Drawing as a Hobby

 

 

Have you always admired the talent to draw from others?

Are you impressed by street artists with their drawings? 

Do you like art in general?

Even though you have always been attracted to the drawing, you have never dared to try it. However, it's never too late to learn how to draw! Have fun from now on, developing your drawing skills and making it a hobby.

You can do it in a relaxed way, without stress, feeling only the pleasure to make your own drawings, given free rein to your imagination, express your feelings through the drawing.

Do not put as an excuse that you do not have the talent to draw since this activity is not innate to people, but it can be learned very quickly!

When you make your first sketches, you will not be satisfied with your work, but after a while, once you know the basics, you will realize that drawing brings happiness!
 
 

Reasons to draw 

Draw to disconnect from the digital world

Nowadays, we cannot escape the screens and we must recognize that we cannot do without them. Surf the Internet, play online, check social networks, watch TV ... Screens are present in our life from morning to night.

Who does not consult their mobile phone either awake or even still in bed? How many times a day do you check your email? When you look at this statistics, it's chilling:

According to a study funded by the European Union, 21.3% of Spanish adolescents are at risk of developing an addiction to the Internet, compared to 12.7% in Europe, which makes Spain the European leader in adolescent addiction to the Internet.

We consult our mobile an average of 150 times a day, according to Oracle Marketing Cloud.

Most people spent an average of four hours a day watching television.

How about? What if you escape a little from this virtual world? If you spend 30 minutes or more a day drawing, you will reduce the time you spend in front of the screens. As a sweet parenthesis, you can disconnect to devote your time to a healthy passion and let your creativity flourish...

The drawing can also be useful in other situations. Do you want to quit smoking? The drawing will be an important support in your daily life since it is the ideal way to dedicate yourself to something else and to clear your mind while you relax.

Learn to draw to enjoy the present

When you learn to draw, you surprise us how we suddenly look at everything that surrounds us. It is as if all the details that we did not usually see suddenly became visible to our eyes.

You will see that, instead of waiting for the bus looking at the screen of your mobile, you will begin to observe the people, the landscape ... This is the first step to learn to enjoy the present! Take your time to look, feel things, see them differently ... Without knowing it, you will be conceiving in your head what will be your next drawing.

Do you like to walk through the countryside? Enjoy the good weather on a terrace? All occasions are good for drawing your sketchbook. Enjoy the present moment fully, drawing a beautiful landscape, a scene from everyday life, the portrait of a stranger...

Your way of viewing things will change naturally. There are many occasions to get you to draw:

• Draw a landscape.

• Make a portrait.

• Make a caricature.

• Painting a still life.

Surely you take your model cat in some of your drawings! Or try to reproduce the facial features of your baby while you sleep ... When you learn to draw, you have to take advantage of the moment and take time to observe and thus integrate things differently.

 

Learn to draw to develop your creativity

In addition to relaxation, drawing has other beneficial effects. You can:

• Develop your creativity.

• Gain confidence in yourself.

• Open your mind.

• Stimulate your imagination, etc.

When you learn to draw, you usually start with simple objects, since making a faithful copy already involves the first difficulty. With daily practice, progress is made quickly. When you start creating your own compositions, you may have the fear of the blank page.

Are you afraid of the lack of inspiration? Of not being creative enough to make original drawings? The first step is to focus on yourself. Creativity is something that is not learned, but everyone can be creative. What differentiates artists is their approach to art and also their perception of reality, their sensitivity and their state of mind.

The advantage of drawing as a hobby is that there is no obstacle to creativity. You just have to let your ideas, desires or emotions come out free. If you do not like the result, this does not mean you have to leave, but it is only the first step on the road that will lead you to the result you expect so much.

In any case, creativity comes from creating. A paradox? No, since the act of drawing exercises the brain, like any other activity, so by stimulating the brain, you stimulate your creative side.

Creativity also requires patience. An idea, an inspiration must have time to mature before taking shape. Let your spontaneity fly, keep your mind open to everything around you and, above all, get used to drawing every day.

 

The benefits of drawing 

As we have just seen, learning to draw is a good way to develop your artistic sense, but this activity has other advantages. It is a very beneficial exercise for health, regardless of the age of those who practice it. It can even become a therapy.

Learning to draw has positive effects on:

Motor skills: It is a highly recommended activity for young children and the elderly to stimulate their motor skills. Drawing requires good coordination of movements, especially to work on basic motor functions or fine motor skills.

Concentration: Drawing favors concentration. It is an effective activity that helps to refocus the mind and thinking. This technique helps autistics or children with hyperactivity to develop their concentration skills.

Morality: With its anti-stress properties, drawing reduces the worries of everyday life and avoids the negative thoughts accumulated during the day. Sales of coloring books for adults are constantly increasing in recent years.

The brain: Picking up a pencil and drawing a sketch helps stimulate the brain and improve cognitive abilities. Think and conceptualize a drawing, do it, improve your logical mind ... Drawing has many benefits.

Drawing also develops your communication skills, learning to express yourself through your creations, expressing your emotions ... There are many reasons to learn to draw. Whatever your main motivation, one thing is clear: drawing is a healthy activity that will allow you to become a person.

So take your pencils, your charcoal, your brushes, your markers ... You just need to find the subject: draw a horse, draw a cat, make a portrait of a loved one, draw one of your favorite landscapes, etc.

Sure you do not lack inspiration, so you'll only have to take classes to improve your drawing techniques : perspective drawing, realistic drawing, still life, humorous drawing, caricature etc.

