Learn to… Art!

How to Draw Curly Hair – Tutorial

Aug 27, 2010 Drawing, Tutorials

Hair on its own can be enough to send the beginning portrait artist into fits of anxiety.

Make it curly hair and the anxiety only increases!

Curly hair presents its own set of unique challenges, but at the end of the day, drawing it is no different from drawing straight hair.

The key to drawing realistic, curly hair is paying close attention to the interlocking shapes, building layers of texture with your pencil strokes, and simplify, simplify, simplify!

If this is your first time here, make sure you check out my tips for drawing hair and my tutorial for straight hair. I’ve also written about how to draw different hair colours.

This tutorial features a slightly different technique than my tutorial for straight hair. Instead of shading in the values, I am using only pencil strokes to create volume. Both techniques are good and valid and produce similar effects; it’s just a matter of preference!

Our reference image again comes from the Wetcanvas Image Library, which is a great place to go for royalty free images to practice your drawing skills.

First, we’re going to use an Hb or 2H pencil to draw our gridlines. Then we can start to map out the basic shapes created by the hair. To help you identify these shapes, it can be useful to squint at the reference. This is where it’s important to simplify. You can’t draw every single hair, instead focus on the “chunks” of hair and the major shadows and highlights. Follow the grid to help you get an accurate line drawing. Carefully erase the gridlines.

Next, using a B pencil,we will lay in the pencil strokes in the direction of the hair growth. The important part here is that you treat each chunk as separate. Use a wrist-flicking motion to create each pencil stroke, going from the darkest part of each chunk and pulling towards the highlight. Build up layers in the darkest areas, letting the pencil lines taper off. Pull a few strokes all the way through the highlight as well. It’s also essential to make sure that each pencil stroke curves in the direction of the curl.

Now we’ll use a 2B to darken the shadows and add another dimension to the hair. Again, pull some lines all the way through the highlight, but focus on building layers in the darkest areas. You want to make sure that your pencil is nice and sharp!

All we have left are a few finishing touches. Use a kneaded eraser to clean up the highlights. You can also use a 4B or 3B to make the shadows even darker. The last thing we need to do is add some fly-away hairs. No hair sits flat and perfect, so adding some fly-aways will make your drawing look that much more realistic.

Did you like this? Let me know what other tutorials you’d like to see!

Tags: curly hair, drawing tips, hair, Tutorials

The “Get Your Art Into a Gallery” Checklist

Aug 23, 2010 Promotion and Exhibition

A couple of weeks ago I talked about the importance of informally acknowledging your goals. This practice can help you begin the process of breaking an overwhelming aspiration into manageable steps, an essential part of attaining your goals.

Probably the most common and overwhelming of an artist’s goals is that of getting a gallery exhibition. What do you need to do? Where do you start?

Here is a checklist of the steps I believe are necessary to prepare you for applying for a gallery exhibition. Where you are in your art career will determine where you are on the checklist. Obviously many of these steps will require time and dedication. This isn’t something you can do in an afternoon! If you are early in your career, it may take a year or more before you’re ready to apply for an exhibition.

For a  more detailed explanation of any of the steps, click on the links provided.

The “Get Your Art Into a Gallery” Checklist

Create a cohesive body of work.

From your body of work, select the art for your proposal.

Get good quality documentation of your selected works.

Research galleries to find the right venue for your art and find out their submission guidelines.

Write an artist statement.

Write a proposal outlining the details of your exhibition.

Create your artist resume or CV detailing your education and accomplishments as an artist.

Write a short cover letter to each gallery introducing yourself and your art.

Assemble your exhibition proposal.

Ensure that your entire package is presented in a professional way.

Once your exhibition package is complete, you are ready to ship it out to your intended galleries! Don’t forget to check their submission deadlines.

Also remember that you probably will not hear back for several months. It takes time for the curators to go through every submission.

Extra Advice: Keep track of the galleries you’ve applied to and their responses. Don’t get discouraged by a “thanks but no thanks” letter. You can always try again the following exhibition year!

Tags: exhibitions, galleries, getting started

Business Card Tips for Artists

Aug 18, 2010 Promotion and Exhibition

Most professionals agree that a business card is one of your most valuable marketing tools. It’s small, portable, relatively affordable and can be given to anyone and everyone you meet.

The trick, of course, is getting your business card to work for you.

Design

Some people will tel you that artists are not graphic designers and that you should hire someone to design your business cards for you. Others will say that as an artist you’re in the perfect position to design your own promotional material. My stance? It depends.

If you

• have access to a program like Photoshop, Gimp or Coreldraw;
• have some experience with said program;
• are comfortable with designing your own products;
• and have extra time to devote to the design process

by all means design your own business cards!

I design my cards myself for a variety of reasons: it’s inexpensive, it gives me complete control, and I enjoy it. As with anything, there is a learning curve. My business cards of several years ago definitely look less professional than those I have now, and in a few years I’ll probably look back and say the same thing!

If you’re hesitant or uncomfortable on the computer, you may want to look into different options.If you decide to hire out, make sure you work closely with your designer to get the look you want. Artist business cards are slightly different than other run-of-the-mill cards and need special considerations.

