Since childhood I couldn’t draw. Or rather, no, not like that. Since childhood, I lived with the firm belief that I could not draw. That's why I never just did it. Of course, now, after reading a stack of books about creative education and the experience of drawing with my daughter, I understand that my reluctance to create was not at all connected with my lack of natural talent, but then it didn’t seem so to me. Every person from birth has creativity. But whether it is developed or ruined directly depends on the conditions for creativity that will be created for the child, and on the response that he will receive in response to his creations.
Fortunately, I still managed to overcome (albeit with great difficulties) my not very successful childhood experience and not project it onto my daughter. And now I can say with confidence that drawing is favorite hobby Taisii. I fell in love with him too (but I no longer became an artist, of course). This article is about how to let creativity into your life, how not to discourage your child from wanting to draw, and what direction to follow in creative pursuits.
Drawing with children. How to develop a child's creative potential?
The fact that creativity is the most important direction in a child’s development is now beyond any doubt. But What does each of us understand by creativity? If you give your child pre-prepared templates and show how to glue it all together, or if you give him finished sample for sketching (like the popular “Drawing Step by Step” manuals), will this develop the child’s creative abilities? Hardly. This is just copying and mechanically following a template. And if at the same time the child’s work is also assessed on the subject of “similar or not similar,” then the child will completely lose the desire to experiment and invent own images.
Often such “creative activities” can be observed in kindergartens, where teachers strive to show parents the finished result. But if you look at it, the result in drawing with young children is what you should least focus on. For children, the process is most important. Children must be provided opportunity to experiment , research different materials And drawing tools, sample various techniques work (“What will happen if I mix these two colors? And if I add ears here, will it turn out to be a bunny?”). Only then will the child learn to create his own images, change them and look for new associations between objects and their images. Is this true creativity?
Often, after seeing enough on Instagram or Babyblog, photos from beautiful drawings other people's children, we begin to rush our baby - we “tell” him what and where to draw, just to get a recognizable image. But if we want a child to really love drawing and learn to think creatively, we need to give him the opportunity to independently see the meaning in the strokes and realize the need to add new details. It is extremely important that the child goes through all the natural stages of drawing development freely and without haste. .
Stages of children's drawings and parents' actions at each of them
Stage 1 "Doodle" (1 – 3 years, the duration of the stage is individual for each)
This stage is very important, although at first glance it seems “frivolous”. Already at this stage, the child’s attitude towards drawing is formed. Will he love him or refuse in every possible way with the words “I don’t know how.”
As a rule, children begin to show their first interest in drawing at the age of 1 year. They get great pleasure from seeing the visual result of their interaction with the world, and enthusiastically watch how a pencil or brush leaves a mark on the surface. First of all, they are interested in the properties of artistic materials.
The main task of parents at this stage is to provide the child with comfortable conditions for creativity. At this age, the baby still does not feel the boundaries of the sheet well, so provide him with large sheets of paper. You can use whatman paper, a roll of craft paper, or even reverse side roll of wallpaper. In addition, let your child draw the most different instruments : brushes, pencils, palms, rollers, sponges etc.
The most comfortable materials For drawing at this stage you will use gouache or finger paints. For convenience, they can be poured into shallow plates; the gouache can be slightly diluted with water. It's good to try others unusual materials and drawing tools (I’ll soon tell you about unconventional drawing methods in a separate article).
Protect the nearest surfaces with oilcloth, put clothes on your baby that you don't mind, and let him create freely! It is important not to scold your child for dirty clothes or the table. Where there are too many prohibitions, the desire to create disappears.
At this stage, it is unnecessary to somehow direct the child’s actions. . As a rule, parents are very impatient to see meaningful images and they begin to rush the baby, telling them where they need to draw eyes and legs to make a little man, a bunny, etc. Don't rush things. The child must see the meaning in the picture himself, establish an association between a familiar object and the drawn image. Everything will definitely happen at the pace that the child himself needs.
Also try not to pay close attention to how your baby holds a pencil or brush. To hold a pencil with three fingers, a baby at this age requires enormous concentration, leaving little strength for creativity. It is inconvenient for a child to use a writing instrument like an adult - fine motor skills are not yet so developed.
