If you take care to follow them from the first to the last, and also try out the exercises that some of them include, then you will see your drawing skills improve immediately.

Start with these:

• Learn to see like and artist – this helps you understand why some people can draw and others think they can not.
• The sides of the brain – explains what you need to change to help you draw well
• Upside down drawing – this is a real eye opener and will show you that you can draw
• Drawing without looking – a great way to develop your artistic skills
• Outline drawing – when you have done the exercies you will see how much progress you have made

The other pages will help you with many other parts of your drawing – just dip into them whenever you need to or want to remind yourself of how to do things.

Drawing Sketch Book

The best thing you can do if you are serious about learning how to draw is to practice every day, even if just for a few minutes. Look around you, and keep a small sketch book handy. There are all sorts of things that are there just waiting for you to note in your sketch book.

It is especially good to just draw without looking at your work for long periods – it helps you to get your hand-eye co-ordination just right.

Here is a page from one of my old sketch books. Each littel figure was done in about a minute or less becasue they were always moving about so there was very little time to do much detail.

The point of doing a few quick sketches is to get your brain, your eyes and hands working together – to forget your surroundings and to concentrate on following lines, looking for shapes and shadows an recording what is in front of you – not just making it up.

Drawing is the basis of many types of art from painting in oils or watercolour, to cartoons and animation. Once your confidence in drawing has been raised, you will be able to progress into many other rewarding media with ease.

Why do I have trouble drawing?

The problem for most of us is that most of the basic building blocks are never taught in school, so although we may be interested in drawing, we were never taught the basic skills to get started. When we tried to copy other people’s drawings, our versions never seemed to be as good or as artistic. Teachers often expected us to be able to do basic drawing, and so we were encouraged just to ‘have a go’. This is a bit like asking us to read a book without being taught, just by saying what we think the words are.

What you need to know is that drawing is a skill that can be learned, just as easily as learning to read or learning to ride a bicycle. If you can write, then you have enough control of a pen to be able to draw a portrait. After all, the basic skill of drawing is simply to put on paper an image of what we see in front of us.

Actually that is where the problem lies. Most of us have not learned to see things with an artist’s eye. Our brains have been programmed to see things as objects using a short hand code, so for example, we know what a book looks like, and we know what a face looks like, so that when we try to draw these things, our pre-conceived ideas get in the way, and we draw them from memory instead of looking at what is in front of us and drawing what we see.

By changing the way we see, anyone can learn to draw.

Seeing and drawing

Drawing is not difficult if we can see things properly. Learning to see like an artist is the key to successful drawing but we need to change our normal way of looking at the world, and that takes some practice. Our brains are remarkable in the way that they process millions of pieces of information from our senses and allow us to experience the world around us. Partly because of the complexity of our surroundings, our brains have developed a sort of short cut to assist in processing information faster. To start with, we only see very small part of our field of vision in sharp focus, and the surrounding areas of our peripheral vision are slightly blurred. We have to move our eyes or turn our heads to look at them. In addition, we use our memories to ‘name’ bits of the scene in front of us so that we do not need to take as much notice of it to be able to recognise it.

Imagine yourself walking down a street. We see people walking past us, but we take very little notice of exactly what their faces are like or what clothes they are wearing unless they draw special attention to themselves. We subconsciously ‘name’ them as a man, woman, or child, someone carrying a package, a man with a dog on a lead, and so on. By ‘naming’ them, that is sufficient for our brains to be able to recall the scene, but without the majority of the detail.

The same thing happens when you come to draw.

If you look at a face and try to draw it, you tend to draw what your brain is telling you faces look like from memory – what an eye looks like – where the nose comes and what shape the lips are – instead of seeing the exact detail of the real face in front of you.

This comes about because our brains have two halves – a left half and a right half – and each half is dedicated to certain tasks. The dominant left half deals with things like speech, symbols, analysis, logical argument, and thought progression. It is this half that interferes with our ability to draw by dragging back symbols from our memory about what things look like. On the other hand, the right half of the brain deals with things like awareness, ideas, likenesses, special relationships, patterns and intuition. These are the aspects of our brain that we need to engage to improve our ability to draw.

