Nuki News #51 - Revisiting - Art Exercises!

The 2nd ever NukiNews went over some rudimentary drawing exercises, the goal of which at the time was to get accustomed to drawing on this laptop I use for Patreon stuff(that doubles as a drawing tablet when flipped).

You can find that post here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/nuki-news-2-art-33371172

Today, roughly 14 months later, I’m here to talk about WHY this sort of seemingly simple practice is important, and why I recommend doing it.

Firstly, it’s because it doesn’t get more basic than this! Drawing straight horizontal lines, arcs, waves, and circles/ellipses are pretty much all you’re going to be doing when you put pen to paper to draw something- anything! It’s great to do as a beginner to familiarize the motions you’ll be making to draw lines, and as a more experienced artist to warm up your hand, arm, and fingers.

Secondly, it builds muscle memory into your drawing arm, as well as refine your hand-eye coordination! This is hella overlooked, mostly because artists who are already drawing daily don’t think about it since it’s so basic and part of the process of drawing, too. I’ve been doing this exercise again over the last 2 weeks straight and I can confirm when I get to drawing things now, it feels more fluid and natural after doing these exercises as warm ups. It really is like a work out for your drawing.

Thirdly, it’s easy and quick! And it’s okay to screw up royally. These exercises aren’t for show, you can delete them, it’s just to get your hand, brain, and eyes working together to prep you for whatever it is you’re about to draw. 8-10 attempts for each of the exercises, drawing over your last one. You can visually see where a previous line went badly, and you can try and correct it on your next line. They only take 2 seconds or less to do per line. No one is going to see these, it’s just like testing your scales in music or stretching before a run.

Example of the exercises: 

If you’re interested in taking this on and learn more, I’d recommend watching this video- I’ve got it set at a certain time so you’re straight at the demonstration of the exercise:

https://youtu.be/eaif0PpNMas?t=385

Hope this is helpful on knowing an easy way to improve your drawing from a very basic level! Ive been making a point to do this at the start of my live streams to show folks how I do it too.