Are You Embarrassed By Your Pencil Drawing Skills?

Firstly, DON'T be embarrassed! It's okay if your skills aren't as sharp as you wanted them to be.

I wasn't born a professional and I'm learning even today as I explore. 

I have penned down my my thoughts based on my experience so you probably might want to read this.

1. Stop trying to pressurize yourself with perfection 

Yes, it can be troublesome when your artwork isn't the way you intended it to be but its important to stop being harsh on yourself because no one can master any skill without allowing yourself to flow and make mistakes. You won't learn anything without making them.  

Tackle the first mistake you make by understanding how to improve that over time. Remember to tackle one mistake at a time. I speak out of experience. My obsession with perfection has cost me time and led me to procrastinate delaying my projects. 

You will be amazed when you focus on one mistake at a time. In fact the amount of time you spend perfecting your pencil drawing at once is too much contrary to focusing on only one improvement area at a time.

2. Patience is indeed a virtue

I cannot stress enough on this important element. Just as you need a pencil to create art, you need patience to create an artist inside you. Let me be clear, I lack patience in personal life, you can ask my wife. 

But when it came to art I gradually drown in it because no art can be created without perseverance and dedication. Patience is the only medium that drives it. Yes, at times I do get frustrated when I fail to get a detail right. 

What do I do then? I just get myself up away from the desk and begin watching a movie, playing a game, taking a walk or would do anything that would help me drift away for sometime. Hours later I come back fresh and motivated. When you try this believe it or not you won't see your art the same way again. 

3. Detailing 

When it comes to detailing, here's something I experienced when I was working on Spider-Man's & The Professor's pencil art. I managed to target every detail quite comfortably. Not saying that detailing is easy but considering my decision to make an enlarged drawing only of their torso wasn't as cumbersome until I recently started working with a new project which accommodates the entire figure. 

I realized that detailing a whole person in an A3 size is nothing short of a challenge. I could get a professional size paper much bigger than A3 but I'm just a beginner and cannot fathom the days I will spend on it. 

So here, it is easier to achieve details on an enlarged figure rather than working on a contracted one. Not just in pencil art but in other forms such as painting, sculpting, crafting it is indeed less irksome to work on bigger mass. However, practice makes it perfect so its not impossible to master it over time.     

4. Don't compare yourself to other artists

Art is fun and rewarding but don't get swayed away by other artists in the same field. Artists develop different approaches and may not share the same principles as you. It is possible that you may relate to most of their skills but not 100%. 

It's dynamic and not bound by rules but by your method of approach and completion. Take this for example, shading is fun when pencil sketching but do we all do it in the same way? Some use tissue napkins, blending stumps, cotton buds (Q-tip) or even finger tips while some a combination of all depending on the shading gradation they wish to achieve. 

Following your favorite artists and their work is absolutely encouraged but refrain from emulating. Instead, fill the missing blocks of your knowledge by observing their methods and then generate your own or else your ability to be creative will be hindered. 

5. Tracing vs Gridlines vs Proportions 

I have watched many budding artists and popular ones that begin their shading work either directly on a traced outline figure or use gridlines and are quite satisfied. It all comes down to what you are comfortable to begin with. 

They are the most common way to start however it usually is easier when you are drawing the same sized reference picture either from phone or from a tangible source. 

But what if you want to draw an enlarged size of the same reference picture? Tracing won't work! Gridlines could only help to an extent but only if you can ensure to have the same number of grid blocks from the reference picture and on your sheet. 

Well, I use a very different method. Heard of proportions & ratios ? 

Relax now, I'm not going to teach you math but rather I'd like to tell you I used them to create the last two projects and would be using it for a long time until I master free hand. In fact, architects would not deny the use of proportions in their line of work. 

Proportions in art is painfully time consuming and needs patience but it's my secret to perfecting my pencil drawing. You can observe a glimpse of my proportions calculation in my time-lapse video of Drawing Spider-Man (Tobey's Version) or Drawing The Professor (Alvaro Morte). 

Pencil art just like any is a skill to master and for any skill to be mastered it takes constant practice and dedication. Keep loving yourself and what you do. Be proud that you found your passion in art.