GRASP THE BASICS OF FIGURATIVE ART

Anatomy, gesture and line quality are key aspects of figure drawing. Joshua Black's advice will enhance your character work

- Joshua Black

The artwork on this month's cover is an example of one of the studies and sketches I do every morning to better myself as an artist. I drew this figure with the goal of working on my values and lighting.

I enjoy going back and forth between doing colour and black and white portraits. Both hone different sensibilities. If you're just starting out with painting, I advise working with black and white first, which will help you learn how to organise your values, understand the basics of lighting and get you comfortable with working with paint before adding the complexity of colour.

Having a specific skill set in mind that you're keen to focus on with your studies will go a long way in speeding up your learning and help you get more out of it. Many artists will just randomly pick something to paint or draw, without any thought on what skill or concept they want to gain a better understanding of.

One of the greatest hurdles for me as a young artist was knowing what to study and how to study. I strongly believe in the power of daily goals and in their ability to build up your skills and mold the artist that you want to become. With that in mind, I've put together these 10 tips to act as a guide on how to approach your daily art goals and to hopefully get rid of some of the damaging preconceived notions I had, which held me back when starting out on my art journey.

1 DO A PAGE OF ANATOMY STUDIES AND A PAGE OF FIGURE DRAWINGS EACH DAY

My first anatomy tip to artists who want to either improve their figurative work or enhance their character design skills is to get into the habit of doing one page of anatomy studies a day. Focus on a specific area of the body and then apply that newly acquired knowledge across a page of figure or gesture drawings.