How to engage the right half of our brain when we are drawing is the problem we need to overcome.

First, let’s look at how we use our brain to draw and do other things.

The left and right sides of the brain

Seen from above your brain has two distinct parts, the left side and the right side. Scientists have shown that each part is responsible for different tasks, although they are connected together with millions nerve pathways that allow the brain to work as one.

Some of the tasks performed by each half are shown below.

The left side of the brain was always thought to be the dominant side since it is responsible for logical reasoning and language and it is these functions that play a major role in everyday life. Unfortunately they can also get in the way of the artistic and creative right side of the brain when it comes to drawing and other forms of art.

Somehow, we have to trick our brains into using its right side when we need to do anything creative and not allow the well developed left side from interfering.

When we are drawing, the usual problem is that the left side of our brain keeps trying to tell us things like – “that is a chair, and the legs go straight up and down”, or “that is an ear, and it is simply an oval shape on the side of the head”, instead of letting us see exactly what is in front of us.

The problem is that our brain automatically names things while we are drawing and it is this activity that we have to stop. When we identify something that our brain recognises, we seem to have a shorthand version of it thrust into our minds as a type of symbol for the object. After all, our brains have to do this to be able to cope with millions of pieces of information provided by our senses to be able to deal with the world around us.

How do I get the right side of my brain to control my drawing?

Before we go into some of the techniques that you can use to get the right side of your brain to help with your drawings, we can do a quick exercise to get you to experience two ways of drawing.

	First, take a piece of paper and a pencil and towards the left side (or right side if you are left handed) draw the profile of a face, from top to bottom, As you draw, you can name the parts – forehead, nose, lips, and chin. It should be something like the one below, but make up your own version of it, from the shapes for each of those things that you can recall from memory. When you have finished, draw two lines along the top and the bottom of the drawing
	Now by treating the drawing as a simple line, without naming the parts of the profile, copy the shape in reverse from top to bottom. This time, concentrate on the distance from the first line, the angle, the roundness of the curve, the position of the pencil down the page. Don’t think of the names of the parts as you do it This is right brain activity – dealing with shape and the relationship between parts of an image. You may have noticed that you were thinking differently that time, just copying the lines in front of you.
	Before we move on, it would be a good idea to try a few more of these types of drawing. This time, just make up a profile like this one or anything else you feel like, and carefully copy it in reverse. Take your time and think about how the lines are related to the other side of the picture, how they curve, where they turn, how long they are and so on.

If you have a photograph of someone you know handy, just try a little experiment. Turn it upside down and see just how difficult it is for your brain to recognise the face in that position.

Try this exercise.

Start by looking carefully at the upside down picture below. It looks quite complicated, but drawing it upside down makes the job a lot easier.

Take your pencil and a sheet of paper and take your time to carefully copy the lines that you see in the picture. Do the drawing upside down and do not be tempted to turn it over just yet. It will take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete, but take longer if you need to

It will probably help if you draw a frame to start with so that you can get an idea of the starting and ending points of lines in relation to the edges of the frame.

Notice how the lines and curves fit together. Notice the spaces left between the lines and the length of each one.

When you have finished, turn the paper round and have a look at the results. You will probably be quite surprised at how close it is to the original.

You will have been using the right side of your brain to process all of the information and hopefully you will have started on the journey to engage the artistic and creative half of your brain in all your future drawing.

The trouble is that our brain has great difficulty in seeing shadows. They are generally seen as abstract shapes that are formed by the light falling on a familiar object. For example, the shadows on someone’s face define the areas around the eyes, cheeks, nose and mouth, but most of the time we simply interpret these as colour variations on the surface of the skin. Quite often in strong light, accurately drawing the shape of the shadows will define the shape of the objects that created them.