Drawing with homemade finger paints
Since at this age the baby’s main channel for receiving information is sensory, children begin to experience artistic media whole body, including taste. You shouldn't scold your child for this. Try to explain that pencils are not eaten, remove pens that reach towards the mouth. If the child still continues to explore the materials to taste , you can try drawing with some edible materials, for example, a piece of beetroot or juices frozen in ice cube trays.
It often happens that the period of “testing the means” is significantly delayed. There is no need to conclude that the child is not interested in drawing. The stage of mastering tools is very important, and the baby should stay on it as long as he needs. How better baby“plays enough” with materials, the more fluently he will own them.
Stage 2 “Shapeless images” (24 years)
After some time, the child’s stage of studying materials is replaced by a desire to depict something specific - the child tries to find meaning in the scribbles. At the same time, perhaps your baby’s scribbles will not seem like a typewriter at all, but the child will point to it with the words “beep.”
Car, 2 years 10 months
When you see your child's first meaningful images, do not try to evaluate how similar the drawing is to the object and judge “good” or “bad.” For a child, external correspondence is not the main thing; he draws not an object or phenomenon, but his own feelings from it. Here is an example of Tasya’s hedgehog, you must admit, it doesn’t look very much like the original, but the “prickliness” is conveyed well
Hedgehog, 3 years 4 months
At this stage, try not to impose any drawing patterns on your child (a house is a square with a triangle on top, and nothing else, a Christmas tree is three triangles stacked on top of each other, etc.). If adults demonstrate patterns, then children usually internalize them and do not try to change them. Subsequently, it will be difficult (and sometimes impossible) for the child to create his own unique images and develop your own style. It gets in the way free development thinking.
Medusa, 3 years 4 months
The same applies to drawing an image of a person. Don’t rush to immediately “teach” your child to draw the usual pattern “Head, torso, arms, legs...”. The child himself must come to this most important image - the image of a person. One day he will see a “head” in a clumsily drawn circle and call it a man. Gradually, legs will grow from the circle, and you will get the so-called “cephalopod”. Such an image is a great achievement of the discoverer! A cephalopod is psychological picture the child himself, reflecting what is most important for the child now - emotions (head) and movement (legs).
Cephalopod Sasha, 3 years 2 months
Often, upon seeing the first cephalopod, parents immediately point out the missing parts. Should not be doing that. Later, the artist himself will notice that other details are needed and will gradually complicate the plot of the drawing. If you “jump” over the cephalopod stage and immediately teach a child to draw a person with all parts of the body, then he will then follow this pattern for a long time and be critical of any other options.
Cephalopod Mom in the rain, 3 years 2 months
Stage 3 "Scheme" (4 – 6 years)
Polyanka, 4 years 8 months
The most interesting stage, in my opinion, is the one Taisiya and I are at now. It’s incredibly interesting to look at a child’s drawings; they become more detailed and slowly acquire more and more details. The drawing appears top and bottom and spatial relationships of objects. Of course, you can often still see a person exceeding the height of the house, and other disproportions, but this normal phenomenon, which is not worth worrying about - with the help of size, the child subconsciously highlights in the drawing what is most important to him.
Fixies, 4 years 4 months
The main achievement of this period is that a plot appears in the picture, a story about some events. And here, it seems to me, the main task parent - present the child with as many interesting game and life situations as possible, scenes from books that the child would like to tell about (visiting the zoo, a short hike, watching your family album and so on.).
Mom and Dad's wedding, 4 years 7 months
And further. Sometimes it may seem that the child is too “fixated” on the image of the same person and draws him dozens of times with virtually no changes. According to psychologists, there is nothing wrong with this if the child himself came up with this image. Like any other person, a child likes to do what he can do, so he is happy to repeat a successful action.
This was the case with Taisiya and me. Once she successfully drew a princess, she began to draw three typical princesses every day. And only after thoroughly establishing his ability to draw beautiful girls, she began to move on, adding new details and plots.
Princesses, 4 years 1 month
If it seems to you that this period has dragged on too long, offer to draw your favorite character in some unusual situation or draw a friend for him. Pay attention to new details and praise.
4th stage “Plausible images” and 5th stage “Correct images” (6 +)
Now the child draws the object, and not the impression of it, as it was before. Scale, direction, location in space, perspective appear, and proportions return to relative normality. Objects are depicted as real, endowed with their real qualities.
