You Can Draw Anything! In 3 Simple Steps

1. Trailer: Hello, my name is [inaudible]. I'm a self-taught watercolor and ink and other mixed media artist. I'm here to tell you that if you can draw a square, a circle, a triangle, and simple straight and curved lines, then you can draw anything you want. I have developed a three-step process that will help you draw, absolutely anything, no matter what skill level you are, the steps make drawing much simpler and solve a lot of problems that begin with space from getting the right proportions to figuring out where to start and they even help drawer complicated scenes or subjects. It's not rocket science. In fact, these steps are very simple to follow and to implement. The steps are what I use when I create anything and have come from years of drawing. I know how hard it is to improve in drawing. I've already been through a lot of the challenges we all go through. This is why I decided to share the three steps. Along the way, we'll learn a lot of other things. Like how to see like an artist and how to stylize your work. I will show you many examples of the three steps being put to use, and there will even be a live example in which I will walk you through how I think when drawing anything. No excuses. You can definitely draw and do it well. Pick up your pencil, and let's get started. 2. Quick Warmup: Hey guys, welcome to the class. Before you start drawing along with me, let's do a quick warm-up or you can come back to this lesson when you're ready to draw. For this exercise, be sure to use something that you can't erase. So a ballpoint pen or a marker will do great. Now start by drawing your basic shapes, a square, a circle, a triangle, a rectangle and oval. Notice how I'm not trying to make them perfect, I'm just drawing them quickly and loosely. Next, make a blob by closing off squiggly lines. Then practice making straight and parallel lines, then just simply wavy lines and you can play around with this if you want to. If any of the shapes are lines which are difficult to do, you should practice making them over and over again until it becomes easy. This could take more than one session, but you really should master these simple shapes and lines. You can take out a whole page and just do circles everyday for a couple of days and you'll see a huge improvement. Another fun way to practice your shapes is to make one big shape and then keep repeating it within until it gets tiny. I also did this with a nonsense shape using straight and angular lines. Notice how I'm very loose and sketchy. We will be using these shapes and the sketching mode of our Illustration. So there is no need to be perfect. You can also do a wavy line blob shape and keep going within in a creative way or you could even make a wavy line and then just keep drawing next to it following the previous sign. Also practice quick and loose straight strokes and a wavy line with bent edges. Now to finish off this piece, I'm going to go wild. I'm going to fill in all the empty space with either shapes or lines. Be sure to have fun and get loose at this stage, we are just practicing putting deliberate strokes down on the page and we are being experimental and open. There is no wrong way of doing this. Just think of it as loose doodling. Now we're done. It doesn't look like much happened, but trust me, the simple exercise really helped. I hope you had fun along the way. This is the point of drawing after all, repeat this as much as you want and whenever you want and you will naturally improve. If you can do these simple shapes and lines, you'll be able to draw anything you want. Now let's learn the secret ingredient for drawing like a real artist. 3. The Holy Grail of Drawing: If you do this one thing right, you will be able to draw anything, all of your boundaries and limits will melt away.The Holy Grail of Drawing is just seeing through an artist's eye by observing. Before I explain further, I'm just going to show you what I mean. What is this, you will say an eye, pause the video right now, take out a piece of scrap paper and draw this eye the best of your ability, quickly. Welcome back or shame on you for being lazy, just kidding. Now here I am drawing the eye without really observing, instead of drawing what I see, I'm putting down what my brain thinks an eye looks like not what it really does. This is a complete lie, if you're drawing stylize and loose and this is done on purpose and that's completely fine but here we're trying to draw our subject as closely as we can and that's a problem. If you're drawing looks like this it's nothing to be ashamed of it just means you'll benefit the most from this class. If you want to see your progress from this class, hold onto this drawing and then try drawing the eye again at the end of the class. I think you'll surprise yourself. Now I'm going to show you how I would draw the eye using the power of observation. First, I start by looking at the eye, I'm going to take my time with this. I'm paying attention to all the little details. I'm not looking at an eye while doing this but instead a collection of details, value changes, colors, lines and shapes. I continue observing it but start to draw. Notice how the outline this time is not a perfect almond shape but the exact shape I observed. I drew it just by curving my line where I see a curve in the reference, I am just copying what I see. I continued doing