Learn to Draw
By Helen South, About.com Guide to Drawing / Sketching
Learn to Draw: beginner's drawing lessons from how to hold a pencil through to perspective and pencil shading, through to portraiture and figure drawing. Learn to draw what you see!
- Learn About Drawing Mediums
- Getting Started - First Drawing Lessons
- Structure and Perspective
- Value / Tone and Shading
Learn About Drawing Mediums
You can start learning to draw with just some scrap paper and a number two pencil. Don't waste money on the wrong art materials: learn about your choices before you hit the art store.
Getting Started - First Drawing Lessons
These drawing exercises take you through exploring your medium, learning to follow lines in space, follow contours and explore three-dimensional form. The aim of these exercises isn't to create a perfect drawing but to train your eye, hand and mind - a bit like scales for a musician, or ball drills for a footballer.
Structure and Perspective
Structure and perspective are connected - understanding how perspective works will help you draw three-dimensional objects. For general drawing, you only need the basics. If you enjoy perspective drawing, it can be fun to experiment with!
- Draw Simple Boxes in One-Point Perspective
- Draw Simple Boxes in Two-Point Perspective
- Find the Center of a Square or Rectangle in Perspective
Value / Tone and Shading
Learning to use value (also called tone, or tonal value) - light and shade - in your drawing - requires a slightly different approach to contour drawing. Instead of looking for edges, value drawing involves looking at areas of light and dark and in-between tones.
- Introduction to Pencil Shading
- Value Drawing - Seeing Light and Shade
- Practice Graduated and Continual Shading
- How to Use a Value Viewer
- Value Exercise: Newspaper Drawing (matching tones)
- Value Drawing in Charcoal: Soft Volume
Sketching
Keeping a sketchbook is considered essential by most artists, for many reasons. A sketchbook allows you to track your progress, develop the drawing-from-life habit, and keep all your visual ideas in one place.
- How to Keep a Sketchbook
- Sketchbook Ideas
- Sketchbook Top Picks
- Drawing Quotes for Your Journal
- Thumbnail Sketching
Figure Drawing
Figure drawing is the traditional cornerstone art training. The human body offers every challenge one could require - line and tone, perspective and composition. Parental guidance advised as figure drawing involves artistic nudity, and reference sources may include nude photography. For those under 18 - some links on these pages may not be appropriate. If your parents wouldn't approve, please respect their wishes.
Portraiture
Portrait drawing begins with a focus on technique - mastering head anatomy and proportions, and learning to observe and draw the features accurately. But the ultimate challenge for the portrait artist is to capture the character and spirit of their subject.
