Sketching with markers for beginners step by step in pictures

Initially, a sketch was a small draft or outline that served as a kind of preparation for larger projects. Today sketching is accessible even for beginners. To create a drawing, markers, pencils or pastels are used.

What is sketching

A sketch is not just a drawing. It is a means of creative expression. In addition, sketches are considered tools of professional designers, architects or engineers. Thanks to this technique, you can quickly and accurately express an idea on paper or a computer screen. Sketching with markers for beginners is becoming increasingly popular.

This is a special creative form of drawing with its own characteristics and advantages:

• lack of strict rules;
• there is no need to follow the basics of academic drawing;
• used in many professional activities;
• interesting and easy to learn;
• can be actively developed in different directions;
• use of different materials: from simple pencils to markers and pastels;
• ease of implementing an idea;
• special mood of the drawing.

You could say that a sketch is a living paper drawing. For beginners, sketching becomes an exciting hobby, and some use the sketching technique for professional purposes.

Where sketching can be useful:

• IN design. We are talking about interior design, clothing or landscape. Thanks to a pencil sketch, professionals visualize the idea that has arisen, and using color, they make the thought complete and understandable to the customer of the project.
• In art schools and academies. The technique is unique in itself, but for professional artists it is important to improve their skills.
• In professional fields. We are talking about journalists, creators of courses and online schools, graphic editors. Quick live drawings help to define tasks more deeply, clearly demonstrate content, and develop ideas.

Sketching is successfully developing among amateurs. Today, there are more and more beginning artists who use markers for their work. At the same time, the age of people who are interested in sketching can be very different.

Modern sketching is not just a drawing, but a separate unique category that includes different types of techniques and directions:

Type of illustration	Description and features
Food	A drawing of food that looks organically on the menu of restaurants and cafes, in the design of coffee shops or bars.
Floristics	A floral arrangement that is perfect for interior decoration.
Interior	This type of sketch is more often used by professional designers, with its help it is possible to quickly visualize any idea.
Architecture	Can be used by architects during project implementation as well as by novice draftsmen.
Travel	The so-called "road" sketch is used in different programs.

In addition to the listed areas, it is impossible not to mention fashion illustration. This sketching technique has long been used by designers and costume designers when creating collections of clothing, jewelry or shoes.

The most difficult direction is considered to be sketch portrait. To create a drawing in this style, special skills and knowledge of basic drawing techniques are really needed.

Materials for drawing

Sketching with markers for beginners has become widespread in recent years. This is partly due to the emergence of new modern and visually attractive materials for work.

Today, there are special sketch books, markers, liners and pencils for sketching. Thanks to this, ordinary buyers learned about sketching. It is quite difficult to choose the right tools in this variety. Beginner sketchers should pay attention to the simplest sets.

Sketchbook

Sketching with markers for beginners is associated with the selection of sketchbooks. These are notebooks designed for drawing. They differ from regular notebooks or albums in several ways. That is why in shops and creative workshops on the shelves they sell books, where it is additionally indicated that they are intended for creating sketches.

Paper quality and size

This is the main criterion that you need to pay attention to. Sketchbooks with smooth paper are suitable for markers, but it will be inconvenient to draw on such paper with pastels or watercolors. The fact is that rough paper is intended for paints. Such texture provides a stronger interaction with paints.

In a marker sketchbook, you can first draw with a pencil and then make a color drawing. Using colored markers on the right paper, you can create special unique transitions, emphasize shadows, make colors more saturated or reduce brightness.

The color of the paper can vary from traditional white to pink, gray or black. For beginners, traditional white options are more suitable.

Sketchbooks come in small pocket sizes or look like A3 albums. The choice depends on the purpose of use. For beginners, traditional-sized notebooks resembling a notebook are suitable.

They can be glue-based or held together with an iron spring. Experts advise choosing notebooks with a binding that allows the sheet to be fully opened so that all the details of the drawing are visible at each stage of using the notebook.

Markers

Sketching with markers for beginners is a special kind of hobby, where the primary importance is given to the selection of tools. Adults and children like to make sketches with markers. These tools differ significantly from ordinary felt-tip pens in a number of properties.

Firstly, markers do not spoil the paper, even if applied in several layers. Secondly, they mix perfectly with each other, creating unique shades. Using high-quality markers from trusted manufacturers is a great pleasure.