this, I observe how the eyelashes move in each section, knows that they're not straight lines or perfectly curved lines but each eyelash is different, they even go slightly in the eye or overlap and so forth. I continue drawing in every little detail that I notice, even the shadows of the eyelashes and veins in the white part of the eye. Now I notice that I took a shortcut while drawing this and this messed up the truth of the image. The shape is completely different in the reference and this happened because I didn't observe the eye well enough and I have previous experience in drawing eyes so I think I know what it looks like, no matter I simply fix this. My point is that we all do this whether we are experienced artists or beginners. We let our brains fill in the blanks and that's not always a good thing, especially if you don't have any drawing experience. You are used to the things that you drew as a kid and it really gets in the way of drawing things the way they truly are. The biggest problem with this is wrong proportions, I continue adding details like the folds of her skin and the stray hairs from her eyebrows but while doing this I don't think if it is skin or eyebrow but as lines. I'm all done and I want to point out that the first I took one minute to draw but this one took five. Taking your timings is giving yourself more time to observe. In summary, I didn't use any preconceived notions of what an eye looks like, I paid attention to all the little details and broke them down into simple lines on paper using the same angles and shapes as the reference. Observation is a crucial first step to becoming an artist even if you're going to make extremely stylized or cartoony art, it really pays to be able to observe everything that you see and the better you're at observing, the easier it'll be to draw it and simplifying any art style, because you will always need to use references unless you draw the same thing hundreds or thousands of times until the point of memorization of its form and anatomy. Now that you know the most important skill in drawing practice so wherever you go, always pay attention to your surroundings and see the beauty in them. Pass the names your brain gives them. This is best done in a beautiful nature scene but can really be done anywhere, beauty and form is all around you. Now, I'm going to reveal the drawing process broken down to three simple steps but these steps cannot be done correctly if you do not observe. Keep this in mind and try to see everything for its simple shapes in minds, not the names you give them. Don't let your brain tell you how to draw listen to your eyes. 4. The Three Simple Steps: Now, let's break down the drawing of any subject into three simple steps. I will be using reference photos throughout the class, but if you have objects that you would like to draw in the real world right in front of you, that is always better to do. But it's really a personal preference and sometimes it's not an option. The first step is very simple, just break down your subject into simple shapes and sometimes lines. This lily looks complex, but if I do one petal at a time, it's just a bunch of shapes, same thing with this girl or even this dog. To get used to seeing things as shapes, it might be a good idea to grab an old magazine and break down its photos into basic shapes by drawing over them with a marker. If you have a light table that might be even better, or if you have a drawing tablet, you can do exactly what I'm doing. Even complicated images can be easily broken down. Just take your time and observe. We are now paying attention to the details here, just the larger shapes and proportions. You will get better with time at seeing this if you just practice doing so. Now, let's see the step and action with his cute bird. I start by drawing an oval for the head, then I draw out the bottom part of it's body with another oval and connect the triangle at the end of it.. Then I draw two angle lines for the top part of his wing, and then I add two small triangles for the tips of its wings. I also break down its feet into simple triangular shapes and add a triangle beak and a circle eye. Now, I observe my sketch and the reference and the shapes still don't match fully. I am paying attention to the proportions and making sure they are correct. The left edge should be a little higher, so I simply erase and redraw it. Its belly should be bigger and rounder, so I just draw it in. We are loose and sketchy at this stage, so it doesn't have to look perfect. I am mostly concentrating on getting the right proportions. When doing this on paper, be sure to use your lightest pencil. That's it for step 1. Now, if you're a beginner artist this will take longer than it does for me, and that's completely fine. Just take your time and erase if you need to. This step is all about getting the proportions right, which was the hardest thing for me to do when I started drawing. Just observe. If something doesn't look right, tweak the shape, whether you have to make it bigger or smaller or change the angle, it doesn't matter. Just keep tweaking the shape until it looks like the same proportions and shapes as the reference. Just use simple shapes and lines, observing and drawing your skills, they will get better with practice. With step 1, we got our subject mapped out and it already looks like what we're drawing. Now, without any stress, we can