How to Draw

Begin by considering the remarkable history of drawing, a history that has produced knowledge, methodology, and techniques that are readily learnable. Assess common misconceptions about talent and genius; discover how learning to see analytically and abstractly helps us draw; and try your first drawing exercise, retracing what our ancestors drew 80,000 years ago.

Here, investigate drawing materials you'll use throughout your lessons. Learn about artists' graphite pencils, charcoal, brush and ink, and drafting and measuring tools. Then learn how to set up your work area, and how to place both yourself and your subject vis-a-vis your drawing board or easel.

Explore essential first drawing exercises and learn how you will apply the skills developed here to much more complex subjects. Grasp how the curriculum - spanning the many pieces making up the "grammar" of drawing, such as composition, proportion, perspective, value, texture, and color - fits together, providing you with the knowledge and ability to explore your own creative vision.

Learn about contour line, which describes the outer edges of objects, and construction line, which helps you build the objects you draw. Discover how to draw individual objects by constructing them from basic geometric shapes. Also learn about aggregate shape, which unites a drawing's disparate individual elements.

Now investigate cross-contour line (which can transform flat shape into a volumetric solid), oblique or foreshortened shapes, and their relation to geometric solids - principles that allow you to make objects appear three-dimensional. Also grasp the relation of figure to ground within a drawing, and practice drawing three-dimensional still lifes.

Explore the vital concept of negative shape, the shapes existing between the positive shapes representing the objects on the page. Study how artists conceive of negative shape and use it in constructing their compositions. In still life exercises, practice intentionally drawing both "positive" object shapes and the "negative" shapes between them.

In approaching composition, study the underlying structure of rectangles, the fundamental shape of most drawings. Learn how the character of any rectangle is defined by the relationship of its verticality to its horizontality, and how this relationship affects our perception. Observe how simple diagonals within a rectangle offer numerous possibilities for visual interpretation.

Study how artists think structurally in building a drawing, tying the drawing's content to the geometric underpinnings of a given rectangular shape. Learn about focal areas, focal points, and compositional balance, and how this kind of structural understanding serves to unite the parts of a drawing, creating a unified whole.

Take a deeper look at the types and qualities of line, and consider how these attributes affect line's expressive potential. Study and practice nine key attributes of line, from value and width to continuity, shape, and texture. Then explore gestural line - line that swiftly captures the character of a subject.

Investigate visual strategies artists use in composing drawings. Grasp how shapes communicate, and how the factors of contrast and repetition affect how a viewer reads a drawing. Learn about visual "rhyming" (shapes and directions that get repeated rhythmically), spatial organization (foreground, mid-ground, background), and the narrative possibilities of composition.

Now begin a study of proportion and measurement in drawing. Learn about a key discovery of 15th century European art, the velo, a gridded device that allows you to create a convincing depiction of a figure, landscape, or other subject. Use your own velo, and draw a proportioned, foreshortened view of an interior.

Study key tools artists use to arrive at correct proportions. In particular, learn how to use an analog clock face as a way to quantify angles, how to use a standard unit of measure to measure across the picture plane, and how to use level and plumb lines. Then put these elements together in practice.

Look broadly at how artists create flatness, volume, and space on two-dimensional surfaces. In doing so, study 12 factors that affect how we perceive depth of space, encompassing principles such as overlap, the relative scale of objects, the use of diagonals and foreshortened shapes, atmospheric perspective, and how distance affects color.

Apply your knowledge and skills to a number of intriguing and complex drawing conundrums. Among a range of projects, create a still life of boxes, translate a complex figure painting into a line drawing, and draw a carefully composed self-portrait. Also consider common pitfalls - and their solutions - in drawing naturalistically.

Linear perspective, a Renaissance discovery that radically changed art, is another core tool for controlling proportion and creating a life-like drawing. Learn about one-point perspective, how diagonal lines recede to a vanishing point, and how to use this principle to create convincing form in space.

Combine your knowledge of illusionistic space and linear perspective in drawing an architectural landscape of two buildings on a ground plane. Construct the buildings and the space between them using the principles of one-point perspective. Then draw through the buildings, creating interior floors, windows, doors, and furniture.

Learn how to draw a perspectival grid, and look at ways artists use grids to measure the depth of space in a drawing. Then, draw a complete gridded room, beginning with the floor plane. Add gridded walls and a ceiling, controlling proportions in spatial recession. Finally, add interior objects of specific measure in specific locations.

Apply the principles you've learned to draw curvilinear volumetric forms, such as a cylinder, cone, and sphere in perspective. Also investigate the drawing of geometric patterns in perspective. Then begin a complex drawing from your imagination, using one-point perspective to construct a believable and measurable interior space.

Complete drawing a believable, proportioned environment from your imagination. Next, study two-point perspective, used to accurately draw planes that are angled to the picture plane. Finally, discover how to draw sloping or inclined planes, and learn about three-point perspective, which depicts what we see when we tilt our heads, looking up or down.

In approaching value (the relative lightness or darkness of tones), grasp how the tonal palette of a drawing governs mood and the viewer's emotional response. Learn how we can conceive of the range of values from white to black as a scale. Study how artists use value as both a spatial and a compositional tool, and investigate the passage of light and shadow over form as occurring in nine steps.

For drawing with value, take a deeper look at the types and qualities of the materials you'll use. Investigate the uses of graphite, charcoal, blending and spreading tools, ink, and the use of fixative. Study the many types and grades of drawing papers, and see how different materials interact with different papers.

Discover how artists use value. With brush and ink, learn to make both white and black shapes and create a still life using only these two values. Then, draw a nine-step value scale, comprising nine distinct tones ranging from white to black.

Put your knowledge of value into practice, beginning with still lifes of white objects on white backgrounds drawn in a broad palette of light to dark. Learn to see a color's value as distinct from its hue and saturation. Realize a range of value-based projects, from drawings combining interior and outdoor spaces to portraits, full-figure drawings, and drawings translating color to value.

Learn how artists draw cast shadows from their imaginations. Start with shadows thrown by blocks and curvilinear solids, in one- and two-point perspective. Consider the expressive value of shadows, and progress to compound surfaces receiving shadows. Finally, learn to draw cast shadows of inclined planes.

To complete your study of cast shadows, learn to draw shadows produced by oblique light coming from both the front and rear of objects. Then investigate artificial light as it affects shadows projected by objects within interiors. Practice these principles by drawing a complex interior and an invented still life from your imagination.