Tag Archives: Drawing Tools

how to draw graffiti style.

Make your own graffiti art easy.

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Make your own graffiti art because it’s not as difficult, as you might think, it only takes, a basic knowledge and some practice. There are numerous styles of graffiti, but the most common factors are as follows.

  • They are painted in strong vibrant colors, that often clash.
  • They are intended to be attention grabbing.
  • They are often emotive concepts, that question the norm.
  • They often contain 3D lettering.
  • They often contain lettering that overlaps.

The heavy bold 3D lettering is very apparent, in the majority of graffiti art images and is usually the starting point, for most potential artists, as it most often starts with your name, tag or handle. Many of the same, distinctive, bold style lettering’s, used in advertising to create impact, are also used by the graffiti artist, so are a good place to look, for ideas. It most often reflects and resembles, the branding or advertising art world, in many ways but chiefly as a counter alternative, usually with a strong, social, political massage, that the artist is passionate about.

  • The pictures or pieces of work themselves, will contain sharp hard hitting  contrasts.
  • They will be painted in stark vivid colors.
  • They will be well defined, with strong shadows and outlines.

The best way to start, your piece of graffiti art, is by drawing smaller ideas and outlines, that you can later scale, up to any size, this will help you to understand, the problems you might face, when attempting to create something bigger. Scaling your ideas, is a simple task, once you have a smaller drawing or painting to work from. There is an endless supply of ideas online, if you need them, for fonts to use in your graffiti, as well as examples of graffiti, created by others to feast your eyes upon and incorporate into your own work.

The tools to use for your designs or ideas are, pencils, felt tipped or marker pens and fine line drawing pens, all of these come in a very wide range of distinctive and vivid colors, that make them an ideal choice, for graffiti artists.  If you need ideas for a graffiti font to use, there are plenty of sites online, that have examples for you to copy.

Outlines can be created with a graphite pencil and or any permanent black ink pen but fine line and wide chisel or bullet tipped markers, are a preferred choice of many. Shading around the letters you’ve outlined, with a range of different colors will enhance the 3D effects of your lettering, to make it more distinctive.

Make your own graffiti art because it is really easy, if you use these methods and it is not as difficult, as you might think.Make your own graffiti art, Images of Brynteg, Caia Park Nursery, Gate Hangs High, Chester, Blacon YPP murals on buildings and an installation piece at Caia Park Nursery.

Make your own graffiti art, Images of Brynteg,  Caia Park Nursery,  Gate Hangs High,  Chester,  Blacon YPP murals on buildings and an installation piece at Caia Park Nursery.

Yes I know, that there are many who would not consider this graffiti but I say “make money not trouble”.

When you are ready, to paint your outline drawings and ideas onto canvases or bigger surfaces, you can use the grid reference method, by marking out a grid over the top of the drawing, you want to enlarge. You then recreate this grid onto the area, where you want to redraw, your original drawing and then use it to measure, where everything goes by comparing grids. Very large areas can be marked out with string, by impregnating it with chalk or charcoal, simply by rubbing it into the fibers, when the string is in this condition, you stretch it out tightly, across the area that you want to mark out. Then you pull it out from the middle and let it go, so it then snaps back against the surface of the new drawing area, leaving a mark imprinted on to it.

You can then use the chalk or charcoal to redraw, the outlines onto your new drawing area. Spray paint the main outlines, with a similar color to the background but a couple of shades lighter or darker, so it will cover more easily if you need to change anything later, allow this to dry before continuing.

Then you can begin to fill in the details and your areas of color, with spray paint in much the same way, by starting with the lightest colors first and the largest areas, then putting in the details. Finally you can carefully fill out the black outlines, with your spray paints, adding highlights and finishing touches at the same time, you can even use a brush, to do your very fine details. Once again let me say make your own graffiti art because it’s not, as difficult as you might think, it is really easy, if you use these methods.

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how to draw a easy

Outline drawing.

In the process of drawing images, we often start out with a basic outline drawing, as the foundation, for learning where everything else goes, in relation to the outline and each other. The problem I find with many beginners and well practiced people alike, is they do not always, understand outlines very well, also as in the case of beginners, they do not understand at all, in many instances.

The easiest way to draw and understand outlines, is by using tracing methods of drawing because when you trace an image, you can only, realistically make an outline, as tracing doesn’t lend it’s self to shading. Tracing also gives you a better understanding, of how pictures work, especially when trying to understand, construction drawing.

Wheel images showing perspective distortion.
Car wheel images showing distortion when seen in perspective.
Wheel images showing perspective distortion line drawing.
Car wheel images showing perspective distortion in a line drawing format.