move on to step 2. Step 2 is simply to refine. By that I don't mean add detail, but to just refine and sign around the general shapes to what the reference looks like using our observation skills. This is still a part of the sketch, so it does not have to be perfect. We're just working on the silhouette and the larger details. When drawing the step, I'm just paying attention to why the lines curve, where there are more straight, around and where the bigger details are. We're essentially creating a perfect outline of all the things that the illustration has. The hardest part was step 1. Once we have the proportion zone, refining is easy. Just observe one part of the subject at a time and add on top of your shapes. Notice how I sketched in the feet by observing. I know they can be frightening to beginner artists, but it's just shapes and lines. When you get stuck on something that you think is hard, just remember that and try your best to copy what you see. You will get better with time. Notice how the silhouette is more organic now and looks like a real bird instead of the hard lines and smooth circles from the previous step. This is what we are trying to achieve. I also sketched in with a fur changes color because that is a bigger detail. If you like simplified drawings, this could be your last step. The bird is now perfectly defined and looks like a bird, but let's take it one step further with step 3. Step 3 is adding detail and finishing up. The most important thing to do at this stage is to notice that details. This stage can be done in numerous different ways depending on your style and favorite medium. If you want to be realistic, you can finish off at step 3 but pay attention to the values, which are simple lights and darks. Like here, I used the pencil and pressed on harder for darks and lighter for lights. I paid attention to the details. I did not use any outlines. This is the hardest way to draw, but the most realistic. The second example, I ignored the values and I still paid attention to the details and interpreted them using simple lines. Notice how I drew in every single detail and that doesn't look very good. You can also use the plain hatching to add shade in this kind of illustration to make it look better and with values. Now, in the third example, I did the same thing with the interpretation of details and two lines, but this time I chose to leave out details and I did it loosely and in my style. I still observed the reference by interpreting information in my own way and played around with it. The great thing about being an artist is that we have the freedom to change things around, add things, or not include things. What happens on their page is up to us and we'll talk about this more in a future lesson. Let's get back to the bird. I zoom in more because now we're paying attention to the little things, because step 3 is adding details and finishing up. Notice how in step 2 I got the silhouette shape, but I'm not tracing it perfectly because birds are fluffy from their feathers, and I like to exaggerate that. This is where your personal style comes in. If you want to be realistic, you can draw every little detail that you see, or if you want to be stylized, you can be more selective and do your own thing. With step 2 done, here it's easily recognizable as a bird, and you can go crazy if you like. I go for a mixed between realism and looseness. I love the messy ink look, and that's the kind of brush that I use. I don't include every single detail and every single feather, because as you remember with the second bare example, that does not look good. I'm selective with what I draw, and this is something I developed with time. I don't even think about it nowadays, but you can try to consciously pick what to include and what to leave out. But it is a skill and it requires practice and experience. Yes, sometimes you will make bad drawings, but you'll be closer to developing your style. It doesn't matter, as long as you have fun in making them but over time you will learn a lot and improve. I continue adding details throughout the piece and I use the guides from the previous step to guide me in where to place them. Since I don't have to worry about where to put things, I can commonly draw one detail at a time, not having to worry about whether my piece will look right. The three steps work because proportions are the hardest thing for a beginner artist to get right. We get that down perfectly before adding any details. The end result is super cute and looks like our bird from the reference. But I want you to see that I did not draw the proportions absolutely perfectly. That doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's recognizable and that I had fun in drawing him. Drawing shouldn't be a chore with extremely high expectations. It is not a test. It's supposed to be fun. Don't worry so much about doing a perfect job. Just do the best that you can and just do it with the joy of creating. With time, it will become easier until it's second nature. With the three steps, your subject will always be recognizable. Now, let's see the three steps being put to use in our live example, so that you can see what I'm thinking, what I'm doing in each step. 5. Live Example: Now, let's see the three steps in action. I started off by drawing a circle for the head, because to me it looks circular. Now, I'm going to do a triangle coming out for