Active Fine Art Posts
How To: Draw a perfect cylinder using a right angle prism as a guide
Drawing cylinders, like drawing circles, is easy stuff. But drawing perfect cylinders, minutely calibrated edges and angles and all, is often impossible unless you have the right method and the right tools. Rather than lazily sketching your way to a mediocre cylinder, why not improve your drawing and drafting ability by crafting a perfect one?
HowTo: Build Your Own Camera Lenses
The prerogative of most fancy, pricey lenses nowadays is ultimate sharpness. However, if you're partial to that soft, out of focus look, you can make your own lenses to achieve this type of effect.
How To: Draw an anatomically correct human head
You can't accurately draw a human face - heck, any part of a human body - without knowing about how the underlying bones and muscles contribute to structure. And while disecting is by far the best thing you can do to improve your knowledge in these two fields, we don't all have the ability to do such things. So this video is the next best alternative.
How To: Draw an anatomically correct man in motion
We can't seem to divulge ourselves from our stick figures, which we perfected to an art in second grade. But if you're a true artist who's looking to become better at realistically rendering a human body, then you've come to the right place.
How To: Draw realistic hips
This video, which gives tips on drawing realistic hips, is helpful to people learning to draw the human form. The video starts by showing examples of bad drawings of hips and explains that these are how you should not be drawing them. It then shows a realistic black line picture of the pelvis bone on which the presenter has drawn a simplified version of it in a contrasting red color. He gives a simple description of his drawing, saying it is like an oval with butterfly wings coming from it. H...
How To: Paint an eye in acrylic paint
This painting tutorial demonstrates how to make a painting of an eye with acrylic paint. Use a photograph as a reference. Begin with light washes of paint, and slowly lay down more paint mixed with liquid medium or drying retardant. Use small amounts of blending color as a final layer.
How To: Build a small downdraft kiln with Simon Leach
In this 2 part how-to video, Simon Leach, who normally shows you how to make pottery, instead shows you something else. In this tutorial, Leach shows you how to make and build a small propane downdraft kiln. Follow along with Simon Leach, and you too could be building your own kiln in your backyard.
How To: Make a DIY front surface mirror (cheap, small & circular)
If you consider yourself a "laser" man, then you probably know all about front-surface mirrors. But do you know how to make an FS mirror? This video from AP Digital light will show you how to make cheap first surface mirrors.
How To: Draw an isometric holed square prism using a template
Give life to your drawings by busting them out in three dimensions. Two dimensional drawings are cool, but creating images in 3D helps to give them life and vitality, not to mention believability, traits that are very important if you're looking to get into architecture or drafting.
How To: Draw an isometric pyramid inside a cube
Fashionable things come and go (remember gladiator sandals?), but truly cool things stay around forever. Take pyramids, for instance. Since the Egyptians (well, arguably, the Mesopotamians) invented them more than two thousand years ago, they still fascinate people all around the world, and the Giza pyramids are still one of Egypt's top tourist traps. And songstress Charice recently devoted an entire song to pyramids.
How To: Draw an isometric cube using a template and measuring scrap
This is one of the few times you should be a square. After all, achieving perfect, equally measured sides and angles involves fine tuned calculations that aren't open to creativity and whims.
How To: Draw a cylinder using a right prism as a guide
Drawing a perfect cylinder is hard. Heck, drawing a damn circle is hard for most of us. Which is why you shouldn't be ashamed of using some extra tools when formulating one on paper.
How To: Shade and contour graffiti characters with Wizard
Maybe it's just us, be we think that graffiti characters that aren't in some way colored or shaded in just look like drawings from a coloring book. Of course, if the coloring book were rated R.
How To: Make shutter shade sunglasses from duct tape
Okay, so the shutter shade trend sort of rode the wave of Kanye West's popularity after he wore it for his video for "Stronger," and then decreased in fan enthusiasm after the Taylor Swift music video incident (your ego is more than your "imaginary friend," Kanye).
How To: Use aperture, shutter speed, and ISO on the DSLR
It's true that a high quality digital SLR can take pictures 1000X better than any digital camera can without any previous experience from the photographer, but by understanding some digital SLR camera basics you can improve the quality of your photos greatly, and even take professional-looking ones.
How To: Draw a complex levels garden with a walkway
In our hectic everyday world of coffee, office cubicles, kids, and soul destroying commutes, it's nice - and often necessary - to have a peaceful, safe haven we can come back to and just be ourselves in. Unfortunately, for those who live in overcrowded cities, that place is not home. What's worse is that most apartment buildings and even condos don't have garden space for you to calm your mind in.
