Improving my marker rendering skill

life

This week I spent some time improving my marker rendering skill.

On Friday I created a fashion illustration for an outfit concept I’m working on for my course, and I spent hours on it, working to the best of my abilities to render it in colour. But after I was done, I just felt so disillusioned. It looked so rough and amateur, and it had taken me so long because I didn’t really know what I was doing.

To be clear: three years ago I would have been stunned if you’d told me I could draw something like what I drew last week. But we always strive for better. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at such beautiful illustrations, and my standards for myself have shifted.

Last week’s drawing
Last week’s drawing
This week’s drawing
This week’s drawing

So I decided to take a day to research and practice, and then had another go at the same drawing. Although I still have a looong way to go, I’m absolutely blown away at how drastically improved it looks. The splodginess is gone, and it looks clean and bold and graphic, which is what I’d been aiming for originally. I used the same markers (Promarkers) in the same colours, the same paper and the same base outline, but the new one is so much better. I’m surprised at how much improvement I was able to make in such a short space of time, particularly in an art form that I still consider to be black magic, that some lucky people (who aren’t me) are able to tap into.

Here are the things I changed:

My takeaway from this experience is that when I’m dreading something because I find it hard, sometimes it’s because I’ve not learned how to do it properly yet. It’s worth taking a breath, and a step back, and focusing my energies on practising, before declaring that it’s something I’m simply not good at. Skills are things you build over time.

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