the snout, and another little circle for the mouth. It has little triangular horns. See, it's just simple lines, very easy and I can make the ear into a strange-looking rectangle as well. Next, I'm going to do the neck. I can divide into two parts, so we have one rectangle. This is all about the proportions, it's not about the details right now. We're just getting the basic shapes down, maybe two lines extending like this. The eye is very important, so let's just put it where it should be. I see that it's below this, right in the middle of this, so I can do this if I want to make it easier for myself, and it's also below that ear. This is where the eye is. Now, I can put a bump here because there's a bump and the second eye is coming out. The hair on the back, I can just make a long line going around this for that. Step one is pretty much done. Now, I can move on to step two, which is to refine these shapes into what I see. This is pretty easy, we're just going to do one part at a time and make sure to always check your proportions before moving on to step two. If I'm looking at this and the reference, it looks pretty much the same, the snout is the same size, this looks pretty right, this looks right. It's very important to get this right because you don't want to start drawing something and then realize you're off the page because everything doesn't fit on the page. It's easier to erase at this stage, it's easy to remodel things, it's easier to re-do them. If you have to do that, that's completely fine, doesn't mean you're a bad artist, it just means you didn't take your time. I'm going to start refining. I'm looking at the nose first. I'm just going to put the shape that I see in the silhouette of the nose and the mouth. I'm just doing the best I can. At this stage it's going to look like a giraffe no matter what, because we already have the basic shapes down and you don't have to be perfect at this stage. You can decide what you want to leave in and what you want to leave out. For example, this weird bump thing here, I don't really like how that looks in the reference. I'm just going to smooth it out into a normal shape. We have a little bump coming from under here. I'm just filling in the silhouette, not the details, just the shapes of the big things still. For example, the circles on its back are details and I can do that later. Here I'm smoothing out the line, pay attention to how the line curves. I actually made it longer than it is, but giraffes have long necks, so that will look cool. That's another thing, don't worry about it looking exactly like it does in the reference. That's actually not a good thing unless you like realism, but you really want to be playful with your illustration. I'm rounding out the ear where it should- This could be tricky for some people. All I see is lines. I see line going like this and I see a line going like this, and that's it. They're just a bunch of lines. Don't overthink it, just draw and if you mess up, you can always erase, it's not a big deal. I'm just rounding out the shapes to being what they are in the reference, to what the giraffe really looks like. It's good to do something like this, a giraffe, because we don't really know what a giraffe looks like from our memory, if we never draw them before or see them in real life. You've probably seen them at the zoo, but you didn't study them that much, so it's good to draw something you're not used to. People are much harder to draw because our brain has all these preconceived notions of what a person's face looks like, whether they're true or not. Notice my snout, it does look too small, so I'm just going to erase and re-do it. I don't have enough space for the nostril in here and that was the giveaway. Sometimes you're looking at something and you don't notice until later, but we're still at the sketching phase, so that's good. I just moved it over a little bit and now everything fits. I continue doing this. As you can tell I'm using a really dark pencil because I want you guys to see what I'm doing. In real life, I usually use a very light pencil, I actually use this blue one right here. I just put blue lead in it and it's very, very light. It's good to keep your lines light at this stage. Pay attention to what things connect, for example, right here it connects the ear. Pay attention to where the lines go, for example, this eye is actually a big sphere inside and you can see that there's all these lines that show that. You don't have to do the details right now, but if it's harder for you to notice these things later on, you can do it now. We have our initial sketch and I'm pretty happy with it. I did end up making the mouth a little smaller, but I actually like how that looks, it gives it a lot more character. That's another thing, don't be scared of playing around with proportions. If I make the eye bigger, he'll look even cuter, and if I make the head bigger and the bottleneck small he'll look the cutest. If you guys have taken my Kiwis class, you know this, but it's fun to play around with things and I'll show you that in a later lesson. Now, I got ink in my brush and I'm just going to outline here in my style. Depending what medium you want to use, you might have a different technique for this, and depending on your style. But just do whatever you want. At this point, he's recognizable as a giraffe no matter what, he's just missing the spots. Well, inking