WArmup to Improve Line Quality

Warmup to improve line quality

I’m going to introduce you to several line quality exercises that you can practice for 5 to 15 minutes before you begin a drawing session. When you start drawing, even simple lines will feel awkward, like your hand just doesn’t want to do it. You have to battle through it, and over time your pencil will feel natural to you as if it’s just part of your hand.

You can do these warmups in your sketchbook or just get some cheap printer paper. I want you to fill as many pages as possible. If doing these in your sketchbook will cause you to do less of them because you’re trying to preserve sketchbook paper, then just use the printer paper. If you don’t care about “wasting” a whole sketchbook on line circles and shaded squares, then let’s go.

Throughout this course I’ll be adding more warmup exercises into your routine for you to do before you start drawing. You only need to spend 5 to 15 minutes on these. But the key is consistency. Don’t just do them once. That’s like going for a jog once. Warmups are especially important for beginners to develop control and hand-eye coordination, but also to help you get loose and warmed up for a drawing.

Being too tense or having all these high expectations before you start your session can be damaging. These exercises are abstract little practices that are simple to do, but they build essential lifelong skills. Don’t skip them.

Page Skating

This first warmup will help you build confidence in line fluidity. In particular, it targets your ability to draw a smooth, interesting curve.

You’re going to construct complicated curves using many simple C and S curves don’t draw anything specific. Just skate your hand around the page as if you’re an ice skater. It might seem too easy or a waste of time to be drawing abstract curves like this, but you’re building muscle memory. This repetition is preparing you for the future, and you’ll be constructing complex curves in a real drawing.

Keep your hand grip stable but relaxed. You should not be squeezing the pencil. Don’t draw too slow or too fast. Find a speed that feels comfortable. Your pencil should skate across the page in smooth, elegant movements. It’s good if you can overlap the lines, but if you find yourself getting anxious about connecting them perfectly, then you’ve got to loosen up a little bit.

That’s not the point of this, and you’ll just naturally get better at that as your hand-eye coordination improves. Remember that a tapering line can look good even if it doesn’t connect with the line next to it. When you’re doing this exercise, attempt to connect the lines but don’t rip your hair out if it’s not perfect, it’s more about the quality of the line. I want confidence to show through in your line work.

Light, Medium, and Dark Lines

This second exercise works on controlling pressure, sensitivity to create light, medium and dark lines. Let’s start with light lines. This is super important. Usually when we start drawing, we start with light lines. So you need to be comfortable and have good control using light lines.

Most people don’t have a problem pressing harder to create darker lines. In fact, it’s pretty common for artists to go too dark with all their lines. It’s called being heavy handed. So let’s practice so we can avoid that using just the tip of your pencil. Try to pull very light lines, challenge yourself to make each line lighter than the last.

If you’re having trouble, check how far up your hand is on the pencil. Holding the pencil higher can help with a lighter mark. Take a few deep breaths, play some waterfall moon, relaxation music and float your hand across the page. This exercise doubles as a stress test. You’ll find some days are harder than others. After you do a bunch of lines, do the same thing with medium lines and then dark lines.

Repeat again with light medium and dark. See if you can consistently get the right pressure. The grade of the pencil you use matters for this one. I recommend using either an HB or a 2B. Drawing light lines with a 4b will be too hard and unnecessary. Drawing dark lines with a 2h will most likely scratch or indent the paper. We definitely don’t want to practice scratching the paper no matter what pencil you use.

Just make sure you’re practicing light, medium, and dark lines within that pencils natural range without scratching the paper.

Straight Taper

The next exercise is just straight lines. This is a little bit harder, but being able to freehand straight lines is useful. Straight lines are used constantly in art, no matter what you’re drawing, you don’t want to depend on a ruler when you’re sketching architecture or hard surface stuff, or when you’re just drawing construction lines to get an angle measurement. This exercise and the next (Trace the Ruler) are building that hand-eye coordination to help you draw with more accuracy.

Trace the Ruler

Here’s another variation for practicing straight lines. Start with a thin light line with a straight edge or ruler and then draw over it freehand ten times. At first you’ll be a little off, but as you practice, you’ll get more accurate.

You might notice some patterns like your lines curve to the right or to the left, or maybe your lines are straight, but the angle is off. Drawing over a perfectly straight initial line helps to give you feedback on where you went wrong so that you can adjust in real time and become more accurate quicker.

Connect the Dots

You want to make it a little more challenging. Draw straight lines from point to point. You mark two random points on your page and then pull a line from one point to the other. It’s similar to the last one because you’re getting feedback on your accuracy right away. But now you have to imagine the line. It helps to ghost in the lines first, which I’ll cover more in the next lesson.

This exercise not only tests your ability to angle and place the line precisely, but your ability to pull the right length of line for this exercise. Don’t taper the lines. Try to end them exactly at the points. If you want to make it even more challenging, try to combine connecting the dots with pressure sensitivity. Try to connect the dots with light, medium and dark lines.

All right. Good luck. I’ll see you in the next one.