Tag Archives: drawing

Draw action poses from simple stick figures – Here’s how for all artists

Every masterpiece begins with a stick figure drawing.

Real artists, yes even the really great ones, work out their art with thumbnail drawings and stick figure sketches – often on the backs of envelopes or paper napkins in restaurants.

To draw a stick figure is easy. To draw an action stick figure needs a little more work.

With a bit of practice you’ll learn how the body moves so you’ll be able to draw anything you like from any angle.

Luckily we can use photographs to help us work things out. In this video, Shoo goes through the process and shows you how to draw your own action stick figures. Why not draw along?

You’ll find the photo of Rod Laver here:

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Create Characters by looking at real life animals and insects

Be inspired by real life to create truly original characters.

A beetle crossed my path on a walk the other day. I filmed it and took photos. When I enlarged the photos, there were elements of its design that inspired me to sketch out some ideas.

A triangle theme emerged and I developed that further, each time trying to simplify the character to make it easier to draw again and again.

Consistency is the secret to drawing characters – you have to recognise them in each frame of animation or page of book. So, simplicity and definite character identifiers are really important.

It’s difficult dreaming up new ideas from your head. Go out and look at what nature has already designed and work with those shapes and ideas.

Have fun and good luck! If you have drawing or illustration questions you would like Shoo to answer – put them in the comments box below through the contact page.

Subscribe to this channel on YouTube for lots more drawing videos from award-winning illustrator, Shoo Rayner ?? http://bit.ly/Sub2Shoo

How to sketch on the beach – draw along with me

I was looking through my sketchbooks and I really like this sketch of my niece and great nephew that I drew on a glorious day near Tenby in SouthWales.

It’s not a photograph. It doesn’t particularly look like them, but it captures a moment and an essence of their personality that anyone who knows them would recognise.

Sketching is about looking and understanding and this comes from doing it. You can practice by sketching from photographs, but that will make you want to copy the image rather than the essence of the scene.

The subjects move about and the sun changes the lighting and the shadows and people have a habit of sitting down in front of you so you can’t see anymore, so you have to snap and image in your mind’s eye and work from that, just checking for detail now and then.

Sketching can be really simple. It’s not meant to be a masterpiece. It’s not a picture to hang on the wall (though it might turn out to be good enough) It’s a note to yourself – a memory of something that caught your eye, something you might use again another time.

It’s a statement of understanding and knowledge. “I saw this – I understood it and I drew it.”