This is the period when the child can already begin to teach various techniques drawing and basics visual arts. It is advisable that there should be some good teacher next to the child at this time - you (if you know how to draw) or another specialist. Since my drawing skills slowed down somewhere around the third stage, and Taisiya loves to draw, I wrote her down from the next school year to art school
The fifth stage is already characterized realistic drawings with perspective, volume and chiaroscuro.
How to motivate a child to draw and what to do if a child does not want to draw
Each of us has a creator within us by nature. For some to a greater extent, for others to a lesser extent, but for everyone absolutely. And when a child doesn’t want to draw or refuses under the pretext that he doesn’t know how, this does not mean at all that nature has deprived him creative abilities. As painful as it may be to admit, a dislike for drawing is usually the result of upbringing. The child refuses creative activities, if they have some kind of negative experience attached to them. For example, if I got dirty, my mother scolded me, or the resulting drawing was criticized. Even if a child is too intrusively “suggested” what and how to draw, he may perceive this as an admission of his failure in creativity and lose all desire.
I myself made a lot of mistakes on our creative path with Taisiya and about our experience (with good ending) I'll tell you a little lower. Well, here are some tips that really help overcome the fear of drawing and motivate your child to create new masterpieces.
- If the child does not want to draw at all, step away from figurative drawings for a while and play with materials: draw abstractions, play around with paints, brushes, pencils and crayons to your heart’s content, try unconventional methods drawing. In a word, do something where there are no standards of “similar and not similar.”
- Try your best limit the child’s creativity less with various prohibitions and tell him what and how to draw. This is especially true for the first stage of drawing development.
- React correctly to the drawing . Any criticism of the drawing and its assessment in the categories of “similar - not similar” can discourage the desire to draw. Be careful with praise too, don’t overdo it. After all, children, even younger age, are capable of a completely objective assessment of their art, and sometimes they worry because they cannot yet convey in the image what they want. The most correct reaction is to pay close attention to the drawing, ask what details represent what, what colors were used, etc.
- Organize an art exhibition at home and update it regularly. This way, the child will constantly see his creative successes and understand that you value them.
- So that the child sees the “usefulness” of creativity, give tasks aimed at others (for example, draw a gift for grandma), or tasks that will have some practical benefit at home (paint something in the apartment, paint a stool, a mug, etc.).
- Create a “creative corner” at home , where basic materials for drawing will be in the public domain, this will give the child the opportunity for spontaneous creativity. However, do not post all the materials you have there at once; it would be better if they are updated regularly.
- Don’t throw away his drawings in front of your child. . Of course, it is impossible to store all works without exception. Therefore, unloved drawings can be thrown away, but not in front of the author and after some time.
Continue drawing, even if the child refuses to do it - draw in front of him, without forcing or criticizing, look for materials and tasks that can interest him.
Our experience or a little about how we fell in love with drawing
As I already said, before the birth of my daughter, I was always sure that I couldn’t draw, and therefore avoided drawing in every possible way. Frankly, it is very inconvenient when you cannot, if necessary, depict a basic picture, and therefore I really wanted my daughter to avoid my fate. When I noticed that Taisiya began to show the first signs of meaningful drawing, I began to actively offer her an image simple pictures- houses, suns, etc., sincerely believing that with such actions I stimulate the development of her artistic skills.
Sometimes Tasya, of course, agreed, but the further she went, the more she resisted the template drawings and stubbornly scribbled. As a person who at that time still knew nothing about the principles of free drawing with children, this was very upsetting, and I said something like, “Well, why are you drawing all these incomprehensible things, let’s draw such and such.” As a result, Taisiya began to refuse to draw altogether with the words “I don’t know how”, “I don’t want to”.
And only when my daughter was 2 years 8 months old, fortunately, I came across a wonderful book by Marina Ozerva “About children's drawing» , which radically changed my attitude towards drawing and pointed out all my mistakes. I remember how, inspired by the ideas in the book, I took a bucket of crayons for a walk and invited my daughter to draw whatever scribbles she wanted. To which she asked me: “Mom, will you like it?” It's like a tub on me cold water poured out. How ashamed I was then! Indeed, by limiting her in drawing doodles and offering my hackneyed templates, I, in fact, criticized her creativity!
In general, that's when it started new level in our joint drawing. I completely removed the depiction of any images from creative activities and added a lot of new materials and experiments. We painted with cotton wool, sponges, ice, cars, etc. In a word, we let creativity into our lives.