Different levels of light and dark are called tones, and they each have different tonal values. The range of the tones in an image can go from black at one extreme to bright white at the other and there are thousands of values in between. On a page, the lightest tone or white is usually the colour of the paper, while the black is the darkest tone that can be created with your pencil, pen or paint. When using a pen or pencil for a drawing, the different values between the black and white extremes are created by shading. With paints the shades of grey or the range of light and dark colours is created with the correct colour mixing.

As a beginner, it is good to simplify things as much as possible and the use of tonal values is no exception. Although there are many shades of grey, by reducing them to just three, plus black and white, it is possible to learn to see them much more easily. This gives a five step tonal scale – white, light grey, mid grey, dark grey and black.

Whenever you look at a subject, take a few moments to decide where the lightest and the darkest areas are. One useful technique that helps you to identify the dark and light areas is to half close your eyes. Apart from making the scene more blurred, this reduces the amount of light entering the eye, and so the number of tonal values is reduced to three – dark, medium and light. This is great in helping you to see where the darkest shades or shadows lie and it also makes the highlights stand out clearly. Once these areas have been identified, with your eyes fully open you can see the variations between the black and dark grey areas more easily.

Light and Shade demonstration

Look at the three pictures above. The colour photograph is what you would normally see, but it is quite difficult to sort out the exact highlights and dark areas. The centre photograph is the same thing without the confusing colour and this makes it slightly easier to see the light and shade.

However the last picture shows the image with only five levels of light and shade, and it is fascinating to compare it with the colour version.

Can you now clearly see that highlights on the girl’s forehead, cheeks, eyes and shoulder? These can be left untouched in any drawing if you are using white paper. Also look at the range of tones in her face, where there is very little black, but mainly a combination of the three medium grey tones. However, where the darkest black in her hair meets the white highlight on her forehead and ear ring, there is an immediate point of interest

Seeing the shapes created by the shadows of light on the surface of an object is the first step towards making accurate drawings and realistic looking pictures. The next step is to use shading to make them appear the right tone in your drawing.

It is important to remember how you can trick the left side of your brain to stay out of the way while you are drawing simply by turning the image upside down. This meant that the left part of the brain had great difficulty recognising objects and deciding what they were supposed to look like because they were not in their normal places. You were beginning to see lines, spaces, and curves instead of everyday objects. You were beginning to draw with the artistic side of your brain.

Seeing the shape of objects clearly

When you look at a scene, it usually has a number of objects in it with some in front, some in the middle and some behind. The ones in front obscure bits of the ones behind and but where ever they meet, the two objects share a common line. The lines in any scene create a sort of jigsaw with different shapes that all fit joining together to form a complete picture.

Seeing where lines meet is critical to being able to draw well.

So this is how to make sure that you can see the lines in front of you and draw them without the two sides of the brain interfering with one another.

This is what to do – you will need about twenty minutes.

Tape a piece of paper to a table or desk, or use a drawing pad that is large enough not to move while you draw.

Sit near the table or desk, so that you can draw on the paper, but then keeping your arm and hand in a position to start drawing, turn away, so that you cannot see what you are drawing. This is vital – you must not look at what you are doing during the drawing process. If you look you will have to start again!

Now, while looking in the opposite direction, look carefully at your hand.

Choose one part of it, say near your wrist and look at the edge. Place your pencil on the paper.

Drawing Contours or outlines

Now, slowly move your eyes along the edge you have chosen, observing each change in the contour, millimetre by millimetre. At the same time, move your pencil to draw the contours on your paper – without looking.

Follow the outline and the ridges on your hand and fingers, slowly drawing the shapes you see without worrying what the result will look like on the paper. It will help to keep the pencil in contact with the paper all the time to try and give you some idea of where you are, but it is not vital. Move the pencil to follow the movements of your eye and try and cover every detail that you see.

The important thing that you will get out of this exercise is that you are seeing with an artist’s eye, lines, shapes, relationships – seeing things in a different way – and that is where good drawing begins.