Let me explain, by using a car wheel as an example, we all know that wheels are round but they are only round, when we look at them directly face on, because when we turn them, at an angle, they become, more and more oval, in shape.

The correct term to call this oval shape, is an ellipse and is something many people have problems with, when trying to draw them accurately, to find out more about this, please take look at single point perspective and two point perspective, you will find the both helpful.

Get yourself some pictures that you might like to draw and trace them, so as to be able, to take a look at these images, as only line drawings, you will notice when tracing these outlines, that they are most often, not as you might have thought they are.

Doing this, will help you to understand, that shapes are not often, the shapes we think we see and that wheels, are most often not circular but oval, along with many other shapes we see but actually, only think we see. This is because our brains tell us that wheels are round or that a shape is this shape or that shape, when in actual fact, many shapes are not what we think they are because our brains are telling us what we see, rather than actually, seeing what we see.

how to draw a easy

To find cool drawings.

Cool drawings are not as easy to find, as you might think because your version of cool, is almost certainly not my version of what is cool, anymore than the next person because it is a matter of taste and you might find that, some of the people can be pleased, some of the time but not all of them, all of the time, labels such as cool are subjective, so they are as individual as the individuals themselves.

I have already established, that it is highly unlikely that, what I find cool, you will also but I can still help you find cool pictures, by giving you some ideas about the ways that I use.

If I know what I am looking for I do searches on Google Images, this is the quickest way I know for finding a picture or drawing, I am looking for because in case you did not know, you can search using key words, the same way you do when you are searching for anything else online, there is one down side to this and that is, although it is much easier nowadays, than it would have been ten years ago, it is still time consuming and laborious. Sometimes you have to literally look through hundreds and hundreds of them, because there are so many.

The pretty pink pain killer image.

You can also do searches on other sites, like Flickr or Flixya but there are too many photo management sites to mention them all, these sites store millions of indexed images, belonging to other people, pictures they have submitted. Some of these types of sites, actually pay you a small fee if others, want to use the ones that you have submitted. They all have rules about this but these are usually quite liberal and open minded, yet still quite tasteful or respectable because they have to try to please all.

One of the best ways to find cool drawings or pictures, that I especially like because of the way it works is a free online tool, called Stumble Upon.

It works like this, you join Stumble Upon by submitting your details, to become a member, then you select topics of interest, the more you pick the more variety you will see but these will not all be pictures, unless you clicked on the tool bar to select just images. The great part about it is this, you click a button to be presented with random pages of interest, if you set it to images then you will just Stumble Upon random pictures, covering any topic.

Now because the best usually climb to the top, through popularity in this program, then you get presented with the most popular, so they are usually very good but also besides this, they are random, so you do not have control and are presented with images, that also surprise you, giving you some great random subjects, that often stimulate your own ideas, for creations to work on.

I find Stumble Upon a great tool for giving me new ideas, when I don’t have any but also very entertaining, with it’s rich variety of cool drawings and pictures, also a great place to put your own work on too.

how to draw a easy

Drawing with prehistoric drawing tools.

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32,000 years ago our primitive human ancestors, used charcoal as a black pigment for decorating their caves, with drawings and images. Along with the cavemen, the Egyptians also painted their highly decorative hieroglyphic writings, with this very same substance that is still being used to day for the same purposes of drawing, writing and decorating.

Thankfully we don’t still live in caves but we do still use charcoal for drawing and the pigmentation of black paints, such as Carbon Blacks, Ivory Black, Vine Black and Lamp Black.

Carbon black is the name used for different but common black pigments, that are made by charring organic material, usually wood or bone, it only seems to be black because there is almost no light being reflected from it, that is visible to our eyes. Carbon black substances reflect very little or no light at all, so because of this, they give the impression of being black.

These black carbons where produced originally, by charring different types of organic material, Ivory black was originally made, by charring ivory or animal bones, where as Vine black was made in much the same way, by using the dried out, chard stems of grape vines instead. Nowadays you can still obtain vine charcoal but this has been mostly replaced with willow and other similar woods, making it more substantial for use in drawing. There are many different other types of charcoal produced, for different purposes, just one example would be charcoal grills, for grilling your steak and other meats outdoors.

Lamp black as it was called, was originally produced from the soot that gathered inside oil lamps, that was also called lampblack because of where it came from.

These end pigments are all carbon substances, which give them the generic term of being called carbon blacks.

As it stands today, charcoal is a prehistoric drawing substance, that is still effectively being used by many artists in the production of fine works of art, all over the world.

