Practice Sketching

As I said earlier, practice helps you improve your skills. And sketching practice helps you improve not just your sketching skills, but almost about any form of visual art - no matter what medium. If you can sketch good, then you will not have hard time working on painting (be it digital or traditional), or desigining in 3D.

But even to get good at sketching, you need to practice. The basic unit of a sketch can be said to be lines. Those curvy or straight lines. Those faint or crisp lines. If you can draw them the way you want, confidently, then your sketch will turn out well. Hence, to do good sketches, practice on your line strokes, until you are sure that you can draw any line, the way you want.

There are two factors that decide how the line looks. One is obviously the shape. The other is the hardness or faintess of the line. Initially, do not bother much about the faintness of the line. Focus on the shape of the line. Practice drawing the lines in different directions - vertical, horizontal, slanted (both ways). Draw them on any rough paper, and fill them up with the scribbles.

You can even try some bent lines, at 90 degrees, as in the above illustration. You can even try them out at different angles. Just keep drawing them, until you are sure your wrists and fingers are fluid enough. Draw confident strokes in one go.

Once you are done with it, and start to get a bit bored at the seemingly lame practice, move on to something more complex. Draw an assortment of lines in different shapes.

Remember to draw them with a bit of space in between. Do not worry about how hard you have to press down - do not bother about the transperency. Just draw some randowm shapes that is a combination of different shapes.

Next, push it to another level. Draw lines in between the lines you drew earlier. Remember to draw them in as many single strokes as possible before lifting your pencil. You need not even bother drawing them in different color - I have it that way for purpose of illustration. You might even cross over few lines or draw over predrawn ones. Try to avoid them, but do not worry too much - you are practicing.

If you feel you have enough space in between the lines, you can draw once more

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You can do it as many times as you wish, but try to do it atleast two or three times each time you practice.

This practice will improve your control over the lines more.

Practice every day, and if possible, more than once a day. In a couple of days or weeks, you will have full control over the lines. You may not know which lines will end up showing which subject, but you will now know how to draw a line right the way you want. You have your basic skills on your belt now, and it will be easier for you to move on to draw actual subjects. (By actual subjects, I mean, something other than just abstract shapes and lines).

If you want to know more on the sketching practice as a whole, download a free guide on sketching: You Too Can Sketch.