During the drawing you may have noticed that your state of consciousness had changed slightly – switching off the left side of your brain and letting the right side take over – losing track of time, forgetting about the objects themselves but rather their relationships.

What you will end up with is likely to be a strange drawing, but one which is a record of the transition into the creative mode of drawing and thinking. Here is an example of what you may draw.

Yours will probably be nothing like this – it doesn’t matter – it is yours. Try do do this a few times and see if your hand/eye coordination gets better with a bit of practice. I can assure you that it will!!

If you have time, try drawing other objects in the same way.

The more practice you can get the better. For example, try drawing a flower, or plant, a chair, a kitchen appliance, a shoe or a small table.

Now cut out the rectangle with scissors or a craft knife, so that you have a viewfinder hole the same shape as your drawing paper.

To use your viewfinder, simply hold it in front of your subject and move it until the edges of the subject touch the edges of the viewfinder.

If your subject is very close, you may need to increase the size of the hole to be able to get it all in.

It is sometimes difficult to see both the subject and the edges of the viewfinder, but with a bit of experimentation you will find that it is a very useful tool.

So with some practice you should be able to see the spaces around objects as shapes in their own right and by drawing the spaces instead of the subject itself, you are more likely to be able to complete a good outline of it.

For some practice with your viewfinder, try some of these drawings, using the negative spaces around them.

Take some kitchen implements, and stand them up on a table so that you can clearly see their shape. Perhaps select a few and put them in a jar. Then using your viewfinder if necessary, study the shapes around the objects as negative spaces and start to draw them to create your objects.

Alternatively, find an interesting chair or a plant in a pot and do the same thing.

In fact, choose anything you like. You may even like to try this out with another person as the subject or a photograph of someone you know.

It is difficult to over-emphasise how important it is to get into the habit of sketching. You need to do sketches wherever and whenever you have the opportunity. So take a small spiral bound sketch book around with you all the time. It only needs to be small – just 7” by 5” will do – just large enough to be able to do something meaningful , but not too large to make you feel self conscious when you are using it. One or two pencils are all that you will need as well, or if they are not available use a pen. One of my favourites is a water soluble pencil, so I can dampen my finger or a piece of tissue paper (use a brush later) to create smoother tones on the paper.

What are the advantages of sketching?

The most important training that you are giving yourself is in observation, and translating what you see into lines and tones on the paper. In a sketch there is no need to be perfectly accurate, so you have a greater freedom of expression and it is not important if you make what you consider to be mistakes. What you observe is important. Look for the lines and shapes of what is in front of you, slowly tracing their outlines as you copy their shapes onto the paper. Try to be bold, and just draw the outlines at first without looking too frequently at the paper.

When you have some lines on the page, half close you eyes and look for the blocks of light and dark tone, then begin to block them in using either shading or using a softer, darker pencil. Use a 5 step tonal scale, or simplify even further and just use white, black and grey.

The speed is good training.

Try to do your sketches quite quickly – just a quick outline, and tonal values – so that you record sufficient information to be able to reproduce the drawing in more detail if you need to later, but avoid the temptation to turn every sketch into a work of art.

Drawing quickly is also good training for future subjects that may not stay still for long. If you want to draw animals or children in future, then drawing quickly will certainly come in handy. However, if all you want to do in future is to draw from photographs, it may not be so important.

Getting a basic shape from moving subjects is good brain training too. You have to observe, then draw, knowing that you subject will have moved when you look back. This teaches you to take in more of the scene at one glance which can be useful.

Have fun with sketches

The best times to do sketching are when you can relax, so whenever I go to the beach, I take a sketch book and do a few drawings. If you are waiting for someone in a town centre and can sit down for a few minutes, pick up you pencil and look around you for inspiration. Just look at the people walking around with shopping bags, looking in windows, or sitting on a bench. They all make great subjects.

As you gain confidence, you may decide to try other media, so get out a pen instead and do some pen drawings instead. They have to be more precise, but they can help to develop your hand-eye coordination because there is no going back once you make a mark with a pen.

