Making drawing a daily habit is by far the best way to evolve and improve your drawing skills. Buy a sketchbook and motivate yourself to fill at least one page every day. Not only will this fast-track your drawing ability and help you to develop your own unique style, but recording your surroundings and daily thoughts will give you a vast source of material to look back on and extract further inspiration from.Â
Drawing is a form of communication - a language made up of mark-making. All drawings have the capability to evoke emotion.Â
To project meaning and emotion into your work, try to tap into your own experiences. Only you can draw the way that you draw, with your own particular and incomparable influences, method and creative decision-making.
As well as calling upon emotions, your drawing can show the mood you are in at the time of making it. Emphasize or exaggerate certain qualities, colours and forms to help invoke your intended meaning. Take risks and be expressive in the handling of your material. Aim to be descriptive and suggestive with marks and colour without necessarily making detailed and exact drawings.
Reportage drawing visually narrates people’s interactions and behaviours around a particular event or situation. The goal of reportage is not solely creative - it is drawn journalism, serving as a record of issues and subjects made on site.Â
The topic of reportage is often political, but it doesn’t have to be. You can capture interactions in any setting where something worth recording is happening. Matthew Booker, who drew the picture here, says ‘I am generally inspired to work by a tension or an energy in an environment and a desire to communicate it.’
If you challenge yourself to draw in a fast-paced way, in an atmosphere that is tumultuous and exciting, drawing in public, with any intention, will become second nature. Go and draw what happens. You want to be looking at your subjects and their setting for the majority of the time, so that you don’t miss anything. Try not to worry about the aesthetics of your drawing, don’t stop to change anything unless it’s essential to your purpose and what you’re trying to communicate. You’re there to seize the moment and capture the facts of the events.