Drawing and Painting Tutorials

This week, we brought you a ton of specialized drawing tutorials, from the best of Photoshop in 2013 to how to draw a dog, a snowman and Manga facial expressions.

But what we want to focus on most, is the basics we brought -- the fundamental skills needed to move on to these higher, more difficult levels of creation. 

First off, pencil shading. If you can create a solid graident in shading, you're halfway to creating dynamic shadows and figures, which is one of the first skills you'll need in your drawing endeavors:

http://www.artyfactory.com/portraits/pencil-portraits/pencil-shading-techniques.html

Next up, simple exercises, like drawing a circle, straight line and organic mass that don't look like someone had a stroke while creating them. These can be some of the most difficult shapes to create by hand, but they're definitely a necessary evil!

http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/i-want-to-draw-simple-exercises-for-complete-beginners/

Still lifes are the next step in the drawing ladder of success, because objects don't move and you're able to practice shadow and form for days, weeks and months on end. Pro tip: if an object turns out to be more difficult than you thought to recreate on paper, work at it till it's perfect instead of nixing it from the composition: 

http://www.artyfactory.com/still-life/still_life_pastel.html

This last tutorial begins the next phase of ultimate drawing skills: creating people. If you learn how to draw realistic eyes, you've created the most difficult part of human expression: the windows to the soul.

http://www.dueysdrawings.com/eye_tutorial.html

So the next time you're looking to get a little back to the basics in your drawings, check out any of the above articles for tips on how to acheive the most realistic composition possible. And follow our scoops to stay updated on the latest and greatest drawing tips online. 

This week we focused on articles that taught specific special effects, and how to make that perfect composition with more efficiency than ever. 

This YouTube video taught how to acheive the 'reflections in the sunglasses' look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe46QxIY1IU

And this PSD tutorial showed how to create 3D ice letters in photoshop, walking you through each step one by one until your letters are wet and melting:

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/3d-ice-text-effect/

Finally, Student Art Guide brings us nifty tricks for framing and building a composition more efficiently:

http://www.studentartguide.com/articles/how-to-draw-and-paint-faster

So if you're looking for a new effect or motif in your artwork, try out one of these! And to stay updated with our curations of how to draw and create tutorials, subscribe to our scoops!