Name: Top 5 Drawing Mistakes
Uploaded: 2019-10-16T14:47:58.000Z
Duration: 12 min 42 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hey guys I'm Stan Prokopenko, welcome to Proko.

My last video on the Top 5 Shading Mistakes was really well received, so I'm back with

Shading is part of drawing, but I'm excluding that from this video, because...

So watch and see if you're making any of these mistakes.

Learning from your mistakes is what makes you a better artist.

Before we jump in, I want to quickly mention that I'm working on a drawing basics course.

It's meant to be a new artist's first course.

Get you started doing the right things and hit the ground running.

If you don't want to miss it when it comes out, get on the newsletter at proko.com/subscribe.

So, here are 5 drawing mistakes you're probably making, and how to fix them.

When I say there's no continuity, I'm talking about stuff like the edge of a table that

changes levels every time it disappears behind an object, the limbs don't line up, the hilt

of a sword that changes angles or thickness as it comes out of a hand... stuff like that.

This mistake can be fixed by using your artistic superpower, X-RAY VISION!

I'm talking about drawing through your forms.

Use light lines to draw through objects to make sure everything is the right size and

Maybe some of this information and some of these lines won't make it to the final drawing,

but as the creator of this world you need to understand more than you show.

Starting the drawing with x-ray vision allows you to define those things that are behind

The next mistake is avoiding drawing things just because you don't know how to draw them.

Everyone's done this at least once, me included.

Put them in pockets, or gloves, or just crop them out.

I'll just make this grass patch a little taller.

I know some landscape artists that paint only landscapes because they're not good at painting

These are professional landscape painters.

They show and sell their work in galleries.

But personally, I would feel very limited if I always had to remove

Imagine James Gurney's paintings without people or animals.

Still beautiful, but aren't you glad that James learned how to paint anything he wanted?

Don't you want to be able to paint anything you want?

Avoiding your weakness becomes a pattern.

You can get away with this for a while, but really you're just stumping your own growth.

And artist to artist, it's super obvious what you're doing.

Be determined to make your weaknesses into your strengths.

And be confident enough in yourself to believe that you can turn weaknesses into strengths.

A great man once said: You're not defined by your problems, but by your response to them.

Making messy lines frees you up from not making any lines at all for fear of making them messy.

Masters get wild by choice, not by lack of skill.

A lack of skill is an embarrassing style.

Let's look at an example of a messy drawing.

Too many lines make this drawing unclear.

Drawing is communication, and unclear drawing is just muttering.

If you need 6 lines to indicate the contour of an object, is it because you just love

that six-line look, or because you don't know which line is right?

How would I check my proportions on this arm?

It's like a map that says "I dunno, it's around here somewhere."

Or you just didn't spend the time to define it?

Or you just can't pull one long fluid line?

It's probably because you're using your wrist and fingers to draw long lines instead of

Train yourself to be able to draw long fluid strokes from your shoulder and short detailed

Replace your sloppy habit with deliberate masterful dexterity.

But the longer you wait, the stronger the bad habit becomes.

Here are some examples of masters getting wild by choice.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Top 5 Drawing Mistakes

figure

deliberate

exaggerate

accurate