him in, it's up to you what details you want to keep and which ones you want to hide. Be selective with your details. If you think something is not going to add to the composition, don't include it. If something is not in the composition, but you want to include because you think it'll make it look more interesting, go ahead. You can get this got top hat or a bow or whatever you like. You are the artists, we are not trying to be photographers here. We are not doing completely realistic photograph, we are just having fun. If you want to do reals and that's fine, but if you don't, that's fine too, whatever you like. You can do this stage quickly for more loose and live lines or you can do this slowly if you want to be more perfect. Just observe all the little details and be selective in which ones you want to see. For example, there's wrinkles right here, and if I include them, maybe he'll look more realistic and maybe older. I can choose not to include them and see, I even sketch them out. But it's up to me, really, it doesn't matter; anyway, it's a giraffe. At this stage, if you look at the reference, he doesn't have any light in his eye and I actually want to add that in. I'm just going to draw in some highlights. This is what I mean by make it your own. If something isn't there, just add it in. So he has a lot of fur and you can see it if you really paid attention to the details, but I'm not going to put it everywhere because it's not going to look good. That comes from experiencing, knowing what's going to look good and what's not, but I just put little dots in some parts just to give them a little texture and liveliness. Look how different this is from the reference, I do not like how the reference looks, so I'm just changing it up. Same thing with this ear, it does not look like this in the reference, but I thought this will look better. But see, I'm still observing the real forums. I'm still observing it, but I am making conscious decisions to change things or not include things. Another thing is, if I observe the hairs on his back, I could see that they're all going in a distinct direction and that's all I have to really pay attention to, maybe the lights and darks, it's darker on top. Because I don't want to draw every single hair and take forever in doing it perfectly. I can just observe what it looks like, the basic shape of it, the angle and the value, and just do it my way, or I could just even be really loose. I've decided not to make the top part darker because I think it looks better with little white specks in between. It just matches his eyelashes more. Now, all that's left is his spots and I have the choice of either doing them in ink or I could maybe get creative and do them in gold color or whatever. You know what? That actually sounds really fun, so let's make them gold. But before I put this down, I'm not sure how transparent it will be, so I will definitely erase my pencil marks. My lines did not all come off because I'm using a 6P pencil and it's pretty dark, that's why you guys should always use a lighter pencil. Now, the spots have certain shapes and I could drawing each one separately and pay attention to them and be perfect. But what I really did was I observed what those shapes are, how they interact and I could just make up my own as I go along. This way, it will save me a lot of time. They're just a bunch of little imperfect shapes, sometimes they're a little rounded, sometimes they are squared, sometimes they're smaller and they get bigger as they go lower if you notice that. That's all, I'm just including that. In here the dots are much smaller and I'm just observing what they look like, and again, just doing my own thing. I'm not going to do each individual dot separately because that would really take a lot of time, and there's no need. I put little dots in between these even though it's not like on the reference at all, but I think it looks really nice. I like the poker [inaudible] effect. Don't be afraid to add your own little artistic touches to your pieces, We're done. This was really fun to make, really easy, and didn't take much time at all. I wanted to show you guys a live examples, so you'd know what it's like in real time, what I'm thinking, what I'm doing, what. But let me show you a few [inaudible] versions of this, of different objects so you can see how to draw different things. 6. More Examples: I think by now have a pretty good idea of what the three steps consist of. But let's see a couple of more examples to show how they can use for any subject matter. Our first subject is this butterfly on this interesting looking flower. Now this may look a little complex, but let's just break it down into simple shapes. I use circles and triangles for the wing and an open circle for the body. Simple. I use one big oval and two smaller ones for the flower and just two straight lines for the stem. Now it's time for step two. Easy. So go back in and fix up the edges of the wings and making them more rounded like in the reference. Then do the same for the body and draw on the eyes and antenna, which are made of simple lines, that go into the flower and start refining its edges and add the larger details within. I finished refining by drawing in the stem and now we're ready for step three, my chosen media for all the illustrations that I will do is ink. But like I said earlier, the media use in the step three is