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Kelly Medford

Professional Artist

Kelly Medford is an American painter based in Rome, Italy. She studied classical painting, drawing and printmaking both in the U.S. and in Italy. She works primarily en plein air on the streets of Rome, and also travels for private international collectors on commission. She founded Sketching Rome Tours in 2012 where she teaches sketchbook journaling to visitors of Rome. Kelly is a graduate of the Florence Academy of Art.

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Forum Comments (1)

Ideas and inspo for what to draw next
Try copying drawings and paintings that you love from artists past and present. Learn how they make marks and approach something. You can even take tracing paper and go over their drawings from a printout. This practice in invaluable for learning different approaches to drawing and can improve your drawing in leaps and bounds.

Don’t just draw what you think you “should” be drawing, either—draw whatever makes you happy! Doodle, scribble, make shapes on scrap pieces of paper, spy on people in the park and try to draw them as they talk, eat or sunbathe. Make drawing fun, otherwise, you will quit if it feels like a chore.

I would also advise you to draw something every day and take your time to really study how things actually are. One challenging thing about drawing can be to draw things as they actually are rather than how we think they are. That might sound silly, but learning to draw is really about learning to see .

Study something each day and draw it until you can get it as close as you can to the thing you are looking at. It can be helpful to spend time doing blind contour drawings every single day and go slowly when observing what it is you are drawing. Do not worry about the results of the drawing— this is training your eye to slow down and to work in tandem with your hand. This is a very good way to sharpen your observation skills.

Use a mirror when drawing and every once in a while stop and look at your drawing and the thing you are drawing both in the mirror. Leonardo DaVinci did this and recommended it and it really works to see your drawing in a new way and mistakes jump out at you quickly.

Co-authored Articles (171)

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