Drawing and Painting Tutorials

A sloppy how to because I keep getting asked how I draw abs. Its pretty simple, takes like 1-2 mins to do *goes back to dying*

"In your drawings, you will generally have one light source, which determines the location of highlights and the direction of shadows. The spot where the light hits your subject directly is called the highlight, and is usually pure white. The side facing away from the light source will be in shadow. The midtones refer to the gradation of tones between the shadow and the highlight. Most objects will also have an area of reflected light. This reflection happens when light hits the surface next to your object and bounces back. You will notice that these values blend into each other smoothly, which communicates to us the shape of the object. The only time you will see a hard edge is when there is a cast shadow, otherwise the tones change gradually. The closer the cast shadow is to the object, the darker it will be, fading as it moves farther away."

London-based Lobulo Design (who is actually just a single desiner who goes by Lobulo) creates wonderful, vibrant designs using paper. From pop culture to anatomy and the natural world it seems like nothing is off limits. Check out much more over on Behance.

If you want to learn how to draw hats -- y'know...those 1940's detective-style fedoras that you see in the movies -- then take a look at these scans from a couple of old drawing books...

Old-school fedora hats can be kind of tricky to draw...and we have to draw a lot of them on Phineas and Ferb. Secret agent Perry the Platypus wears his fedora hat in every episode, so we end up having to draw hats from all kinds of angles a few dozen times in every storyboard.

One big reason that "how to draw hats" reference is so helpful is that you just don't see fedora hats very often these days. There's lots of great hat images in classic Bogart movies and other Film Noirs. I just watched The Big Heat a few weeks ago, and I couldn't stop looking at Glenn Ford's grey fedora (well, it was a black and white movie, so everything's grey...).

PicsArt, where everyone becomes great artist.

User Tutorials From the Deep Sea Drawing Challenge

Before we leave the deep sea completely behind us and settle down on dry land, there is one last thing. Here are the user tutorials from the Deep Sea Drawing Challenge, one last treasure from our excursion into the ocean depths.

PicsArtists drew beautifully last week, executing highly creative concepts with deft technique. These included dream like portrayals of the oddities and marvels that inhabit the darkest corners of the ocean, drawn with impeccable attention to key elements such as lighting, color, and perspective. Some of the users behind these wonderful drawings have posted pictorial drawing tutorials that break down step-by-step how they managed to achieve their final paintings.

Drawing a detailed tree is not all that hard. The first thing you will need is a little time, quiet, and good concentration. Draw the trunk of the tree and draw your way up. Details don't matter for now, just draw the general shape of the...

For this week’s Drawing Challenge, sling an acoustic over your shoulder and grab a pick, because its time to draw your very best guitar.

Children's book author Tor Freeman teaches you how to draw our furry, purry friends

 The Drawing Challenge this week is a contest to see who can draw the best house. Building a house is hard work, however, and you might need help to go from blueprints to wall-painting

Perspective techniques for absolute beginners

How to solve a problem like perspective?

Perspective is one of the most common issues beginners have with drawing and painting.

Get it wrong and it can easily ruin a great start, get it right and it can instantly improve your work.

If you’re like most painters you are probably trying to create a sense of depth in your work.

Leading the viewers eye deep into the scene giving the illusion of reality.

But sometimes it just doesn’t look right.

The distant object doesn’t look so distant, your figures look out of proportion, a building looks like it is sliding off the page. And your still life just looks….odd.

You are not alone….

If you’ve ever visited the great animal halls of New York’s American Museum of Natural History or Chicago’s Field Museum, you have seen the paintings of Charles R. Knight. Despite being legally blind (due to a childhood injury), his depictions of animals in their natural environments were unrivaled at the time. To this day, they are an integral part of the magic of some of our greatest museums.

As any artist knows, behind every impressive painting is an equally impressive drawing, so it may come as no surprise that Knight’s drawings are stunning in their own right. Along these lines, there’s a lovely book by Dover Press called Animal Drawing: Anatomy and Action for Artists that deserves attention as an excellent resource and collection of Knight’s animal studies. The drawings provide insight into how much knowledge Knight had about his subjects’ anatomy. For today’s SciArt Blitz, we offer you a sample:

Do you ever wish you could draw but don't feel you have the necessary skills? Well, fear not, this awesome new digital app series How to Draw and Paint will provide you everything you need to master the art of various drawing techniques in no time.

Within the field of product design, ability to represent your ideas by using effective visual method such as sketching opens doors for better communication between designers and clients. Designers find that using sketching is an efficient way to speed up the process of developing ideas in the real life.

There are times where sketch can express more than words and you get an instant understanding of a concept. Sketches are useful for designers who work in groups and sketches can deliver easy and fast way to brief an idea to others.