Hello all,

So.... soon I will be away to grad school! Woo hoo! But this also means that, come fall, I will have much less time for art. Boo.

My goal: Do as much stuff as I can this summer to improve my art while I still have a life.

I only started seriously drawing and painting (digitally and on shoes) in December of 2011 (shocking?) but I would really love to do all I can to make my paintings more realistic. I'm fascinated by realism and making my art look as lifelike as possible. I've been scouring DeviantArt and the most helpful tutorials I can find are still really just "oh yeah, just paint in the highlights and the shadows." While this is helpful, I'm still pretty much a n00b and have no idea what I'm doing.

Therefore, I ask, if anyone has any tips or tricks or links to other tutorials that would help with getting my paintings to look more "real," I would love to hear them! Anything from how to choose colors to texturing to pretty much ANYTHING would be helpful.

Thanks!
Kelly