 

The Best Free Resources for Getting Started With drawing 

Drawing basically comprises of two components: learning to control hand movements and understanding what you see. Controlled hand performances are essential to use your eye so that you get comfortable with hand patterns. This eye-hand coordination is a basic concept for a beginner to build their skills in pursuing a drawing hobby. However, you will be able to develop a perception only when you realize what you see and rediscover.

Am I 'talented' to take up a drawing hobby? 

Taking up a drawing hobby and working to gain expertise on it isn't a very easy task. Primarily, a lot of focus is needed to be able to see how you perceive things around you. Watch darkness spread on paper with proper practice and guide to learning how to draw. Even with the best tutorials to teach you to improve your skills, you still have to devote quite a number of years to hone your expertise. As you see, a step-by-step drawing guide is only a starting point for the beginner. When you start understanding and gain experience on various subject matters you will be able to draw connections between developing your drawing hobby and spatial intelligence of the mind.

Getting a head start with anything especially with building up artistic skills puts you at an advantage, but you can always learn to draw. If you want to get started with you drawing hobby, you just have to begin straight away! Giving an hour each day to improve your drawing skills means at a 1% growth rate over the span of a year's time you will have accomplished so much if you stick to committing yourself to learning the hobby.

What does it take to become an artist? 

Know that artists are people with great patience. As you already know it is possible to learn to draw as an adult only if you're persistent with improving your skills in your drawing hobby. Artists usually toil hard until they can get their craft right. Yes, drawing is a pursuit for life. But, that doesn't necessarily mean it will take you years to draw something meaningful. What you need is to keep practicing on your drawing skills. Always stay curious and enjoy the progress as you put your skills to work hard.

Complete beginner drawing basics 

Practice drawing value scales on paper. Learning how to hold a pencil and get control of the tones you create helps you to draw objects. Develop eye-hand coordination to create graded value scales. The skill ensures that artists will be able to understand their pencils even better and get success with drawing. There is no shortage of step-by-step drawing instructions available for you to get started with your drawing hobby. Above all, you must be able to think and become a visual problem solver rather than just follow instructions to develop your craft.

EnvatoTuts+ ( https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/i-want-to-draw-simple-exercises-for-complete-beginners--vector-20583 ) 
Struggling with drawing shapes and sizing objects? Find out what are the basic skills that can be easily forgotten if you work digitally. Their comprehensive drawing tutorial will help you learn how to draw as a beginner. 

To be able to give a finished touch to your artwork, you can access the various apps geared towards iPad users to get creative. By taking your painting from a rough drawing to a digitally enhanced finished product you will be able to test your hand to making use of iPad's stylus.

Procreate - https://procreate.art/ 
Procreate is an App Store essential that allows you to sketch, paint and draw with the recently released version  supporting the iPad pro models. Exercise your hand at layering and improvise on brush sizes from 400px up to 1600px. Using the Streamline technology, you will be able to stabilize your brush strokes in real-time as well as add filter, layer, and colors to work on your sketch. This one really defines digital drawing and is the leading choice for illustrators all over the world.

Adobe Photoshop Sketch - https://www.adobe.com/in/products/sketch.html 
In a familiar Photoshop interface, designers will be able to get access to the various existing tools such as the graphite pencil, erasers, blending markers, ink pen, acrylic and pastel brushes using which you can perfect your illustrations even further. As part of Adobe Creative Cloud membership, Photoshop Sketch comes for free and can be availed from the iOS App Store . 

Adobe Illustrator Draw - https://www.adobe.com/in/products/draw.html 

Create vector art with Illustrator Draw's handy art tools that makes your experience much more efficient. The Touch Slide Digital ruler lets you to create perfect lines and curves. 

As a beginner, these are the six drawing exercises you can start right now and know the reason why you should stop taking pictures and start drawing . Enjoy putting the elements of seeing and think of the ways to put them into drawing. It helps you to process your thoughts.

Also, here is a free drawing course  that will provide you with access to all the resources you need to learn in a smart way as a pursuer of drawing hobby.

Drawspace - https://www.drawspace.com/ 

Learn to draw and sketch various things at this one site that caters to artists of all skill levels. Jump to your skill level at the site layout that offers over 500 free and paid classes to get started at all levels. Avail impressive drawing tutorials with detailed steps and illustration in a downloadable PDF. For more inspiration to get started with your drawing hobby, check out what the site owner has to say about yearning to improve skills as an artist. 

Drawing Coach - http://www.drawingcoach.com/ 

Do you have the special talent to combine interesting cartoon art with humor? If storytelling with cartoons is your forte, you could as well as take up drawing comic strips. Here you will be able to learn how to design your drawing hobby around doing what you love - building witty stories. With heavily enriched technique laden tutorials available on the site you can dive into a world of cartoons and caricatures from a fresh perspective.

Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner by Claire Watson Garcia (Amazon) 

The perfect book to start with your drawing hobby, it has lots of exercise lessons that will help you form perspective, understand values, and negative spaces. If you're a newbie, the book will teach you to draw with accuracy such that you will be able to execute the skills properly. The teaching style here is approachable both for young starters and adult hobbyists, so this should be a great start.

Light for Visual Artists by Richard Yot (Amazon) 

Understanding & Using Light in Art & Design

Understand the artistic angles of rendering light and shadow. The book is an ideal introductory guide for artists to learn techniques and understand how changes in light impacts object in a scene. Also, learn more about color selection. An absolutely perfect book for anyone to refer to for advancing their art skills and is a good guide for the hobbyist.

To get started with your drawing hobby, refer to these incredible sources. If you're already skilled as an intermediate or advanced learner, what exactly helped you develop an eye for art and to gain expertise? Share your thoughts with us.

 

Related hobbies: Painting , Sketching , Photography