Kids love drawing animals, but they can be quite challenging. Try looking at a picture of the animal they want to draw, and discuss it with them. Is its body round, or more of an oval? Do you need another oval for hips and shoulders? How long are its legs? What shape is its head - round, or perhaps wedge-shaped? Children often press hard with a pencil too, which makes it difficult to erase if they change their mind about something. Encourage them to use a lighter touch. A softer pencil, such as a B or 2B, enables them to get a dark line without pressing hard.

Easy Animal Drawing Lessons:
A Simple Sea Turtle
Draw A Tropical Fish
Draw a Bunny Rabbit
Draw a Horse

When you're drawing the human figure from life, it helps to know what is going on under the skin. Sometimes the angle or lighting can make it difficult to see what you are trying to describe, and sometimes you need to emphasize the anatomy to make it 'work'. Studying reference sources on the skeleton and musculature of the human body is an important part of any figure drawing course. If you are learning independently, include anatomical studies in your work. These Human Anatomy - Musculature Reference Photos are simple, clear illustrations without any text, to use as visual aids in your drawing.

Related Articles:
Figure Drawing - The Head and Neck
Figure Drawing - Structure
How to Draw the Nose

The quick and easy trend seems to be getting worse. We want everything reduced to One Rule, and that rule has to be Simple. And as if we weren't having enough trouble dispelling the Inborn Talent myth, it seems there's some Secret Knowlege that will make you an Artist. Seriously. Do people really think there are 'secrets' that they need to uncover, or just one special bit of knowledge that will make the difference between ordinary and excellent? It would be nice if we could shell out a few dollars and be given the secret handshake to artistic success. But there is no such magical answer.

Drawing can be as simple and as natural as speaking - but try speaking in a foreign language, and you know that that simple, natural process is actually very complex. You can't boil it down to a single rule. To learn to draw well, you need to spend time learning the vocabulary and syntax of line, tone, form, structure, perspective and composition. You need to practice and work at it. You need to think about what you are doing and be willing to change how you do it.

'The Knowledge' is out there - there's a shelf full of wisdom, for free, at your local library. And there's plenty here online. But a good teacher is valuable, and if you like an artist's work and are confident that they are reputable - caveat emptor, and all that - attending seminars and workshops can be worthwhile.

I'll tell you my Magic Key to Drawing^tm. Practice drawing from life. (Yep, that's it. Well, I never said anything about it being a secret.... but it does work!)

A toy sale catalogue arrived in our mailbox today, an I was struck by how everything is branded. You can't just buy a truck - you buy a Transformer. Hannah Montana beams out from kits of craft supplies and Dora the Explorer has her own toy video projector. Everything has some well-known face enhancing its desirability. Commercialism was even rearing its ugly head at the Sydney Aquarium, with 'Spongebob Squarepants' characters decorating the majority of the exhibits.

The problem is, however much we hate it - and most artists I know loathe marketing and would rather perish in obscurity than advertise - creating a viable career in the arts requires that you have a personal brand. This doesn't mean plastering a ritzy logo and flamboyant signature across ever piece you do. It means having consistency of style, a certain unity in your body of work, and something that sets it apart from the crowd. For most visual artists, this tends to happen organically. When your art is internally driven, there are themes and qualities that will keep appearing. It might be obvious, or it might be subtle, and it may well change over time, but if you look hard enough, there are connecting threads.

Lack of a recognizable 'brand' can be a real problem in a competitive marketplace. The value of an artist's work can be somewhat artificial and subject to fashion, as we know, but there's more to it than that. You don't want a potential buyer to look at a work and say 'Oh, I must get a colored pencil horse drawing too.' You want them to think, 'I need a piece by THAT artist.' If you're just another realist artist making generic copies of stock photos, what is there to set your work apart?

Why, for example, would you commission J.D. Hillberry over some other artist chosen at random from a Google search? He is renowned for his mastery of realism, but there are plenty of competent photo-realists around. There's a clue in his expert compositions, which aren't simple copies of photos. Most of his drawings have close-cropped composition and use a lot of white space to balance the intricately rendered textures. His trompe-l'oeil pieces have a unique combination of shallow-space illusion and quirky humor. His personality emerges in his work, even given its degree of precise realism.

A promising young artist is Stephanie Sekula. Stephanie sketches using a grid, rather than tracing, so her drawings have a more relaxed and individual feel. I'd describe her work as naturalistic, rather than photo-realistic, and there's a lovely sense of the artist's hand at work in her drawings. I hope she doesn't lose that sense of individuality as her work matures.

So what sets your work apart? If I browse through your online gallery, will I then recognize one of your drawings when I see it at an art show?

Check out some tips on Developing Your Personal Style from Marion Boddy-Evans.