up to you. It can be done with anything from watercolors to a ballpoint pen to markers. It doesn't matter, just be sure to use light pencil marks when doing step one, and two, so that they will not show through and you can erase them easily. In this step, I'm paying attention to all the details and taking my time. I already know where everything should go. So I just pay attention to one detail at a time and dry it in using simple lines and shapes. Don't think if it a butterfly or a flower, just observe what you see and dry it in. Remember that you can add things that aren't in the reference and you can choose to leave things out. You are the artist, so you do whatever you like. Like for example, when inking in the wings, I left a lot of detail out. It's always up to you. This illustration is very simple to do because I use a three simple steps and just concentrate on one thing at a time. If you want to learn more about pennant ink illustration, you can check out my previous class that covers everything you need to know to get started. Now let's do a beautiful lotus flower. This may seem more complex to break down into simple shapes, but let's just do it. So I start by simplifying with all the petals neat into an oval, and I use that area to center myself on the composition. I start adding petals around it. I pay attention to where each petal curves and how big they are. Instead of drawing out each pedal perfectly, I just simplify them into geometric shapes by using straight lines. I work on one petal at a time, and just try to keep the proportions right by paying attention to their size and relationship to each other. The final result is a geometric flower. Now the proportions are nowhere near perfect, but that's okay since our subject is just a flower, and they come in all kinds of sizes and varieties. Flowers drawing a person's face, I would have to be much more careful, I will take a lot more time. For example, this portrait of Malala took me hours to just sketch out. That Canvas has very big, but it was still on time compared to my other stylize art of animals. It doesn't take me more than 30 minutes a piece. From my super stylized and tiny work, it only takes a minute or two. As humans, we see faces all the time. They're very good at judging what looks right or weird. So it's hard to draw them perfectly. It's even harder because faces are symmetrical. It doesn't mean you can't draw them. You just have to take your time in step one. If you don't do step one right, none of the other ones will be okay. So don't be shy and erasing and redoing, but with something like a flower, it's okay to do it quickly and loosely. The shape looks like a lotus flower and that's all that matters. Now it's time for step two. I go back in smooth out all the rough edges, paying attention to what they look like in the reference photo. This actually very easy because I can do one petal at a time. Also sketch in how the lines go in some of the petals, but that can be left for step three. Now it's time for step three. I simply ink over my sketch and I'm sure to include details like the lines in the petals and the way each petal ends at a small triangle point. These are just things I pick up from observing. The end result is a beautiful lotus and was fun and easy to do. So you can't even tell that the proportions aren't right. Now let's do something that may seem impossible for the beginner artists to draw, a beautiful nature scene. There is so much going on in this photo, you may be wondering how it can be broken down into simple shapes and more to start. So let me show you. It's very crucial to observe and every illustration, and the best way to practice that is to draw things that seem hard. The only reason they seem hard is because you don't have any shortcuts in your brain. So it forces you to observe what to really see. So I start like always by observing all the shapes in the composition. I break it down as simply as I can. All I'm using is almost the lake and curved lines for the bushes, straight lines for the trees, and straight lines for the mountains. I'm just simplifying what I see in breaking it down. I also choose to group together similar things that are similar distance away from the camera. Now for step two, I'm going to refine the edges. So I go back in and work on the silhouettes for the bigger things in this scene. I define everything from the edges, the bushes, the mountains, peaks to the Jack trees. Notice how it's still sketchy and I simple and expressive lines to mimic what I observe. Now I can start inking and define the edges even more. But now I can show my inner detail by salad is expressive, so I just interpret what I seem to expressive brush strokes. Those who I do trees differently from bushes, and I put thin and long strokes in the water shed ripples. I also use a dry brush technique for the trees and distance. To add color to this pace, it's very obvious what it is, but even without it, you can tell it's a nature scene. The observation was keen this piece, as it should be for everything you draw. If something seems hard to draw, just observe at longer and then do one step at a time. Now let's do another difficult subject. I don't like to draw cars. In fact, I never do. I can't remember the last time I did. Maybe some time in my childhood. It should be more, "difficult" for me, because I don't have experience in doing it, and because it's not