Techniques Artists Use to Make Paintings Compelling to the Viewer

There are a lot of oil painting techniques that artists use to make drawings and paintings look realistic and compelling. 

Every painting starts with a drawing and to make a drawing look more realistic many expert art teachers recommend focusing on negative space. Paying attention to negative space and how it impacts the figure is very important in realism.

Negative space in art is the area that surrounds the focal point or main image in any drawing. Many artists draw the outline of the negative space before they draw the actual figure in the drawing. That helps create a realistic drawing.

Another drawing technique used is gesture drawing. This helps your drawings looks energetic and realistic. In this type of endeavor the point is to get tall the angles, proportions and shapes correct without having to do much shading or marking in of details.

Background details are also often omitted with gesture drawing. You can do gesture drawing with a  pencil but the artists with the most expertise can easily use just a few bold strokes in ink to create the look they want.

Yet another way to make paintings look more realistic is to use vertical and horizontal lines to help keep figures in proportion. A drawing master would likely place four vertical lines down the length of a figure drawing to make sure that everything looks in proportion. 

Horizontal lines are used in much the same way to make sure that a figure is not grotesque in one way or another. Some artists even use diagonal lines to try and make their drawings perfect. This type of technique helps keep the figure in proportion to the perspective as it is very easy to lose sight of how a figure should look if it is not quite right.

When it comes to drawing landscapes different lines are used. First of all a horizon line is established within the drawing. Usually the horizon line is where the viewer’s eye level would be when they are looking at the painting so that it appears as if they are looking out the window.

The horizon line is not always visible in the end product because it might be covered with trees, figures or buildings.

Many budding young artists learn how to make their painting more compelling to the viewer by studying the works of the masters. Copying the work of a master in the original medium it was done can also go a long way to teaching you how to create realism in painting.