It is often called modified contour or outline drawing, because it is still based on drawing the outline of the shapes that make up the image in front of you. This time, instead of doing them without looking, you are going to be able to have a few quick checks on how you are doing.

The main thing in this type of drawing is that you are still drawing with the right side of your brain – accurately putting on paper what you see, without naming the parts or trying to recall how they should look – just recording what is there.

Before you start, you may like to try some more drawings without looking to relax your mind. Choose some fairly complex objects around you, such as a plant or a flower, and just relax into the drawing process

When you have finished one or two more drawings without looking, your hand and eye will start to become more accurately coordinated, so that you will have a better feel for what you are doing.

Modified Contour or Outline drawing

Now try another drawing of your hand, so decide whether you will do a back view or a front view, or one with curled fingers. Generally, the more complex the better.

The drawing is likely to take about 30 minutes, so make sure that you will have sufficient time to complete it.

Start by taping a piece of drawing paper to your drawing surface or use a large enough pad so that the paper will not move while you draw.

Now, turn so that it is not easy to see the paper but it is not impossible – say about quarter of a turn, but make sure that you face away from your drawing once you have put down your pencil in the place you intend to start. While you draw you will need to keep your hand and head in more or less the same places as when you started, so make sure that you are in a comfortable position

Carefully study the contours of your hand, the lines, the edges and shapes made by the fingers. Imagine how they will look in the paper in relation to the edges of the sheet, and then choose a place to start.

Slowly, as before, move your eye millimetre by millimetre along the contour of your hand tracing out the line on your drawing as you do so.

This time, when you come to a natural place to stop, and before you start a new line, have a quick glance at the drawing and make sure you start your next line in the right place on the drawing. When you have checked, look away, and continue to draw only by looking at your hand, following the curves and noting all of the shapes. As you complete each major line, for example, when you reach a point where the fingers cross each other, check the positions again.

Do not draw the complete outline at once, and then try to fill it in with the internal lines. It is much better to draw each part of the subject at the same time so that you can feel the relationships between the lines as you go along.

The results

If you have studied this exercise carefully and look at the drawing that you have made, something magic has probably happened – you have realised that you can draw!!

Whatever your drawing looks like, it will be an example of your free expression of the subject done straight from life.

Here is a typical example done by a student

When you have finished the first drawing like this, it is important that you keep on using the techniques that you have learned to tackle other subjects.

For more practice find some objects that are fairly complex, such as a kitchen tools, flowers, chairs, or anything that you have around you. Position them so that you can draw them in the same way as you drew your hand, turned slightly away from your paper, but near enough to be able to quickly glance at your paper while you work.

Most of the drawing should be able to be completed by looking directly at the object, with maybe less than 10% of your time checking the progress of the drawing.

You should have some drawings that are far more impressive than any that you may have done before, but most importantly, you will have experienced the shift in control from the left side to the right side of the brain. That shift is going to be vital for your future drawings, whether you are doing it for pleasure or for profit.

As long as you can see shapes in front of you instead of objects your skills will have a platform on which to grow.

Using space is another technique that you can use to keep the left side of the brain out of the way while we draw.

The first thing to notice is that when you are drawing it is usually on a piece of paper with a certain shape. This is normally a rectangle, in either landscape or portrait orientation.

If you can imagine a box the same shape as your paper surrounding the object you are planning to draw, you will be able to see that the areas surrounding your subject are shapes in their own right.

Look at this example. To make it as simple as possible a silhouette has been used, but the same things apply to any subject.

If you imagine that the surrounding box touches the subject at the top, bottom and sides, you will be able to see that it is surrounded by a series of shapes. To make it clearer, they have been coloured in the next picture.

By drawing the shapes of the coloured areas, because they share their lines with the subject, you will be drawing the subject as well. This is the first one.

Drawing the negative space around objects is a really powerful way of avoiding having to draw complex objects themselves. It also engages the right side of your brain.

To make things easier when you are working from a physical subject, you can make a simple viewfinder that you will be able