Drawing is an art that requires mastery of five essential skills, regardless of the artist’s talent level. These skills form the basis for all types of artwork, whether it’s a landscape, portrait, still life, or cartoon. Every brilliant piece of artistic work starts with a pencil, paper, and these five crucial abilities.
The five cardinal drawing skills are:
1) Mastery of Edges, 2) Understanding of Spaces, 3) Perception of Light and Shadow, 4) Recognition of Interrelationships, and
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When you fuse these five essential skills, the result is a complete masterpiece.
1. Edges:
Understanding that every form is simply a collection of edges or sides is elemental for any artwork. Whether it’s a simple line drawing, stippling artwork, a complex still life, or a picturesque landscape; understanding how edges work allows you to present forms accurately in your art.
2. Comprehending Space:
Soon we’re looking at a mixture of forms rather than just one subject. Our brains, not immediately recognising what we’re seeing, break it down into basic elements. So, understanding negative space becomes quite valuable as it can aid considerably in defining the structure of what we’re sketching.
3. Mastering Light and Shadow:
Understanding light and shadow involves understanding colour first. Even when sketching black-and-white images with a graphite pencil, your reference image will usually be in colour. Thus, regardless of the nature of the reference image, it’s critical to understand how colours in the image contribute to the sketch.
4. Understanding Interrelationships:
When we draw, we naturally interweave all these skills together. Creating the boundaries of our subjects creates negative space. Understanding the positioning of one thing to another forms light and shadow. As artists, our daily practice is all about blending these skills. These are the skills we aim to perfect.