I confess that I, a person who had considered himself uncreative all my life, caught fire in such a way that I couldn’t stop it. I myself have lost the fear of a blank sheet of paper and the fear of “that it won’t work out.” And Tasya slowly but surely woke up again creative spark given to each of us by nature. This is the drawing method she came up with herself (these are special crayons for the bathroom):
It is noteworthy that Tasya, who had previously been accustomed to drawing a template man (with a torso, arms and legs), after a series of such free exercises, began to appear the very ones that psychologists talk so much about. For me, this was the best signal that we were on the right path.
Now Taisiya is 4 years 8 months old, and I can say with confidence that what my daughter loves most is drawing. Take away any toy from her, she won’t even notice, but if one of the pencils disappears, then that’s it, there’s no peace for the whole family.
Princess Breakfast, 4 years 8 months
I will definitely write an article (and probably more than one) with various options unconventional drawing with kids. In the meantime, thank you for your attention and see you soon
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Why do we (ADULTS) draw with the baby?
- Are we trying to depict any object or living object so that it looks like a real one, expanding the baby’s understanding of the world?
- Do we teach our child how to use paints, brushes, felt-tip pens, and pencils correctly?
- Are we trying to give the little one some idea about shape, size, color?
Did you answer? Great! I am sure that all of the above options suited you to some extent.
Why does a CHILD draw?
I didn’t spend much time inventing hypotheses and asked this question to my 5-year-old son. I heard a very simple and obvious answer: “Mom, for nothing! I just want to!”
How simple! And at the same time it’s difficult! After all, they have already forgotten how to draw JUST SO... Without reason or reason, without a didactic goal and an extremely valuable pedagogical task. Draw because you want to! Draw because there is a pleasant itch in your hands and thoughts! Draw because it's fun!
I think the phrase “You draw like a child” can be considered a COMPLIMENT.
Let's remember how this is done? A few tips from “Galka-Igralka” that make it a lot easier for me personally, as a mother and a teacher. art games with kids:
Rule #1: A leaf is not a silent space that needs to be filled with something (or someone)! This is the territory of the game. And since there is a game on the sheet, it means there must be action, dynamics!
Watch the baby. Surely he does not draw an apple for the sake of light and shadows and round shape! He doesn’t draw a car in order to understand its structure! And the path to learn to navigate parallel lines. What is he drawing?
Yes, he doesn't draw. Playing! Captures what you really liked! What produced vivid impression, caused powerful emotions, remembered!
"Oh! What are these droplets? Drip... Drip... Drip... It's rain! Hooray! Wow, so strong!”
“Apple... Bright, elegant! We just ate something like this, and then I wanted to draw it! How delicious... Who would you like to treat? I'll treat mom! Or Bunny! It turned out great!”
“The car - Vrrrrrum - vrrrrrum! Go! Wow! Someone is sitting in the car! It's dad! Where am I? Yes, here I am! Nearby!
“Rrraz - path! Wow, great! Want more! Rrraz! Rrraz! Lots of paths!
Rule #2: We take ideas for games straight from life! Do not strive for authenticity and photographic accuracy of the image! It’s easy to portray for you - just repeat it to your child!
Did you see a bird on the street? Got out of my hands and flew away balloon? Did you go out into the yard and see a snowman? Or maybe they blinded it themselves? Baking fragrant pies, and the baby hovering around? Great! After all, all this will be a great emotional occasion for a dozen different games! Including artistic ones.
“Teddy bear! Come and have tea with us! Natasha and I bake delicious pies! With raspberries!
And they drew pies. Bright, yellow, orange, with a bright crust-hot. And here and there the filling peeks out. Mmmm, how delicious!
Rule No. 3: The hero of the game on a piece of paper is the same participant in it, just like us who draw! After all, everything that we depict happens to him!!!
And this advice is also about action and plot development. We drew Mishutka, then we can come up with something for him interesting development events: “It’s raining! Bear, hide! Here's an umbrella for you! And we give Mikhail an umbrella that we just cut out of colored paper in three seconds!
Does your child really like dogs? Great! It will be a lot of fun if we portray a furry Bug! And, before it leaves the tip of the brush, it barks loudly (in your voice, of course!): “Rrrr, woof! Hello, Baby! Do you have a bone?”
