Drawing Exercises
1. Continuous Contour Line Drawing
2. Blind Contour Eye Drawing
3. Gesture Drawing
4. Negative Space Drawing
5. Value without Line Drawing
• Create a drawing without lifting the pencil off the paper
• Helps artists focus on the line
• Imperfections = Beauty
Continuous Contour Line Drawing
Blind Contour Eye Drawing• Look at the subject
matter you are drawing, but not at your paper
• Helps your eye and hand work in unison
• Do not lifting the pencil off the paper
• Abstraction = Success
Gesture Drawing
• Draw as much information as you can in a short amount of time
• Do not waist time erasing; instead add darker lines on top of softer ones
• Focus on what is being drawn as much as the drawing itself
Negative Space Drawing• Draw the space around
the object (negative space) rather than the object itself
• 1st use solid marks to create very flat image
• 2nd try making the negative space more realistic
• Do not draw a single line, instead use shading to build the drawing up
• Create various degrees of lightness and darkness
• You can use an eraser
Value without Line Drawing
Increasing Darkness
• Pressure
• Crossing lines
• Lines closer together
Still Life Drawing
Still Life
Still Life
• An artwork that shows mostly inanimate objects
• Inanimate = things that cannot move or live
• Artists use this technique to become better in their skills of drawing and most importantly seeing
Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1599
Vincent van Gogh, 1888
MC Eschur, 1943
Pablo Picasso,1924
Roy Lichtenstein, 1972
Contour Line Drawing
• Start with soft pencil marks
• Zoom in and draw big• Try using shapes that
you see in the objects• Complete entire
composition before adding heavier marks and details to a single area
Value
Value
• Varies degrees of lightness and darkness in an artwork
• A good artist will use these degrees of value to give an artwork depth
Value vs Contour Line
Value Scale
• Using a pencil and ruler, draw 5 x 1’’ x 1’’ squares
• Add value to your artwork, with various degrees of lightness and darkness
• Choose from tonal, crosshatch, or linear, techniques
• Look closely at values and blend what you see
Today’s Steps
Hints
• Draw what you see from your personal perspective
• Constantly compare your drawing with the objects in the still life
• Spend equal time looking at your drawing and the objects in the still life