Basic Drawing: Concepts and Techniques

First, you should know that drawing is all about shapes and shading. The four basic shapes include square, cone, rectangle, and cylinder. You must master drawing these shapes to draw more complex images. Start by grabbing a pencil and some paper. Draw all of these four shapes. The best way to draw straight lines without a tool is to lock your wrist and bend your elbow appropriately. If you need to draw very short lines, you should use only your fingertips. To see the difference, just practice the two methods. You should notice that if you tried to draw really long lines with your fingers and bending your wrist that the lines will come out wiggly. The next step to master is tracing. Get an image from the newspaper, or magazine for example. Take your pencil and trace over all the lines in the image. Once you master the tracing skill you'll notice that the image looks relatively unchanged in that you should not see your pencil markings crooked and only on the actual lines and shapes of the image. Tracing is a very important skill because you will apply this same concept every time you want to draw something you see, except instead of tracing the image on paper, you will trace the image in your mind. This will help you interpret images and allow you to transfer what you see into an accurate image on paper. Next, you must master shading. Draw a long rectangle. Then section it several times with vertical lines. You should have essentially a bunch of squares sitting next to each other in a horizontal fashion. Label one end of your diagram to "dark" and the other end "light." You should also obtain a "kneaded eraser," a special kind of eraser that is reusable, usually gray in color, and you use it in a padding fashion to lift off pencil marks. Now, look at the dark end of the diagram and apply your pencil very firmly to the paper and fill in one square. Make this square the darkest you possibly can. You will likely have to pencil in this square many times over to get it dark. Now, work on the next sequential square, applying less pencil, as you gradually head towards your light end. The light square should be a very light gray or white. You will need to use your kneaded eraser during this process to aid in your shading. Also, you should tilt your pencil such that you get a large surface area being used, don't just use the tip of the pencil. After you finish filling in the diagram, do it all over again, but this time without the squares. Just use a rectangle and pencil from one end to the other in the same fashion. The more natural the transitions look, the better your shading will be in your drawings. Finally, an extremely important tip to mastering the basics is to think in 2D. Most books and teachers wont tell you this, as they are simply internalized concepts. When we see an image in the world, we see it in 3D because of all the shadows and lighting. Additionally, our eyes only see an image and due to the lighting our brains transform it into a 3D image. Once you start to see images in 2D, by interpreting shadows and lighting as flat (essentially they are just shapes), then you will master basic drawing. Once you feel confident in your new skills, select an item from around the house including a lamp, TV, chair, desk - anything you like. Now try to draw it. Trace the image in your mind, break it down into simple shapes, and draw them on your paper. After you have an outline of the image, map out the shadows. Now, just shade in the image. You'll likely need to try 2 or 3 times to get a really good image. Be patient, detailed, take your time, and most importantly be diligent. It takes practice to draw like the best of them!