CAREFUL OBSERVATION OF A SUBJECT IS ESSENTIAL TO DRAWING OR PAINTING IT.
Often the best artists are found frequently glancing back and forth between the subject and the drawing surface.
That's because the more you focus on the parts of the object you're drawing, the better your drawing will likely be.
Note
that I said 'parts'. Often people have difficulty perceiving an
item in terms of anything other than a mental image of what it 'should'
look like.
But what an item ought to look like and what it actually does look like are usually two very different things.
A
capable artist will be able to think of a scene not as a 'tree' or
'bouquet of flowers' or 'human face' but as a mass of shapes with
different shades of color. By breaking down the object into its
component parts, we can recreate it believably.
A question was
once asked, "How do I become a good artist without practice?"
Short answer is that you can't. Drawing, like most things,
requires some practice and a lot of learning, to improve your skills.
What,
you may ask, do I do if the object I wish to draw is not in front of
me? What if I am a fantasy or science fiction artist?
Well, even imagined objects would usually obey some sort of physical laws.
Find a bunch of references of things in the real world 'like' the thing you are trying to depict, and pull details from them.
Do
you want to create a fantasy creature? Does it have fur or scales
or feathers or skin? What animals come closest in the real world
to your imagined creature? Pull details and forms from various
parts of reality to make your fiction feel credible.
The same
goes for machines. Think about the machine needs to do - how
people will interact with it and how it will work. Or fantasy
characters - what is the character's personal past? Their
personality, experiences, and the cultural background they were raised
in? Again, just try to give everything in your work a bit of wear
and tear, a bit of detailing, something that makes it feel like a real
thing. Also, be sure the lighting and shading gives your scene a
sense of physical form, making it something that obeys the laws of
nature even if it is nowhere near our reality in other ways. A
bit of this worldbuilding will almost always improve your imagined
scene.
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