How to Create a Line Drawing From a Photo

Line drawing, or contour drawing as it's often called, is a basic way to hone your drawing skills. By producing simple images that adhere to major shapes and the outline of a figure, you can practice scale, perspective and number of other drawing skills. When you don't have a live subject, consider creating a line drawing from a photograph. A few simple steps explain how.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Choose an interesting photo that you want to draw. Photos of flowers, plants, animals or other interesting objects with a lot of contrast between light and dark or between the shape you're drawing and the background are perfect examples of images well-suited for a line drawing.

2. Concentrate on the outline of the figure. Line drawings are simple and are meant to help you decipher the shape of figures by focusing on the object's edge. When you finish with the edge, you can add some lines inside the figure to give it dimension and a nice finish.

3. Draw very slowly. Focus all of your attention on the object's edge. Keep your eyes focused largely on the photograph of the object, and feel whether the line is jagged, sweeping, curved, or delicately bent. Make a mark on your paper only after you understand the movement of the line.

4. Try to forget about making your contour drawing perfect. Because this exercise is so focused on the object as opposed to the technique of the drawing, your first few might not look exactly like the object. However, if you do contour sketches over a period of time, you should see improvement in accuracy.

5. Change things up. Once you feel you have a handle on line drawing, try blind line drawing where you never take your eyes off the object. Another option is "other hand" line drawing where you use the hand opposite your drawing hand to complete the exercise.

Resources

• Buy art supplies online at Dick Blick.
• Find art festivals in your area.

[CCrock]

on 11/17/2007 yeah, blind contour drawings are a great way to warm up and loosen up...they really help you to draw what you actually SEE...not what your brain is interpreting and THINKS it sees.

Also, don't bother with an eraser, it wastes time. Besides, you ca use the lines you don't like as reference to help you get it right. You can clean up your drawing with an eraser when you are finished.