Yes, of course there is something to talk about! “Mashenka, let’s feed the Bug. She’s really hungry!” And happy Masha is already drawing a plate with a juicy sweet bone on it. “Eat, Bug, help yourself!”
Rule #4: Voice what is happening on the sheet!
What would seem simpler? But no. We remain silent, groan, and draw. And not a word. But in vain! After all, words are the same game, its logical and necessary continuation! They can be a prelude, set up and inspire us to create a fascinating story:
"Meow! Meow! - Who's screaming here? (quickly draw ears, a mischievous face) - Kitty! Hello Kitty! Will you play with us?
Rule #5: We don’t teach! We don't criticize!
Very complicated rule. Perhaps the most difficult of all! Even now I sometimes catch myself saying: “What do you have? Ahhhh, so it's a badger! I thought it was an elephant!” It's such a shame, it's such a shame! After all, I tried my best! And it’s crooked - so, mom, I’m not 32, and my motor skills are developed for my age! And the idea of shape and color is not yet as stereotypical as yours! And anyway, who read to me yesterday about the ballerina mouse? And now you're saying that it doesn't happen?
It is difficult, from under the canopy of life experience, not to tell your child that there are no blue apples, that hares do not eat cakes, and that a cat cannot drive a car! In general, this beetle looks more like a mattress, and the fish looks more like a butterfly. Difficult. But probably!
Draw yourself! Sit next to the toddler, take Blank sheet, brush or felt-tip pen and play FOR YOURSELF! And don’t forget to talk about what’s happening: “Wow! Look who's running here! This …"
Next to us wonderful teachers, and they always have an endless supply of patience, love and ideas!
Anna Makovey, a specialist in the Teplyakova method and a playing mother.
Do you want to learn creativity with your baby while developing fine motor skills, imagination and writing skills? Then come to our training "". Spend your time interestingly and usefully!
Do you like to draw? And when did you draw last time? Many years ago? In childhood? And if you liked it, then why don’t you draw now? No time? This is not serious? Or are you thinking: “What’s the point in this, since I’ve been out of business for a long time? childhood and not professional artist. I already have a lot of things to do every day - there’s no time to rest, so why bother with some kind of drawing.”. And further down the list.
Why is drawing useful?
If your thoughts are moving in this direction, spend five minutes on this page. And even if immediately after reading the article you don’t rush to the nearest store for paints and brushes, then at least you can show off your erudition on occasion (I’m in the know). So why is drawing useful and why should you learn to draw? Find out now.
Drawing is a reliable defense against everyday stress
If we are forced to think about everything at once, regularly check our diary or look at our smartphone so as not to miss something important that is planned, our attention jumps from one object to another, because everything needs to be done in time. But no one has yet succeeded in grasping the immensity. What about drawing?
Here everything is tied to focusing on one object - the picture. Full immersion into the process - and then the opportunity to leisurely examine the result.
In the daily whirlwind, not everyone will allow themselves to do this. And if laziness or lack of interest in interesting activities, then he won’t want to.
When we become obsessed with ourselves (oh, what a Difficult life; oh, what constant problems I have; oh, I’m so tired), then drawing will show the world in other colors and will help you perceive life, focusing on the entire spectrum of colors. You will finally be able to notice frost on tree branches, or marvel at the colors of a summer sunset, or the picturesque view of a local pond.
Developing such a vision of space with its colors, shapes, distance is useful, at least in order to reduce stress levels. After all, focusing on the process visual arts, we switch from the mode of daily problems and worries to the mode of relaxation, pleasure and visible results.
Drawing is an opportunity to recharge your batteries, have a great mood, and experience amazing sensations.
We are used to spending hours looking at TV screens, tablets, laptops, and smartphones. We've been swallowed up virtual world. But by passing a brush over the paper on which the paint leaves color, we truly feel this world, we not only see, but also feel tactilely. We are completely immersed in the activity, and we are surprised to realize how much we enjoy it all! Some say that they finally experienced feelings “like in childhood.”
We create everything ourselves - from the untouched white sheet to our result, although not ideal, like an electronic picture, but alive, real. This result may not happen immediately, and may require alterations and improvements - but the effect is amazing. And the picture in our hands is completely ours. It was created by our hands.
The world around us slows down and we enter a state of creative flow. At the same time, minutes or even hours with a brush or pencil in your hand fly by unnoticed.
