Understanding and practicing basic skills is far more essential than knowing the correct art software or brushes to use. These standard skills are also known as art fundamentals. Without them, you will mostly end up being distressed with your own artwork. Think of these art fundamentals as the foundation of your work. It doesn’t matter how cool your subject is or how expensive your brushes are because if the backbone is missing, your work is just a piece of distorted jelly.
The primary skills that you need are form, anatomy, composition, perspective, value, lighting, and color theory. These are the best areas, to begin with. Take note that the art fundamentals are challenging to learn at the beginning, but with time and consistent practice, it will start to become more manageable and will enhance your final output.
Once you truly understand why you need to learn something, it instantly makes learning more uncomplicated and more seamless. Below are some good reasons why you need to practice art fundamentals.
Perspective
Having a little bit of knowledge on perspective can significantly upgrade your art and offer you plenty of options when making one. Perspective-wise, you have numerous planes to choose from background, foreground, and middle. It will allow you to gain more control over the style of your images and the medium you prefer to use. You can also experiment with the small, medium, and large shapes, as well as the technique of overlapping. For beginners, there are three kinds of linear perspective drawing: one point, two-point, and three-point. Playing with an atmospheric perspective will help you make an illusion of debt with color and tone.
Form
Form creates an illusion that the image has volume and makes it more three-dimensional. One great thing that you could learn is how to break down complex structures into simpler ones by utilizing cubes, pyramids, spheres, and cylinders. This is very helpful since it will allow you to draw almost anything from various angles. It also allows you to make all kinds of objects that you want without the need to point out its specific reference. This particular skill works perfectly together with perspective.
Value and Lighting
It is vital to learn about value and lighting since it will improve your knowledge of the form. It will help you come up with the appropriate mood and increase the message of your image. It also enables you to gain a better understanding of how to utilize colors.
Anatomy
Anatomy is useful if you want to draw real-life characters and figures. Vast knowledge of muscles and skeletons will help you understand surface forms and movement better. Knowing the structure and proportion of the human body will enable you to draw clothing on correct placement.
Color Theory
Various colors can trigger different emotions and messages. Color harmony can improve or destroy your painting. Color is specifically helpful when combined with correct value and lighting.
Composition
Composition is essential in enhancing the aesthetics and storytelling of your work. If a painting is well-created, it will have a smooth-flowing narrative and an incredible sense of mood.
When you get to learn all these, you can eventually craft an excellent art masterpiece.
Photo Attribution:
1st and Featured image from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/narrative-history-dream-tell-794978/