something I love to draw like animals and flowers. But that really doesn't matter, because when I say you can draw anything, I really mean it. It doesn't matter if I draw a cactus or the Empire State building, is just observation and using simple shapes and lines, I start by drawing a rectangle and then I quickly dry and the rest of the car shape using angled and curved lines. I am thinking it is a three-dimensional object, but that doesn't mean I'm doing anything fancy. I'm just breaking down what I seem to simple shapes like always. Now that I have the basic form down, I add other shapes to go within it. I'm only using simple shapes and doing it the best of my ability. With this objects, step two, and three can blend into one, since the object itself is made up of geometric shapes and there isn't that much to refine after you have put those down. So I continue refining and adding the big details until it looks ready to ink. Now that the car is sketched out, you can call this a finished piece because like I said earlier, isn't that much detail. Its non-organic like something found in nature, but there are some details that can be included when inking in and the personal start the car. Now letting every line touch, the car interesting the wheels look. The right one looks more like an oval while the left one is a circle, those little imperfections make things more interesting to look at. Well, at least for me. I think the final result is pretty cute. The assemblage is doing one shape in line at a time. My point is, even if you've never drawn something before, or even if you think something's hard to draw, you can definitely do it. Just try and observe your subject well. For the final example, I want to draw a person. There all kind of rules out there for how a human body should look, and that can be scary for the beginner. If you really like drawing people, you should learn anatomy and the rules, so that you can draw people from your imagination. But if you're drawing from the reference, you'll be fine with just observing the basic shapes. So I start out by sketching in the shapes for the body. Nothing complicated here. It's just like I did for every other illustration and continue doing that for the rest of her. When a few like the shapes look right, proportion wise, I can move on to step two. The only thing I used for this step is observation. I didn't count eight heads or anything like that. Now let's simply refine the edges and add big details. I refine the edges by observing one part of time, and I'm done with this stage. For the step three, I ink like a normally would? The result looks just like the reference, except I changed pattern in her dress a little. You can do things like this easily. Also notice how the proportion is look right? Just because I observed a little longer. I hope those examples made it much easier for you to understand the steps. Now you feel like you can draw anything, because you definitely can. Just use a three simple steps and the magical power, every artist uses observation. That was a three simple steps and action. Next, I'll teach you how to stylize your art. 7. Stylizing Your Art: Just because you use a reference, it doesn't mean that your end result has to look just like it. All of my illustrations use some reference but I don't copy what I see. I use references to get an idea of what things look like since I don't have a photographic memory, and then I draw my illustrations of my own style, which look completely different from the references I was inspired from. There is nothing wrong with drawing your references realistically, and to copy them exactly if that's what you like. But this lesson will show you how you can do it in your own style. If you've already taken my You Can Draw Cute Animals class, you've seen this technique in action, and then I took any reference of any animal, and broke down the animal into simpler shapes and lines, and then exaggerating, simplify their features to make cute animals. But let's take this technique up one more step. So here is my reference of a cute teddy bear in some grass. I usually do this in my head, but it helps to break down your image into simple shapes just like in step 1. Now that we know what shapes it's made out of, we can play around with the details and proportions. In the second drawing, I made his head wider and bigger, made his nose smaller and triangular, made his body and ears smaller, and made his arms and legs triangular, and instead of being in grass, he's in top of it. Do you see how little tweaks made it look completely different from our reference, and much cuter? Now, let's try this again. The center head is the same size but I give him a long triangle body, short rectangle legs, oval arms, small and lower ears, a circle stomach and a belly. He doesn't even look like a bear anymore, but more like a monkey, and the next one we start with a slightly bigger head and bigger eyes. The body's just two straight lines and the snow and eyes are very high up on the face. The semis body is covered in grass, and I slightly lifted and tilted his left arm up. With a couple of straight and diagonal lines around him, we suddenly have a whole scene. See you what a few simple lines can do? Now for the last teddy bear, I gave him a big head and snow, but a tiny body and ears. I also drew in cheeks using simple ovals. He looks like he'll fall over any minute from how big