We experience pleasant or even exciting feelings of freedom, joy, and enjoy the action of mixing colors or shading. And even a feeling of happiness arises. If before drawing the mood was “so-so,” then during the process it changes noticeably in better side. We are surprised (and then without surprise) to feel a surge of strength, even if we felt tired before drawing.
Drawing is the way to yourself
By drawing, we disconnect from worries; creating a picture immerses us in another world. We don’t notice anything extraneous; the center of gravity is our picture. We feel like we were in childhood - we are creators, we feel good, we like both the process and the result. And this process is truly exciting. Everything is in our hands: the choice of colors, color brightness, etc., what we will paint.
We are creators and decide what and how to do. And how many! Drawing gives us the opportunity to experiment, to see from different angles; it teaches us to notice the little things in life, to be aware, to listen to ourselves - and these skills eventually transfer into everyday life.
Drawing is like a game, a test of strength, an opportunity for self-expression, a way of creative self-development. There is something childlike and spontaneous in the process of drawing. Allow yourself to pamper your inner child - you will look and feel younger. By the way, watch this video “6 reasons to start drawing from the point of view modern science", it will only take you 5 minutes.
If the benefits of drawing are so tangible, then why don’t we still draw?
- We justify ourselves by being endlessly busy with more “important” things. Many people live by the principle: “How to do 100 million urgent things in a day and not go crazy.” With such a rhythm of life, by the evening you won’t forget your name! And, naturally, there is no time for your desires and creativity. Unfortunately.
- We are afraid that we won’t succeed, even if we want to draw. If in early years we were criticized or generally mocked for our perhaps inept attempts to express ourselves on paper, or, worst of all, we were told that we had no artistic talent- it all settles in the depths of the psyche and transforms into one’s own beliefs.
- We are afraid that others will find out about our “frivolous” painting and will think that we are frivolous, just like children.
- We unconsciously fear what we may discover in the depths of our “I”. If we uncover a layer of something like that, suddenly something in our life will turn upside down, making us feel, see, realize, think differently. We are afraid to see our real selves.
How to start drawing?
If you still doubt that drawing is useful or just the idea that you can draw regularly, enjoy both the process and the result, seems unrealistic, or are simply afraid to start - take three steps towards a most exciting activity.
- In order for drawing to be beneficial, classes should become regular, ideally daily. The most interesting thing is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time on this - see point 2. Let everything happen naturally: if you have time and desire - draw for an hour, if you don’t have enough time - allow yourself 15 minutes. Even if you draw 15 minutes a day, but regularly, your skills will develop quickly, and you will appreciate the effectiveness artistic creativity as a way to cope with daily stress and fatigue.
- Start small. First, select a drawing format, for example, A6 or A5. When you get comfortable in this space, there will be more time, the mood will be appropriate - you can increase the format. It doesn’t take too much time to create a small picture, but you can gain experience quite quickly. A small sheet of paper helps you overcome the fear of failure and start experimenting with materials, colors, ways of drawing and conveying objects, working through ideas, and finding something of your own.
- Make mistakes. Immediately understand and accept that not every painting you make will be a masterpiece. And that's okay! And if something doesn’t turn out the way you expected, oddly enough, this also has its own “plus”. Just than more errors you allow yourself to do it, the faster your skills will develop and, in the end, the better the result. You saw mistakes in your work, drew conclusions - next time you will reach a different level of skill. Once you start drawing, you will see for yourself how much joy and delight a small picture drawn with your own hands can bring.
I want to draw!
I started drawing in 2015. And since then I haven’t been able to stop. My favorite paint so far is gouache. I so wanted other people to also experience the magical effect of drawing that I began to involve my relatives in this activity. My mother resisted at first, saying that she couldn’t do it. You should see her now! Every Tuesday our friendly family art club draws another masterpiece. But this one.
If you want to draw, but don't know where to start, find a suitable assistant ! Find your direction, take action, enjoy the process, be happy with the result! Feel how bright life is and how many interesting things there are in it. You just have to want to see it.
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With wishes of inspiration,
Natalya Reutova.
Drawing is an amazing, complex skill that will help bring your imagination into shape and color. And note, this is a skill! No, I don’t want to say that drawing is easy, the biggest misconception is exactly what it sounds like. But there are things that have become a kind of myth-barriers that slow down your growth, your inner desire to draw.
