Improve Your Drawings by Avoiding This Detail Trap

Overshading and losing contrast is a pitfall I easily fall into

I think the reason why too many details make a drawing look off is because usually, when our eyes focus on something, we only see one part in details - everything else, like the background, gets blurry. So the drawing must capture that effect.

Thank you for sharing your old drawings, it really helps to see how far you’ve come in a relatively short time.

I think value is almost the most important thing in painting as well. I'm always thinking about values before I concern myself with color. I noticed once I had a good handle on values, my paintings turned out so much better. Your drawings are lovely. I never had the patience required for hyper realistic pieces of art.

I make at least 5 different artworks every month. But I don't know how to sell them?
Any idea please.

Thank you!! I used this advice to go back and work on a drawing of my late husband that I was never "quite" happy with, and it made such a difference! 😯 I look back at my pics of how it was, and I'm amazed at the improvement. It's improved to the point I am now pretty happy with it and ready to hang it on a wall 🥰

I really appreciate you showing your early drawings! I feel like I was born with zero art talent and it has improved over the years. Knowing your tips and tricks (plus lots of practice) really makes for dramatic improvement no matter how weak one's skills are.

Wish I could upvote this more than once. It was EXACTLY what I needed to know. Thank you!

Thank you for this. I have been drawing and painting for many years and have realized this exact point just in the last several months. I have been working more with monochromatic drawings and paintings and it has really helped me do things more realistically as well as quicker. I just wrote a blog about it today in which I did a pastel painting that was probably one of my quickest to finish, yet has an incredible amount of realism. Moreso than some of the paintings where I made the mistake you spoke of - too much detail everywhere. This is a huge breakthrough for me and I can see how your class will be so beneficial to so many. Also, I am loving being on your mailing list. Thank you for the thoughtful and informative emails. They are very appreciated.
EDITED: Wow! I didn't even realize it was free. I went to sign up and I hadn't noticed that it was a free mini class. THANK YOU! :)

I have been drawing for the last 8 years now I am now 17 and I just started doing realistic drawings and no thought me how do do drawing i am a self taught person and am still learning and this video is very help fun for the people who are getting into realistic drawings for the first time.

Didn’t even have to guess. I already knew that contrasts and shading are the vital parts of what makes for the best results.

6:41. That is where the answer is. In a seven minute video 6½ minutes in is where it starts.

Im one of the person without commented about how much you taugh me and your speech is like hypnotising . Have a gud day my teacher ❤

Great video! As a photographer, I get this so much. It’s depth of field.

You read my mind. I was thinking about this very thing as I was working on my drawing this morning. I was deciding on what to detail from what to keep simple from my reference. Thank you for bringing this to my attention! 💞

THANKS Kristy😭💜lots of help
I struggle with realism but I can draw animation really well like anime AND THIS HELPS ALOT💜

I don’t think you know how much this helped me.

Thank you so much! This has, I hope, helped me over a hump on my piano journey. I've been a professional illustrator for fifty years. You speak my language. I'm learning piano on a deep foundational level at age 71. When my fluency and improvisation coach tells me my busy, patterny playing is 'flat', I struggle to understand. I'm supposed to be driving my moment-by-moment choices with the big waves of the groove I'm feeling, the poetic metre I'm feeling/creating/chanting, but I tend to let the metre flatten to a mere time-keeping function and then my choices are many and similar. If I do it from my depths, two measures can sound epic. If I get lazy/busy, it all sounds what I call diddly-poo. A grey drawing with an evenly distributed texture of tiny details is diddly-poo. A simple, boldly lit drawing can be epic.

This is exactly happened to me and I gave up drawings for years. I was so good with detailed but things looked so flat. I get lots of comments on how great and good they are but that was the problem. No one really opened my eyes by giving me a real critic. I recently decided to come back and researching more on my style. This is what I want to know and hear. I need to learn and fix what I am doing. Thank you.

I LOVE YOUR FLOWERS IN BLACK AND WHITE