What helps you loosen up before you draw? ( the best drawing warmups)

[penzilla]

What are some different kinds of drawing warmups I could try out?

I do drawing warm-ups a lot though they never really help with stiffness.

Especially when I am about to draw a creature I have been daydreaming about for a long time.. Or just some scene that has been flashing through my mind.


The stiffness is so damn annoying. My number one goal for the past feew years has been to shake it off. I used to figure it was because i tend to be a perfectionst.. So I started drawing with pen to get used to making mistakes and going with the flow.. But that didnt really work 100% either ... I've also been trying to draw really lightly. Any advice you guys have is really appreciated, as this has been driving me batshit insane. Please respond soon. = D

[kjdawson80]

I don't know if this will help you at all, as this tip really isn't a warm-up, but I use colored pencils (well, colored pencil lead now, with my mechanical pencils) to do roughs first. Then I go back and solidify the lines I want with a normal pencil. I use either non-repro blue or red lead, because those colors are easier for me to strip out in Photoshop, and the non-repro still doesn't show up (or shows up very lightly) with most photocopiers I have access to.

Practicing and doing studies in general have helped a lot too, for sure, but using colored lead first helps me get over my mental block that my art HAS to be perfect - I can make it "perfect" later on with my normal lead, so I'm more comfortable messing up and experimenting when I start out with my other pencils.

As far as for actual warm-ups, sometimes I just draw a bunch of lines and elipses... but then I get bored, and don't feel like drawing any more =(

[penzilla]

great advice!! Today I went and bought some and took them with me because I went to the beach. they are pretty fun aside from the fact that they are prone to breaking.. I like that they go down so light though. I draw hard. It is so annoying. Even when i write "light!" at the top of my page i somehow drift back into the habit.

Please keep giving me advice. I want to hear whatever you guys have to offer, anything will help.

[kjdawson80]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of actual colored pencils either - they don't break when I use them, but the lead breaks when I try to sharpen them! That's why I broke down and ordered some colored lead from Dick Blick for my mechanical pencils. For some reason I don't press down as hard when I'm using my mechanical ones.

I also have a heavy hand (my friends joke that I have the grace of a caveman), and using the colored lead has helped me loosen up AND not draw quite as heavily (but I'm not quite sure how that came about). And now when I do draw normally, my hand is still heavy, but I'm more confident about my lines.

Hopefully this will bump your thread, and maybe some more experienced people can come in and share some more tips with you :D

[dollbot]

I loosen up with a whole bunch of gesture drawings, from seconds to minutes. Try not to think about being a perfectionist but by creating a flow with your lines. Does that make sense? Try drawing people walking by or a moving animal, which you can't sit down and work hours on. It really helped me and I hope it does the same for you! :)

[arthas1011]

The way I do mine is a little like every one elses but a bit different. I make a quick pose drawing to describe the pose in Blue and make the rough drawing in blue. Using an H pencil I draw in the rough features. Using an HB pencil I finalise the drawing and using a 4B pencil I darken in the final drawing for scanning anc colouring. A bit of a process but I have obtained some great results. The only warm up required is the rough pose drawing and that is sufficient for me.

[OmenSpirits]

I draw a rock, with shadow, crevases, etc. trying to capture the details that make it a rock.

That's works for me.

[Kjesta]

I always start by just doing squiggly lines, circles, spirals, crosshatching around, doodling with my eyes closed... Just to get the feeling for it, then I start with the rough sketching and the likes. It relaxes me to just draw nothing really to warm up.

[Sebastard]

Posemaniacs! Lots of them, in various stages of detail. gesture lines, detailed physiques, whatever i feel like doing that'll warm my sleep-stiffened pencil hand/thumb back into action :).

(usually alot of female models with suspiciously bouncy breasts...sue me :P)

[Whirly]

Great question. I quite like OmenSpirits idea of drawing a rock.

I would possibly add loosly drawn geometric objects in the same space on the page (part of the same world?) Its on this site http://tenminutedrawing.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2007-02-23T02%3A21%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=7 but i cant find it with cubes on the floor arranged into a circle incrimentally.

[nofu]

I draw little thumbnails of what I want to draw to get the juices going.

[JeffX99]

How do you draw? From the wrist or shoulder? Small in a sketchbook or standing at an easel? I'm just asking because I don't see how one could loosen up much if drawing small, from the wrist and in graphite or ink. Looseness comes with the freedom to move -working large with plenty of real estate to let lines flow - to sweep - to become engaged in both your drawing and to identify with the model. It also comes from using broad drawing media rather than point drawing media (charcoal, pastel, conte vs. graphite, colored pencil, pen and ink). Once you understand that feeling and those dynamics it can certainly work small, in a sketchbook - because now you know how loose you like to work or feel - but until you experience that and develop it I think it would be difficult to do in a sketchbook.

[George Abraham]

If all else fails, some beer will do. Hehehe!!

For me wanting to be maticulous and precise at first is what keeps me stuck in "unwarmedness".

Doing loose random crap that don't have to mean anything would do.

The best looking rendering are the stuff I did while I was not worried about making mistakes. Unfortunately I still do/did. This could be seen as false confidence. ;P

I will need to experriment with this tastefullnes some more some time.