These speed painting and drawing tips will help you conceptualise quickly and put your artist abilities to the test.
The name says it all, artists give themselves limited time to complete a painting or drawing. Creating against the clock can range from a few minutes to a couple of hours. Speed painting or drawing is an excellent way for beginners to learn new skills and to practice existing ones.
Custom shapes are simple and fast, fun way to create something without any pressure. Custom shapes are used as a tool when you are doing a speed painting or speed drawing and can be great time-savers.
“Simply scribble abstract shapes using a hard brush, then play with them; try copying, repeating, overlapping, and transforming the shapes and using them in your art.”
The initial letting go and taking the first step to create something on the canvas can be the hardest part. Simply filling the canvas with various colours, textures, tone and opacity and gradients can help you to get started without even knowing what you are painting yet.
“By starting this way there is less pressure to fill a blank white canvas, which can be a hindrance to creativity.” Says illustrator and concept artist, Katy Grierson.
Find fun methods/tools to use and experiment with them. “The Transform, Clipping, and Smudge tools are essential to my workflow as I prefer to create a collage and find shapes, rather than painting right from the get go,” says concept artist Ian Jun Wei Chiew. Experimenting in fun ways can spark new ideas.
Don’t over-complicate a simple message that you want to portray. Rather focus on the one or two stories that you want to tell and tell them very well. When a story becomes too complex you will need to start dividing your canvas into smaller portions to accommodate all the elements. Stick to a simple story and tell it well.