Let's Get Sketching! #1

Sketching is a skill that is nice to work on constantly to improve many types of art. If you are like me, you know that you could draw or sketch better if you could just make yourself practice more! So I decided to create a series of swaps, if anyone is interested, to work on our sketching skills and hold ourselves accountable to practice.

This will be a series where each swap is a set of different exercises to work on different sketching techniques. For these swaps use any type of sketching paper you have handy, tearing pages out of a sketchbook if necessary. The size and weight of the paper doesn't matter, just use what you already have.

I will put a time minimum or maximum on most exercises, as this is a rough guideline as to how much detail to add to our sketch. For example, if an exercise says 5+ minutes then you must spend at least 5 minutes on the exercise which would mean not very much detail, just a quick rough sketch. If an exercise says 20+ minutes then the sketch should be a lot more detailed. If you have questions just ask me.

For our first Let's Get Sketching! swap here are the set of exercises we will be completing:

1. Create a 1 minute quick sketch of something in your surroundings.

2. Create a 5 minute sketch of something in your surroundings.

3. Create a 15 minute sketch of something in your surroundings.

4. Create a sketch of a face without lifting your pencil off of the paper with one continuous line (3+ minutes).

5. Create a sketch of an object using your opposite sketching hand (3+ minutes).

You should use 1 sheet of paper (you may use front and back to save paper) for each exercise. On each page sign your name and write out the exercise that you did on that page. Place your sketching exercises in an envelope and include a note with the name of the swap and your username and mail to your partner.

You do not have to be great at sketching to be a part of these swaps. They are all about practicing! So please do not be intimidated and also do not rate your partner based on how good their sketches are. If you receive exercises 1 through 5 and they are signed and labeled then please rate a 5.