Markers are selected according to several criteria:

• Tip. This is a working element, the condition of which requires special attention. There are several options for the tip: brush, chisel, feather, bullet. The most common options are feathers. When choosing, you should pay attention to such a property as rigidity. Feathers should not be too rigid, but they should not fluff up under minimal load.
• Refueling. Refilling markers is one of the advantages of using these tools. When the marker's own resource is running out, it can be refilled with additional "fuel" from a special container with ink. It is better to have a refill for those markers that are used up faster than others.

Among the marker manufacturers, there are popular companies that have been producing office supplies for many years.

"Copy"

Sketching for beginners is often associated with the name of this manufacturing company. There are more than 350 color options. Each line has a different color of the marker body. The company produces markers of three types: nibs, chisels, and brushes.

Description and features:

• availability of branded refills for the entire palette;
• availability of replaceable feathers;
• There is branded paper for several lines.

"Sketch"

A popular brand that produces tools with a brush tip only. The manufacturer has a refill for all elements, an extended palette. These markers interact perfectly with the Wild series from the company "Kopik".

"Sketmarker"

A popular manufacturer from Europe that produces markers with a chisel or bullet-shaped tip.

Advantages:

• not a high price;
• gamut – 250 colors;
• There is a refueling and replacement nibs.

"Touch"

TOUCH markers are convenient and compact tools with a pen tip, which are great for beginners to try out. The main drawback is the limited palette, which has 96 colors.

The markers have refills in 20 ml bottles. This is enough for 7-8 approaches.

Besides markers, there are other tools:

• Simple pencil. This is a mandatory element. Before applying color with a marker, a pencil sketch is created on paper. Hardness is indicated by the letters HB.
• Eraser or rubber band. It is important that the eraser is made of high-quality rubber. It should remove lines, not rub them across the surface of the paper.
• Tracing paper. This is a pad that can be purchased separately, or you can buy a notebook with inserted elements. Tracing paper performs a protective function. It prevents you from rubbing over already colored parts of the drawing with your hands.
• Liners or pens. The tools will be needed at the stage of drawing contours. Contours make the image clearer and brighter.

Techniques

After preparing the necessary tools and materials, beginners are advised to familiarize themselves with the technique of sketching. There are several types of execution.

Shading

One of the traditional methods of drawing. Shading is done with short lines on the surface of the paper near the already drawn thick line. The lines during shading should be smooth and light.

Technique for shading:

• the working pencil or marker is moved along the original line;
• shading begins with dark shades, moving to light tones;
• During shading, color transitions or breaks are not allowed.

Shading creates volume and adds realism to the drawing.

Hatching

This is another traditional sketching technique that is needed to indicate the direction of light, texture features and composition.

Technique for performing shading:

• the lines should be straight, without bends;
• each stroke is 1-2 mm apart from the next one;
• during work, the transition from dark to light shades is observed;
• the drawing of strokes eliminates the possibility of intersection of straight lines of the contour;
• It is customary to fill the entire interior of the composition with strokes;
• When creating a stroke, the angle of inclination should be minimal.

A separate condition is that shading and shading cannot be used next to each other.

Different lines

It is important for beginners to understand which lines can be used to achieve results.

There are several types of lines:

• straight or curved;
• simple or complex;
• long or short;
• main or auxiliary.

To achieve your goal, you should remember to follow the rules:

• lines cannot be drawn several times in a row;
• using wide lines, they place accents and highlight basic elements;
• shading is done with thin lines;
• the proximity of an object is emphasized with thick lines, and the distance with short, dashed lines;
• To indicate the direction of light, the sketch is drawn with thick lines if a shadow falls on it, but with thin lines when light falls on the object.

Step by step instructions

Sketching with markers for beginners is not just a hobby, but a whole technique for doing work. To create a creative sketch, it is better to stick to the scheme, especially when it comes to the first steps.

1. First, a sketch is made on paper with a pencil. This is the silhouette of the future object. The thinner the pencil, the better. The sketch excludes drawing details.
2. The next step is to outline the contour with a liner. The technique of drawing sketches with contours is considered the most common and is suitable for beginners.
3. After this, a color palette is painted on a separate sheet.
4. Then they start filling. At this stage, it is important to leave empty areas that should be lighter.

The progress of the work depends on the features of the drawing. If there are many details in the sketch, then it is necessary to think in advance about the order of filling in the contours.

