Do I Have To Be Good At Drawing To Make An Acrylic Painting?
Although it certainly helps to be good at drawing to make an acrylic painting, it isn’t essential. The sketch or drawing produced prior to painting is merely a guideline showing where to apply paint. There are many different ways of producing these guidelines, not all of them hand-drawn, so don’t worry if you’re not too good at drawing.
Tapestries
Originally, paintings were actually made for use as the original composition from which to produce tapestries. These tapestries were richly decorated and painstakingly hand woven. They were hung from the walls of castles and great halls all over Europe, primarily to keep draughts out. Only the very rich or royalty could afford to have these intricate and decorative tapestries made. Decorating their homes with these tapestry hangings was an important way to demonstrate wealth to visitors. The original plan for a tapestry is called a cartoon. The artist Goya first worked at the Spanish Royal household creating sketches and paintings for new royal tapestries.
Traditional Methods
For centuries, the traditional method of training an artist was to make them learn to draw. Many would be apprenticed to an established successful artist. Initially, they would spend several years improving their drawing skills and simply learning how to mix paint. They learned about perspective, composition, shading and practised their hand/eye co-ordination. Only when the student or apprentice was considered competent at drawing did they progress to using colour. Then art students were sent to museums or great houses to faithfully copy old master paintings to teach them how to look carefully. Today, using a photograph as a reference is a similarly helpful method of painting without needing to be good at drawing.
Modern Methods
These days, many people like to paint as a hobby and have no wish to waste their time on learning unnecessary skills. Consequently, many modern artists trace the outline of a pre-prepared sketch or image and transfer it to their painting surface. They can easily do this using carbon or graphite paper. Another satisfactory method is to print off a design produced on a computer. Others even download and print off royalty-free photographs, sketches or prints found on the internet. These methods offer quick and easy guidelines for paint application. However, please be careful not to use copyrighted images that are another person’s property.
Tracing
There is an old-fashioned school of thought that considers tracing a ready made image is “cheating” in some way. This is nonsense. Artists should make use of all the opportunities available to them and cut down preparation time if they wish. Go ahead, trace copyright-free pre-drawn images, photographs or prints in order to produce a great acrylic painting. It’s the final product that is most important.
Enjoy yourself without stressing, prepare that painting surface and get painting!!