his head is. Do you see how tweaking shapes for reference can make your illustrations very unique? Its still look like the object you're drawing? This can be done with anything, and I'll show you how to do it with faces in a second. But first, let's add a couple of accessories to these cuties. I add a bone exploit button on the second bear, and now she has much more character. I put the first bear in a suit and give him a crown and a cane. Maybe he's king of teddies. I add clouds to my rainy bear to make it look more interesting, and I add a top hat and work on my third bear or monkey, and he looks completely unique. I and make my last bear [inaudible] with slanted eyebrows and add an earrings and a Mohawk for a bad boy bear. Adding tiny details can completely transform your illustrations and give them character and personalities. Now let's do something similar with this girl. Faces are hard. Like I said before, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do them. In fact, they're very easy to do if you draw them in a stylized way. I start by breaking down the reference photo into simple shapes, to better see and understand it and its proportions, and now I have the tool to really play around with it. In this first example, I stretch her face to be longer and gave her a long-neck. Notice how the facial features are small as well. She looks somber. In the second I made her face wider and shorter and gave her big ears and a wider nose, she looks more cute. In the third example, I made her forehead big and put her facial features lower. Also her hair's rounder and her nose goes out of her face. She looks more quirky. In the next one I made her head really wide and her hair more wild and the nose is turned up. She looks homey. In the next one I made her eyes huge and body small, which makes her adorable. In the last one I made her shoulders bony and protruding with long eyelashes a long face and a cute smile. This one has the most character. All of these examples were drawn very quickly from playing around with the shapes and features from the first reference photo. Now let's take this technique to the next level with a real example. Our reference this time is a cute girl and a teddy bear photo. I start like I always do by observing the basic shapes that make it up. Now, I'm going to play around with those shapes and lines to create my own unique and stylized illustration. I get an an idea to make the teddy bear big, as if it's alive, and the girl tiny and lifeless, as if it's adult, just flipping the roles. I draw the teddy bear and the girl using the same basic shapes, but I move things around and exaggerate them, and I tweak them a little. The girl's body is in a similar position, except her arms and a teddy bear is holding her. I expressed all these using simple lines and shapes. Now, I start refining for step 2, but there isn't a lot of detail in this piece. I just refine the shapes to my liking and add tiny details, and now I'm ready to ink. I make the teddy bear fuzzy by using quick and loose strokes and I ink the rest like I normally do. This time I decide to use watercolors to finish the illustration. As you can see, the painting turned out super cute. The reference photo inspire the piece and made it easier to draw, but is not a replica of the reference. This might be hard to do when you start drawing, but over time it will become easier to play around with references. Do your own thing. So just try doing it now. If you practice, you will definitely improve a lot. So pick up your pencil, and don't worry so much about having your own style. It will happen naturally with time. Just be sure to draw whatever you love to draw, almost everyday. 8. Your Assignmnet: The class is coming to a close, I hope you learned a lot and are excited to get drawing. Just remember the three simple steps. Step one is to break down your subject into simpler shapes. The most important goal of this step is correct proportions. Step two is to refine the outlines and drawing bigger details. Step three is to refine and finish your piece with whatever your final media is. It's very simple, if you do one thing at a time. Just take your time and observe your subject well. For your assignment, draw something you love and something you never draw using the three simple steps. For example, I love drawing butterflies and flowers, but I never draw cars. You'll enjoy drawing the things you love, but will be challenged with the drawing the things you never do or be forced to use your observation skills. Upload your drawings to the project gallery if you want to share, because I would love to see what you make. But if you're feeling shy, don't worry about it. It'll be best to see what you make. But remember that drawing is a skill, and it takes time to develop and improve. You're well on your way after completing this class, be sloughed to pick up a pencil and get to drawing. You will only improve with practice. Even the three simple steps have to repeat it constantly for you to memorize them and for you to improve in doing them. At first, you'll have to think about it a lot, but over time, it will become second nature and you will tweak them to your own liking. I hope you enjoyed the class. If you have any questions, just leave them in the community section of the class and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Hope you guys have fun. I'll see you in the next one.