Coloring is an important part of sketching. Color is applied to a separate sheet of paper, waited for to dry completely or mixed with another color at the initial stage. During the coloring process, it may turn out that some colors are not suitable for the drawing at all.

How to draw

Beginning artists are advised to use generally accepted algorithms compiled by experienced professionals when creating their first works. The main task when creating a drawing for a beginning artist is to draw the details correctly. There are several algorithms that can be used when planning.

Silhouettes and people

In this case, it is not about filling the interior space, but about creating contours. The more saturated the contour, the more the silhouette will stand out.

To create an image of people, you can use a special plan:

• First, decide in what position the person will be drawn;
• then express human proportions using familiar geometric shapes.
• Only after this do they add details, draw arms and legs.

Landscape sketches

Quite often, landscapes are drawn in sketchbooks. This is one of the most popular and beautiful types of sketching. First, the silhouettes of trees are outlined using the technique of creating a vertical line. After that, the space between the trees is painted over, and the trunks are drawn in more detail.

Some trunks can be given strokes or bark texture. After the background is drawn, the foreground is filled in. The upper part of the landscape is filled with blue strokes, repeating the shade of the sky.

Tips and tricks

It is better to learn sketching with markers taking into account the recommendations of experienced artists.

Tips and description of technology features:

• The preliminary sketch is made with the lightest markers. This will help to avoid pencil lines showing through the paper.
• Filling the contours with markers begins exclusively, moving from a light shade to a darker one.

• Painting is needed to understand what the marker trace will be like after drying. The fact is that all markers initially give a darker trace. After drying, the trace becomes lighter.
• The shape of the tip is of great importance in the technique of drawing. The beveled rod provides an even filling of the contour. The edge draws neat lines.
• If you need to put a dot, it is better to do it with one circular motion. You cannot draw a small circle and then fill it. Such an element looks sloppy.

• Colours mix while they are still wet, so you need to act quickly. A new shade should be tried out early, during the painting stage.
• Complex objects when creating a large drawing are created by dividing them into several parts. This technique helps to think step by step, to perform each step strictly sequentially.
• We must not forget about perspective: if an object is far away, it is smaller than one that is close.
• To give the sketch volume, highlights and shadows are drawn. This approach is not typical for beginner sketchers, but you can try using the technique already at the early stages.

Artists call sketching a quick drawing technique and claim that it can be used to learn to draw anything. Sketching is a skill that can be acquired with experience, it is not about the artist's talent. That is why sketching techniques have become widespread.

Beginner sketchers should follow a few rules:

• It is better to start sketching with coloring, moving on to copying gradually. For coloring, you can buy special albums where the contours are already applied, they need to be colored with markers or gel pens. Only after this can you begin to create your own drawings.
• It is better to draw in stages to take into account the nuances of the technique.
• A beginning artist needs to train two basic skills: control of the hand and vision of the result.

To train and get your hand in shape, you can use additional techniques:

• Control over your fingers can be achieved by drawing with a graphite pencil.
• The main exercise of the training is drawing circles. The circles should not intersect. Drawing circles trains your eyesight and makes your hand more confident.
• Another exercise is filling in shapes with shading using short or long lines alternately.
• Beginner sketchers need to draw the simplest geometric shapes: rectangle, oval, lines, square.

There is another nuance that concerns the way of holding a pencil or marker in your fingers. The correct habit helps to increase control over the line, the pencil goes more evenly, without blots and inaccuracies.

Ways to hold a marker or pencil in your fingers:

• As for writing. This technique is well suited when the artist needs to make short strokes. The pencil is grasped close to the base so that there is no possibility of creating a large or voluminous line.
• For the middle part. When the middle is pinched with outstretched fingers, the marker or pencil is positioned almost parallel to the paper. When creating a drawing, the brush is relaxed, long strokes and beautiful lines are obtained.
• At hand. This method involves holding the pencil with the thumbs inside the palm. The hand is relaxed to the limit, the strokes are long and even. This is how the pencil is held when finishing and refining drawings.

Sketching with markers is a fun and rewarding activity. It is great for beginner artists, but can become a creative hobby for those who have never held a pencil or a brush in their hands and think that they cannot draw. Sketching is the art of fantasy, creative expression and flight.

Video about sketching with markers

How to draw a donut with markers step by step: