viii Piece of cake, Modern Abstract Cartoon Techniques

Go ahead: break some artistic rules and experiment with some abstruse drawing techniques! Abstract drawing is a great mode to improve your artistic skills by experimenting with forms and shapes in artistic ways.

Not sure where to kickoff? Here, we'll offer a brief education on abstract art, and eight easy ways to endeavour out abstract cartoon.

What is abstract art?

For many, the phrase "abstract fine art" instantly brings upwards visions of weird or modern compositions. Well, this is actually the right thought!

Abstract fine art — whether it painting, drawing or multimedia — is a type of art that doesn't depend on real-life visual references. Rather, information technology uses forms, colors and lines in ways that can capture a feeling or emotion rather than creating a literal likeness. As a result, what classifies every bit abstract can actually be quite varied in the visual sense.

eight abstract drawing techniques

Set up to get started on your own abstruse drawing creations? Endeavour some of these fun tricks to create abstract drawings (and accept fun doing it).

i. Just doodle!

Doodling can act as a warm-up for creating an abstract drawing, or it tin can yield an abstract drawing in and of itself. Basically, doodling is just giving yourself permission to describe whatever the heck you want, with no rules.

If you want, y'all can set up a timer, or just have a drawing session that lasts for as long it feels good. Maybe you'll terminate up with a tangle of lines, or a drove of hearts and stars, or just random shapes. Just letting yourself doodle volition often effect in fun, abstract forms!

two. Use your non-dominant paw to draw

Want a shortcut to create abstract art fast? Switch the hand in which you hold your drawing medium. If y'all're a righty, hold your pencil or pen with your left hand.Chances are, whether or not you're using a reference image, the lines will be wobbly and uncertain. This can really be a good thing! Familiar forms will be rendered abstruse pretty much instantly.

iii. Try profile cartoon or bullheaded contour drawing

If you've never tried contour cartoon, it'due south a swell way to dip your toes into the world of abstruse cartoon. When yous create a contour cartoon, y'all don't let your drawing medium exit the paper, but rather, describe one long, continuous line. It breaks down the field of study thing into wiry little lines, and can create interesting compositions.

To really take information technology to the adjacent level, you can even continue looking at the subject you're drawing without looking at the newspaper! This is called blind contour drawing.

iv. Lose yourself in a zentangle

Zentangles tin be a fantastic method of creating abstract art that is intricate and interesting to wait at, even so highly meditative to create. To make a zentangle, you'll start by drawing a unproblematic form or forms, and then filling them in with intricate patterns or cartoon marks. What you end upwards with may have some recognizable elements or outlines, only will get abstract by virtue of the intricate lines.

Check out our easy tutorial on how to draw a zentangle in iv steps and drawing design ideas to fill in a zentangle.

five. Create layered drawings

In this method, you'll gain a perspective shift — literally — when you lot shift your piece of work surface every few minutes! Begin working on a cartoon of any subject of your choosing, and then shift the newspaper (a quarter turn or upside down) and re-start drawing the aforementioned subject field, or a different ane, correct on height of the start drawing. After a few turns of the surface, yous'll accept some seriously abstract art!

vi. Add the chemical element of collage

Adding the chemical element of collage can aid you lot call up creatively near drawing and composition.

Here'southward ane fashion I similar to practise it: I'll cut out a piece of paper (information technology could exist a magazine image or a beautifully patterned paper) and then tape or glue it to drawing paper. From in that location, I endeavour to make an image out of it. A triangular cutout might go a dress for a character, or an appointment ring from a jewelry catalog might become a princess crown. Or, y'all can be more abstract and just create patterns coming from the shape or shapes.

vii. Just add h2o

For an piece of cake way to make an image more than abstract, attempt adding water! First, create a simple cartoon using a pen that is not waterproof. So, using a watercolor castor (don't utilise your absolute best ane, as it may get ink on it), apply some h2o to the image. The image will smear and accept on watercolor-like qualities that can be actually interesting. There's likewise an element of magic to this technique, because you lot won't know how it will end up!

8. Mask your prototype

When painting with watercolor, you lot can apply masking fluid to block out portions of your painting surface and leave them white. With drawing, you can employ removable tape or carefully placed pieces of newspaper to block out portions of the paper. Depict on superlative of them, and then remove when y'all're done; you'll find white spots of negative space that add an interesting abstract element to any drawing.