Some of the millions of ways to draw

I'm no expert in drawing nor shall I pretend to be. I merely offer the benefit of my experience. I have been drawing steadily for about seven years now. The two images included with this article are the result of all that practice. Hours of hard work, nothing more. In my lifetime, I have had about five art classes of decent merit. The rest for me, is trial and error. Look closely at the video I've included. It features four years' work. It shows how my Dream Angel evolved to her final design. The least I can do is pass on my errors and help others try to avoid them.

Error 1: not practicing. This is the worst error anyone can make. I've heard thousands of times, "I wish I could draw like you." As I've told those people: you can. Many have commented that the best they can do is a stick figure. Well, according to my life drawing teacher - a now retired professional who'd been teaching for at least twenty years - a stick figure is all you need.

Solution to error 1: anatomy. It's that simple. Looking at the drawing of Dream Angel I did in marker, can you find the center of her height? Even the chibi I included for this article has a center. Where is it? Stand up. Feel your upper leg on the side just below the hip where the joint of the thigh bone meets the hip bone. There should be a protrusion. If you can't find it, find a picture of a skeleton. It's at the very top of the thigh bone and called the "Great Trochanter." Starting from the center of the body, the great trochanter, build your standard stick figure to match a pose. Take for example the pose I used for Dream Angel. Simply draw a line from trochanter to trochanter, build the spine line along and up to her neck, follow the leg lines and angle of the shoulders. Simply follow the contours of the body based on the stick figure. Okay, it sounds complicated, but within ten minutes of learning this technique, my drawings did actually improve. Not to the level you see with Dream Angel, unfortunately. That took a great deal more work.

Error 2: lighting. This is one of my greatest weaknesses even now. Don't let my marker sketch of Dream Angel fool you: that was done with a great deal of help.

Solution to error 2: Most of the time, I simply use photo reference for lighting guidance, but even that can go awry somehow. Unless your photo reference has strong shadows and highlights, you can easily mess up lighting. I've done just that frequently. Okay, not all photo reference has strong shadows. That just means you have to pay especially close attention to detail.

Error 3: proportion. Your typical human is about seven and one half heads high. Legs are four heads, body is two, and the head of course is one. Even knowing this and with the stick figure trick, proportions can still come out wrong.

Solution to error 3: I've found that creating a grid helps. My favorite trick for making a grid is to use non-photo blue pencil. For this, don't use regular grid paper - you'll be sorry. The grid on standard grid paper is too small. It's actually better to create your own grid. I've found that on standard 8.5x11 inch paper, a one inch grid works very well. The drawing is large enough for good detail and with a grid guiding the drawing, proportion reasonably correct.

Just like everything else in life: practice makes perfect, but if you consider your drawing perfect, and stop practicing, then you lose all the hard work you just put into it. The most important thing about drawing, and this might seem to repeat just about everyone else: never stop practicing! It's so incredibly true it's beyond belief!