Drawing Lesson: Capturing shapes

Building creativity can be daunting especially when you don't know where to start. If you're wanting to get better at drawing, one of the best ways to start is by starting with the basics, focus on the shapes. I've shared a few examples, obvs using my old Hollywood faces so you can see the logic.

Everything is just made up of shapes when you break it down. If you're struggling to get started with this you can either go two ways. One scribble, make a mess just scramble down on the page whatever shapes you see and work from there - a tip to go lighter at the beginning with pencil so you can go over the top for more defined lines later. Or your other option is to get a thick paintbrush which doesn't allow you to get detailed. With this you can mark out lines and shapes then once that has dried, you go over the top with a more detailed version.

Drawing shapes, is a good place to get started but also a good place to re-align from if you're in a creative rut. Sometimes we focus to much on the small details, it's good to focus on the lines that make up a drawing/painting instead.

In the 1940s in America, Andrew Loomis came up with the Loomis method for drawing the human head. This I'm sure you've seen before, it's where you grid up the head into sections, the nose starts half way down the circle then mouth half way from that and eyes half way up from the nose. This works too to get you started on drawing a face but I also like to think that not every face is exact and it has more character if it isn't all in specific dimensions.

It's also good to note, that these are all great places to spring board from. If you're wanting to be more creative or get better at drawing then it needs to be in your daily life. Even if it's in the form of setting a timer for 5 minutes and instead of doom scrolling you get a pen and paper and practice. Only with practicing and exploring will you find your own sense of creativity and style.

Amelia