Here they are, meet:
I can not draw
By this myth, we most often mean that we don’t know how to draw realistic things. And instead of understanding how to make our drawings more realistic or looking for ourselves in other styles, we simply abandon drawing to hell. Hey, remember your childhood: you drew everything, everywhere. You just liked to draw, you studied, improved your techniques. Of course, it didn’t matter to you whether it was beautiful or not, until the moment came: other children were praised, but you were not. Then you tried again to make your drawings more realistic, but nothing worked out for you and you gave up.
So, when someone says “I don't know how to cook,” does that mean “I don't know how to cook?” at all“? It means “I can’t cook” Fine“. It’s the same with drawing; each activity has its own spectrum of skill.
If 0 is “I can’t”, then 1 is “I can do a little”. Let's say 10 is perfection. It's amazing, but most of people perceive drawing as a skill that has only two levels: 0 (“I can’t do it”) and 10 (“I can do it perfectly”). If you like the way someone draws, it means they know how to draw; if you don’t like it, it means they don’t know how to draw. Such beliefs can ruin your painting dreams. How is it possible to cross this gap from level 0 to level 10?
- 0 is the level of a person who cannot hold a pencil in his hands and move it across paper. Can you? So you are at least at level 1!
- you can draw geometric figures, and even if they don’t turn out beautifully, it will be clear what kind of figure this is?
- can you redraw something or at least draw its outlines, its shadows? If not, can you circle the object from the photo by attaching a piece of paper to it?
- Do you have a desire to draw without nature, to translate everything accumulated into a drawing and you can draw a leaf without having it in front of you?
- you can draw things that don't look realistic, but they are regarded by everyone as "real"?
Then you just need to practice, you are already above level 2.
Artists are born
Drawing talent can be referred to as a set of characteristics that make a person more capable of learning. Talent is where most of the misconceptions arise. But the worst thing is that they are the ones who give you hope from the very beginning. And as a result, we just give up drawing.
Do gifted people have it easier at first? Yes, but it's not as big an advantage as you might think. It's the same as having plus five points when you need a hundred in order to draw cool. Even if we assume that a person was born immediately with level 4, do not forget that these first four levels are the simplest! They are quite easy to get through if you accept the fact that they need to learn– they were not given to you right away.
If you, seeing a gorgeous drawing created in a short period of time, think that its author is talented, you are mistaken. What you see took the author years to achieve; he was not born immediately experienced. In fact, there are many gifted third-level artists who are unaware of their abilities because they compare themselves to someone who has worked hard.
Is the point clear?
Your drawings should impress
Of course this is very important to you.
Have you often felt upset by a negative comment? You spent joyful hours drawing, and all your satisfaction was dissolved... because someone didn't like your drawing.
The thrill of learning and the joy of creativity are good in themselves, even if no one sees the effect. It's normal that you want to share your joy with others, but when that's your only motivation, endeavors will be a constant disappointment.
A real artist will draw whatever he wants
Drawing is just one skill, and there is a wide range of them, with cartoonists on one side and architects on the other. If you want to try to be a pro everywhere, then you will have it everywhere average level. Until level 5, the drawing experience will feel a little generic. But after it you will need to decide: Architecture? Animals? Human? Background? As you will understand, there are many subsections within each of these sections. But in each of them you will find other subsections. For example, animals include fantastic beasts, dinosaurs, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and generally different families and species...
Drawing requires special tools
Going into book Shop, you can find two types of drawing books there: for fun and about professional drawing. The first type of books are mainly step by step instructions and drawing specific subject. Ultimately, this book will teach you nothing. You will have the result - a concrete drawing that the book taught you, and without it you would be lost.
The second type of books is more difficult. Typically, their first chapter is dedicated to artist supplies. And the authors of such textbooks assume that if you use only a pencil, you can only achieve that first type. After that there will be a long talk about all types of pencils, erasers and papers, including information about tools you have no idea how to draw with, such as ink or charcoal.
You, reading this chapter, holding your pencil and a simple eraser, a thin sheet of paper in your hands, are tormented by doubts. The situation is similar when you want to cook a dish according to a recipe and you don’t have the necessary ingredients. You doubt and your mood is no longer the same!
Look at Leonardo da Vinci's sketches and think about it. He didn't have a graphics tablet, let alone a Cintiq. You, too, can create sketches just as well with a pencil or pen. Just focus on that you are drawing, not on the instrument.