How To: Draw a "Guner" graffiti tag with Wizard
If you're anything like us, you hated your name for a good three or four years during your childhood, occuring probably not so surprisingly around our awkward puberty years. Whether you like your name or not, putting it in graffiti - transforming it into art, if you will - puts a whole new spin on things.
How To: Draw an electro funk graffiti character with goggles
Forget about art imitating life; abstract and caricaturized expression is the way to go (and definitely the wave of the future).
How To: Draw a spraycan holding another spraycan with Wizard
The irony of a spraycan holding another spraycan aside, this graffiti picture looks pretty awesome. Turning the graffiti artist - spraycan relationship on its side, this picture shows the spray can as the agent, graffiti artist now gone, holding a spray can in one hand and a marker in the other.
How To: Draw an animated graffiti spraycan with a goatee
This graffiti/drawing tutorial finally gives spraycans, the weapon of choice of graffiti artists everywhere, the respect they deserve. With the power to make a beautiful picture on what would otherwise be an ugly concrete wall or to create a sociopolitical statement that changes the world, spraycans are integral to a graffiti artist's success.
How To: Make the Book of the Dead from "Army of Darkness"
For those of you not in the tack horror movie loop, "Army of Darkness" was a comedy horror flick which came out in 1993 that featured not so scary zombies and your typical aggregation of gnarly looking undead. While the movie itself was a bit of a snore, the prop guys did produce a rather cool-looking book, called the Book of the Dead.
How To: Draw Talia's female proportions from "Brody's Ghost"
Ask any major artist in any time period about the beauty of the female form, and we bet they could go on talking forever. Idealized and revered for as long as time itself (remember the Venus fo Willendorf?), female bodies and their lithe, undulating curves make for great painting subjects and have definitely gotten a good deal of male students interested in art.
How To: Build a YouTube channel presence and get subscribers
Any successful blogger and business brand will tell you that social media is really the only PR you need these days. Whether you're tackling Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or planning a takeover of YouTube, getting your product name out there - even if it's just your own name because you run a blog - is the number one absolute, most importan thing you can do to sell your brand.
How To: Become a full time potter with Simon Leach
According to a recent survey, many of us work to live rather than live to work. That may explain the lack of satisfaction that most workers report at their jobs. While little job satisfaction can be attributed to a number of causes (horrible boss, bad pay, bad hours, etc.), there is first and foremost the prime mover. Many people are stuck at a job they don't want, sadly.
How To: Paint a Hawaiian landscape with island inhabitants
Merrill Kazanjian has this painting tutorial which shows the process of his Hawaiian landscape mixed media painting. Follow along with the video and try to learn some of the painting techniques Merrill uses. He uses acrylic paint and at the end, puts his own twist on a boring landscape painting by using PaintShop Pro to add some island inhabitants.
News: Get Your Portrait Drawn in 1 Minute or Less
Melbourne-based graphic designer Benjamin Hammond just launched a site called One Minute Portraits, where the artist draws quick portraits in less than a minute. It works like this: email a photo of yourself, Hammond creates the portrait, and you can choose to buy the original if you like it. (OR pick up a few drawing lessons and do-it-yourself.)
How To: Draw the beautiful Megan Fox with pencils
Megan Fox. She's one of those girls you love and hate, because she's just so damn hot! You may not like her acting skills, but her beauty makes up for it all. But the closest you're ever going to get to Megan Fox is with this drawing tutorial. Merrill Kazanjian shows you how to draw Megan Fox, step-by-step, with pencil. It doesn't matter what your experience level is at drawing. All you have to do is follow the step-by-step instructions in this video. If you give it a try, you might transform...
News: If the World Were Made of Pixels...
Texas based artist Shawn Smith brings the digital world to reality with his woodcut pixelated sculptures. The combination of a traditional material (wood) with a contemporary concept results in surprisingly fresh work. Plus, the craftsmanship appears to be impeccable. Check out his artist statement below.
How To: Draw a cartoon figure of a boy
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw a cartoon figure of a boy. Start out by drawing a large circle for the head, then drawing the arms underneath and a circular body. next, draw the hair onto the boy, and add shoes, a shirt, and pants. Now, color the hair yellow, the body skin color, the shirt green, and the pants blue. Outline the drawing with black ink, then add on the facial features. Start with two circular eyes, a nose, and a small mouth that is a curved line. Add in more hair to the ...
