DRAWING
Drawing Websites Every Artist Should Follow
08/30/2011/13 Comments/in ART /by Alexander Poirier
To draw is defined as to “produce a picture or diagram by making lines and marks, especially with a pencil on paper.” Drawing is one of the most widely practiced art forms in the world, in part because of its low entry threshold; all you need to get started is a pencil and some paper. Just because drawing is an easy art form to begin practicing, however, does not mean that the skills, motivation and inspiration necessary to draw come easily. That’s where this list comes in. Whether you sketch, doodle or draw, here are ten websites that you should be following.
Duey’s Drawings
Duey’s Drawings is the official website of Grand Rapids artist and Pencils.com featured artist Brian Duey. The website features a tutorial section that contains beginner and advanced tutorials, a gallery section where you can view Brian’s highly detailed work and a message board where you can discuss art and share your work with others. It also features a site news section, where you can stay up to date with everything that is happening on the website.
SketchCrawl
SketchCrawl.com is the official website for the worldwide drawing marathon known as SketchCrawl. Inspired by site founder Enrico Casarosa’s experience during a PubCrawl, SketchCrawl encourages its participants to spend an entire day drawing everything they come into contact with. Each artist then posts his or her results on the SketchCrawl forum, where everyone can meet, discuss and view the different perspectives of the various artists. SketchCrawl events are organized on the website’s forum and are held all over the world, all year long, so go get your crawl on!
Daily Sketch Challenge
Everyone knows DeviantArt as one of the world’s largest online art communities. Within this community, however, is a group that is inspiring artists to pick up a pencil and draw something, anything, every day, no matter what. Daily Sketch Challenge knows that one of the best ways to foster creativity is to express it on a daily basis, which is why it encourages its members to post their drawings without fear of criticism or critiques. If you are looking for some motivation to get your creative juices flowing, give Daily Sketch Challenge and shot. You may be surprised at the results.
About.com Drawing/Sketching
Whether you are a beginner or an experienced pencil artist looking to brush up on your fundamentals, About.com’s Drawing and Sketching site should be in your bookmarks bar. Managed by drawing tutor, Army cartographic illustrator and published author Helen South, this site provides visitors with lessons, tutorials, tips and news from the drawing world. The site’s posts tend to lean towards the more technical side of drawing and are relatively straightforward, but they cover topics that every sketch or drawing artist should make himself or herself familiar with.
Diane Wright Fine Art/Diane Wright Art Journal
Diane Wright is a graphite landscape artist and Pencils.com featured artist. On her official website, Diane Wright Fine Art, you can find tutorials that detail how to draw tough subjects such as grass and water and galleries that contain all of Diane’s graphite work. Meanwhile, Diane Wright Art Journal is the artist’s personal blog, where she shares her latest work, personal anecdotes and inspiration with the world. She even has an entire gallery dedicated to pieces drawn with our Palomino Blackwing pencil.
Drawing Day
Have you ever tried to recapture the creativity and excitement that you experienced when you first began to draw? Drawing Day, held on the first Saturday in June of every year, is dedicated to this cause and to remembering the “joy we had when we first picked up a pencil and created our first piece of art.” Drawingday.org provides Drawing Day participants with a place to post the artwork they created during the event, as well as a place to view the work of other Drawing Day contributors. Even though Drawing Day 2011 has already come and gone, you can still view some of the submissions from previous years and get prepared for Drawing Day 2012 in the process.
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks.org is an online community that is dedicated to one of the most essential tools for any artist: the sketchbook. Here, artists are encouraged to post images of their sketchbook pages and discuss their work with other Sketchbooks.org members. In addition to providing artists with a place to discuss and display their work, Sketchbooks.org also acts as a directory for artists around the world. Artists are encouraged to post links to their official websites, allowing visitors to explore the online artist world from one convenient location. And if the artist directory was not enough, every time you visit a Sketchbooks.org page, you are greeted with a random member sketch that exposes you to even more artists by way of chance.
Draw Space
Draw Space just may be the ultimate resource for artists looking to learn. The website features solo lessons that resemble the tutorials found on a number of other sites, as well as guided courses that are taught by actual artists. After you sign up for a guided course on the Draw Space website, you are given an assignment and a due-date for that assignment and, once the assignment is submitted, it is returned to you with feedback from the instructor. Whether you want to learn at your own pace or in a structured learning environment, Draw Space has the tools you need.
Mike Theuer
The official website of portrait artist, Pennsylvania State University professor and Pencils.com featured artist Mike Theuer, MikeTheuer.com provides pencil artists with lessons that range from how to compose a drawing to how to grip a pencil. It also features a series of videos that show Mike drawing his portraits in time-lapse, so you can see how every detail is created. And if you are ever in a bind and looking for inspiration, Mike’s galleries have it in spades.
Lines and Colors
Lines and Colors is a blog that is dedicated to drawing, sketching, painting, comics and pretty much any art form that involves lines and colors. In addition to providing viewers with a near-constant stream of artwork from artists past and present, Lines and Colors also serves as a portal to the rest of the online art world. The site is filled with links to other websites that, though not mentioned in this post, are relevant to any sketch or drawing artist. If you want more than just ten drawing websites to follow, check out Lines and Colors and be prepared to do some exploring.
Of course, if these ten websites aren’t enough for you, you can view our online lessons right here at Studio 602.
What do you think Pencils.com readers? Are there any other drawing, sketching or doodling websites that you follow? Let us know in the comments section below!
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