32,000 years on into the future, with the production of fine art still being practiced by many using charcoal in the drawing process and almost all black pigment, being obtained from chard materials, thus making charcoal the granddaddy of all the drawing substances, known to man, it must be good because we still use it.

 

Dead Bird Drawn With Compressed Charcoal
Road Kill , a dead bird, a compressed charcoal drawing.

Aerial maneuvers, dragon over the roof tops.

how to draw a easy

Hatching, cross hatching and tonal modeling basics.

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Hatching, cross hatching and tonal modeling basics, will help you understand shading techniques, this understanding I am going present will further enable you to develop your drawing skills, by using these simple methods.

A very basic explanation of tonal modeling is as follows.

If you draw on a piece of paper with a soft, 3B or 6B graphite pencil and make a dark line by pressing hard, then rub over the top of the pencil line, with your finger or with a piece of paper under your finger, you will see that line you made has now been smudged. Now the line that you made, will not be as well defined with the edges of it being softer and less definite or hard. This is known as a tonal modeling technique, one method of creating this tonal modeling technique is by smudging the pencil marks used for shading, to help create a more realistic three dimensional form. This is not the only way to do your tonal modeling or shading, as it can also be achieved by rubbing the pencil lightly over the paper to create a soft blended tone also.

There is also another shading method called hatching and cross hatching as well that we will explain a little later in this article.

Tonal modeling is when the pencil marks are modeled or smudged, so instead of them having hard edges, they have soft blended edges, this smudging can be done using your fingers, a paper stump, soft tissue or cotton wool. Using your fingers is not recommended because of the oils from your skin, that contain acids being left on the paper, these oils with time can cause discoloring and rotting of the paper, ruining the finished drawing, over a period of time.

When a sculptor models with clay, he creates the shape and form of the sculpture by modeling the clay with his hands, tonal modeling is when you model the pencil marks to create soft blended tones of graduated shading with a pencil, charcoal, pastel or paint, it is a process of blending tones or colors, so there is a soft graduated transition from one tone or color to another.

Tonal modeling in a drawing or painting context, is when the pencil, charcoal, pastel or paints are blended to create soft shadows, to produce the form and shape of the object, being drawn on a 2 dimensional surface creating the illusion, of a 3 dimensional form or shape.

The blending of the drawing materials, into graduated tones to create the illusion of a 3 dimensional form or shape, on a 2 dimensional drawing surface is what’s usually referred to as tonal modeling.

Below you will find an image of two pencil drawings.

1.    This first image has been drawn with a 5B graphite pencil, using a hatching and cross hatching method.

2.    This other second image, has been drawn with a 5B graphite pencil, using a tonal modeling method.

Example of hatching and tonal modeling.
The two methods as example, cross hatching and tonal modeling.

Both depict the shape and form of the image but the second example, is modeled, using the tonal modeling method, notice that the shadows and tones are soft, with few hard edges, unlike the first cross hatching example, with many hard edges/lines.

Essentially there are hatch marks and smudge marks, with both these types of marks having attributes, also associated with the use of charcoal, that enable you to learn to understand tonal variation better.

•    Both types of marks are good and effective in their own right, as well as when used together.

•    Both make excellent drawings, in their own right and when mixed.

•    Both can have specific, common and preferred uses.

•    Both are also used when painting.

•    Both can be used effectively, with other types of drawing tools, especially the hatching marks.

Modern mark making revealed again.

Crosshatching and tonal modelling.

Pencil drawing photo image of a thumb and finger.

The above is a combination of hatching, cross hatching, line drawing and tonal modelling with only a HB pencil being used to do this.

Crosshatching and tonal modelling.

Example of two different mark making techniques, cross hatching, tonal modeling.

  1. Cross hatching style drawing, of a dolls leg but although very messy looking in the detail, it is a fine example of how, even soft flowing shapes can be created with crosshatching.
  2. Tonal modelling or blended style, with very hard edges, although you can see some of the hatching marks showing through as well.

Hatching and tonal modelling revisited.

Example sheet showing different types of mark making.

  1. Example of a loose tonal modelling or blending style drawing, of a face that is really somewhere between, hatching and tonal modelling because of the even marks, slanting downward to the right.
  2. A Yorkshire terrier dog, which happily lends it’s self well to this loose but flowing hatching technique, which is highly appropriate for drawing fur or hair, as can be seen a little in image 3 as well.
  3. A soft blending of tones creates this portrait, this is mostly achieved by smudging the graphite pencil marks, with a paper torchon or drawing stump, this is just a hard paper pencil type tool, that can be used to smudge the pencil marks.
  4. Although some like to call this a squiggle or squrkle technique, it is actually just another form of cross hatching, this image has been drawn with a permanent ink pen.

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