How To: Draw graffiti lettering
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw graffiti lettering. To do this, you will use a pen and draw out your letters adding a graffiti flare to them. Do not draw regular letters, these have outlines and a flare out to the ends of them. This is very similar to the graffiti you will see written outside, but used with spray paint. Fill in the middles of the letters, then draw lines around it to make it look like it's standing off of the paper. use a marker to outline the sides of the letters so e...
How To: Draw transparent objects
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw transparent objects. Start out using light pencil markings, and draw the basic shape of the bowl. After you have the round top and have make it three dimensional, add shading to the bottom circle in the bowl so that you can see the bottom of the inside. After this, add shading to the side of the bowl to give it a realistic feel like it's sitting on a table. Next, use your eraser to remove some of the shading, then fill in darker pencil marks onto these s...
How To: Draw Timmy Turner
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw Timmy Turner. Start off by drawing the head, making the front round and the body will be a triangle shape. The back of his head should be a triangle as well. Draw two large circles on the face, followed by arms and legs coming off of the body. Next, draw ears onto his face followed by a shirt and pants on his legs. Draw Timmy's mouth with a large smile and two teeth at the top. His eyebrows should almost touch in the middle, then don't forget to add on h...
How To: Paint a portrait with artist, Sean Cheetham
In this tutorial, we learn how to paint a portrait. Start off by having a subject to draw, then hold your paint brush loosely. Start to outline the face of the subject, then paint in the facial features. Shade around the eyes and cheekbones, and add the ears to the face. Use the paintbrush to create different types of strokes to the painting that fit the face you are looking at. Use shading to your advantage, because this can make a person look older or younger, depending on where you place t...
How To: Draw Stewie Griffin from Family Guy with a pencil
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw Stewie Griffin from Family Guy with a pencil. Start off by drawing the ears, then the football shaped head around the ears. next, draw the arms with the shirt on it, and make the hands. Also, draw a rocket with Stewie holding it. Keep drawing downwards, making the arms around the rocket and the body with pants and a bib on top. Draw in the details of the face, giving the character large eyes and a triangle shaped nose. Give the character narrow eyebrows ...
How To: Draw Charmander
In this video, we learn how to draw Charmander. Start off by drawing the large eyes with lines inside of them. After that, you will connect the head around it, followed by the nose. Next, you will draw in the rest of the body including the feet. Draw in the tail with flames coming out the end of it. Add in lines around the body to make the figure look more realistic, then draw in pupils for the eyes. When you are finished, you can color the character or just leave it how it is and shade in on...
How To: Draw a doodle
In this video, we learn how to draw a doodle with Marieke Blokland. Start off by writing the letter "e" in cursive, several times, making the letter larger as you go. Link the e's together, then when you get to the bottom of the paper it will be just a scribbled loop. Now, on the next page, draw more of these looped e's, dragging out the lines. On the next paper, draw spirals going from smaller to larger and going clockwise and counter-clockwise. Start to incorporate all of these shapes toget...
How To: Draw a cartoon horse's head
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw a cartoon horse's head. First, make a large ear followed by a large amount of hear and a smaller ear. Next, draw a large eyes underneath the ears with eyelashes. Then, draw a nose for the horse and a mouth making a smile coming outwards of the eyes. Next, draw the mane with a lot of hair and the neck going downwards off the paper. You can add a collar onto the neck of the horse if you want it to look like it's wearing a shirt. To finish, add in more hair...
How To: Draw a cute, blue cartoon bird
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw a cute and blue cartoon bird. First start out by drawing a circle for the head, an oval for the body, and then an oval wing in between the both of them. After this, trace over the lines to make squiggle marks on the wings and on the rear end of the bird. Add on an eye and pupil to the head, then draw a beak with an open mouth, making it a "v" shape in the middle. Then, color the entire bird blue, leaving the beak orange and the eye outlined in black. To ...
How To: Draw smile now cry later clowns
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw smile now cry later clowns. Start off by drawing a large laughing mouth with the tongue inside of it. Next, draw the eyes and then the nose and chin. Draw the eyebrows on the clown so it looks like a clown, with makeup on the eyes and face. After this, add details to the tongue and fill in the back of the mouth with black shading. After this, draw neighboring clowns the same way as the first, just changing up facial features to make them different. This ...
How To: Draw the King of Pop, Michael Jackson
In this video, we learn how to draw Michael Jackson. Start out by drawing the body shape, outlining the clothes first. Draw details on the pants and shirt, then add a hat on top, shading the face. Now, draw hands onto the drawing, along with shoes on the bottom. Next, add details to the hat and a tie to the shirt with a collar. After this, draw on a belt and shading and lines to the jacket and pants. Add shading underneath the hat to make it look as though the face is underneath, then when fi...