tree because they are often in many pictures and drawings, so it would be very useful to me to learn how to draw one in a much better way than how I normally do. According to Mark and Mary Willenbrink, "Trees may be the center of interest in a scene or just a background element. Each tree has a character all its own" (Willenbrink 56).

There are three main steps to drawing the perfect leafy tree, and they're all relatively easy.

Step 1: Basic shape

The first step is to sketch the basic shape of the tree. To do this, "start with the basic  overall shape of the tree. Place the trunk toward the bottom of the page" (Willenbrink 56). This is the easiest step, you get to be creative with the shape of the tree and you can make it as big as you want it. Having the basic shape will help you figure out how you want the tree to be and how you're going to go about that.

Step 2: branches and leaves

Now that we have our tree outline, we can move on to step two. Yay! For the second step, sketch the branches and refine the shape. The way to do this is to, "sketch in some of the branches. Add more definition to the outer form of the tree by outlining the edges of the leaves" (Willenbrink 56). Doing this step is very important because it will help you understand the structure of the tree and where to place the leaves.



We've finally made it to the final step. This is where the tree starts to look like a real tree. In this last step, we're going to add the leaves and add shading. The best way to start this is too clean up the tree and erase any lines that are unnecessary. To create shadows, "Use a variety of back and forth lines to suggest leaves. Make some lines darker than others" (Willenbrink 56). This is going to add depth to your tree and make it look a lot more realistic.

Step 3: Add details

Overall, I think that I did an alright job doing this tree. But it does look a lot better than how I would normally draw a tree. I'm going to use the information and the skills from drawing this to help me later on.

Question: Do you think that adding depth is important when trying to draw a realistic object? Why or why not?

Willenbrink, Mark, and Mary Willenbrink. Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing. Cincinnati, OH: North Light, 2006. Print.

Drawing A Cow

Drawing A Cow- Mini Demonstration

In this post, I'm going to be showing you how to draw the best cow that you will ever create. 

Usually the animals that I tend to choose to draw are dogs and cats, but for this i decided to do something a bit more difficult. In the past, my drawings look more like cartoons than a realistic animal, which is what I'm trying to work on using these new techniques from the book,  Drawing For The Absolute beginner by Mark and Mary Willenbrink.

To start the drawing of the cow, I used basic shapes to map out the outline for the cow. "A rectangle for the body and a triangle for the head. Add a baseline to establish the length of the legs" (Willenbrink 76). Doing this first step will make the rest of the drawing easier to complete and you will end up with a much better looking cow. 

steps 1-2

I forgot to stop drawing and take a picture of my first step until I had finished step two, oh well.

For the second step, "Add lines for the neck and legs. Use a small circle to indicate the joint of the front knee" (Willenbrink 76). It took me a few times to get the a really good outcome, but that's okay. During this step, you really need to pay attention to where the lines are placed and at what angle they're at.

step 3

The next step is to refine the lines to give the cow a better shape. Then you need to "add the eye, ears, tail, and udders" (Willenbrink 76).  Even though this part seems easy, it can be a bit challenging because it might look a little weird until the final step.

The finished drawing!

Finally, the last step is to add the finishing details that help make your cow actually look like a cow. To do this, "Erase any extra lines. Make the coat's dark patches with semi- uniform back-and-forth pencil strokes" (Willenbrink 76). I liked this part the most because the spots on the cow don't need to be perfect so it allowed me to decorate my cow however I wanted.

I'm pretty satisfied with my end result. Although the cow seems a bit skinny and looks a little like a moose, I still think that I did a good job for my first try. With more practice, I think I could do the drawing again with an even better result. This was a fun drawing for me to make and I would recommend this to other people to draw.

Question: What do you think I could try to improve on for this drawing? What is your favorite animal to draw?

Willenbrink, Mark, and Mary Willenbrink. Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing. Cincinnati, OH: North Light, 2006. Print.

Structural Sketches

Growing up I was never very artistic, I always thought that I wasn't very good at it. But I recently decided that I should try something new and see if I actually like to draw or not. So far it has been pretty fun and I'm learning a lot. I hope that I end up becoming a good artist with a lot of new skills. In this post I'll show how I did my two structural sketches.

In the book, Drawing for the Absolute Beginner, it starts off with showing you how to do small and easy sketches that can be done by almost anybody. If you're a new artist you should focus on doing more sketches than drawings because, "A sketch is a work in progress... Drawing is an activity that is begun with the intention of producing a finished piece of art" (Willenbrink 14). This shows that sketches will help you with the techniques and structures needed in order to do an actual drawing.

For both of my drawings, I followed the same simple steps but with two different objects.

The first step I did was to sketch the basic form and the structures of the coffee mug and of the man. This step helps you focus on the placement and proportions of the elements (Willenbrink 16). Although this seems like it may be the easiest step, it is also the most important. I had to redo this step a few times to get it just right.

                                                          The second step of this sketch is to add more structural lines. These include bigger details that will help you put the sketch all together at the end (Willenbrink 17).
     





The third and final step of these structural sketches is to add small detail lines and finish the sketch. At this point you can erase any lines that you don't need anymore. Here, my final sketches look relatively like the subjects I was using.

Overall, structural sketches are a simple task to understand, with only 3 simple steps. I feel like I did pretty good at these two sketches, but I know I still need to practice more to improve the overall quality of these sketches.

Do you have any tips on how to improve my sketches? Is there anything that you guys enjoy drawing?

Willenbrink, Mark, and Mary Willenbrink. Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing. Cincinnati, OH: North Light, 2006. Print.