Graphics

Personally, I like to keep graphic elements to a minimum. Unlike other businesses, you don’t need any kind of logo or other designs. The most prominent graphic on your card should be your art. Let me emphasize: your art should be on your card! If there’s no art on your business card, you’ve done something wrong already!

Make sure you start with a good quality image, then build your other design elements around it. Your card should compliment and showcase your work, not compete with it.

I’m a bit of a minimalist when it comes to design. My advice is to not get too fancy; sometimes the simplest layouts are the most effective.

One option to showcase your work is to crop it to create a “detail” view. You can then use this detail as your background. Another option is to feature your art on one side of the card and have your information printed on the back.

If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these creative business card designs.

Essential Information

Remember that your business card is a pretty small space to work with. You don’t want to cram everything about yourself onto it. Instead, stick with the basic, essential info and include it in a way that is clear and logical. You don’t want people to have to search for anything.

The most important information is your name, phone number, e-mail address, website (if you have one), and possibly your mailing address.

Remember:

• keep fonts legible
• make sure your text stands out from the background
• use a big enough font size (no smaller than 10)

If people can’t read your business card, you’ve failed!

Tweak It

I have always found that my first design is always a bit flat and lifeless. The second design is always better! Don’t be afraid to move things around and try different colour combinations. If you need cards for an event, make sure you leave yourself enough time to tweak the design.

Printing

Once you’re perfected your design, you will need to decide if you want to print your cards yourself or have someone do them for you.

I’ve always printed my own cards. Here’s why:

• I can print small quantities of cards
• I can change my design frequently to reflect my latest work
• I can print multiple designs to feature different artworks
• I have more control over the process

To print business cards at home, you will need a decent printer. For paper, I recommend the business card paper you can get from almost any stationery store. The one I use is a heavy, white, card stock that easily snaps apart without any perforations. I’ve always had great experiences with this! It can even be printed on both sides.

Conclusion

Whether you design and print them yourself or have them done professionally, the purpose of your business card is to show peole what you do (your art), who you are (your name), and how they can contact you (your info). Include those elements, arrange them in a tasteful, legible, pleasing way, and you’re on the right track!

Tags: art marketing, business cards, promotion

Blonde, Brunette and Black – Drawing Hair Colours

Aug 15, 2010 Drawing

I recently got an e-mail from a reader asking me how to draw dark hair. Drawing different coloured hair has more to do with the pencils you use than using different techniques. Here are the guidelines I use when drawing blonde, brunette, and black hair.

To learn more about the specific techniques for drawing realistic hair, read my hair drawing tips and check out my step-by-step tutorial.

Blonde Hair

Here I have used only two pencils: a 2H and a B. I started with the 2H as the bottom layer, pulling each stroke towards the highlight in the centre. It’s important to let a few pencil strokes go all the way through the highlight. Then I used the B to darken the shadows, also pulling a few strokes all the way across the highlight.

With blonde hair, the shadows aren’t as dark and the highlight area is usually larger and brighter.

Brown or Brunette Hair

Brunette hair requires more layers than blonde hair to create the darker values. I used exactly the same method and technique as I did for blonde hair, but I also used a 2B pencil to create the darker shadows.

You’ll notice that the highlighted area is smaller and looks more like individual hairs are reflecting light. For brunette hair, you will want to draw more pencil strokes through the highlight.

Black Hair

Again, I started with a 2H pencil, then a B pencil, then a 2B pencil. For black hair, I use an even darker pencil to create the rich, dark shadows. Here I’ve used a 4B and a 6B pencil. It’s all about creating layers to simulate the texture of the hair.

I’ve also made sure to continue the dark pencil lines throughout the highlight. At the very end, I used a kneaded eraser to pick up a few bright highlights.

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s not really a matter of using different techniques. Drawing darker hair requires more layers and softer pencils. Light hair has a big, broad highlight and dark hair has highlights on just a few hairs.

As always, use a good reference image and pay close attention to the value. When working with pencil, it’s the value that will communicate the hair colour!

Tags: drawing tips, hair, portraits, texture

Busy Week and a (non-Art) Announcement

Aug 14, 2010 Special Bulletins

I have to apologize for the short hiatus. I have had an extremely busy week and haven’t been able to post anything new.

My big announcement is that my boyfriend and I got engaged a couple weeks ago. We are really excited and have spent the last week nailing down a date and trying to line up a venue and catering. Thanks to my family, this has been a relatively painless process. I am completely clueless when it comes to event planning and all the little details are overwhelming!

I’ve also been teaching a mixed media workshop for kids. That was a learning process! The kids flew through things I thought would take a long time and took their time on what I thought would be quick projects. Each day I had to have several things planned, plus a few extras just in case. All in all it went well and the kids enjoyed it. It was a lot more challenging than I’d anticipated, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

My other news from this week is that I had another critique with my old prof. I was able to get some feedback on my recent abstract work and most of it was good! Thanks to this prof, I will be having a solo exhibition in September to showcase my new paintings at the UBCO Fine Art Gallery.

Regular posts will resume tomorrow, so please hang in there just one mor day!