SUPPLIES
- Drawing paper, medium weight
- Graphite drawing pencil
- Marker or pen if desired
- Charcoal if desired
- Gum or kneaded eraser
Overview
Make line art drawings as a piece of artwork, as practice pieces or as the foundation of a more detailed piece of artwork. Create contour, or outline, line art drawings and capture the many different forms and lines of your subject matter. Contour line art drawings make up the foundation of many different types of artwork from more complex drawings to paintings to sculptures.
Step 1
Start with some basic drawing supplies. Acquire medium weight, white drawing paper, graphite pencils and a gum or kneaded eraser at a minimum. A simple No. 2 school pencil works well if you do not wish to purchase art pencils. You may want to practice line art drawing with other tools such as colored pencil, fine tip marker, ink pen or charcoal as well.
Step 2
Line art drawings typically consist of simple, realistic subjects or cartoon drawings. Find your subject matter in the simple objects around you. First attempts at line art drawing often contain objects such as shoes, hands, vases and other readily accessible items.
Step 3
Contour drawing, the most basic and traditional line art drawing, consists of one continuous, connected line following only the outline of an object. Study the object prior to drawing. Notice the overall shapes as well as the types of lines that create those shapes. Lines may be thin or thick, curved or straight. A true contour drawing begins at one point on the paper and continues in one continuous line as the artist, without looking at the paper, attempts to capture the entire outline of the object.
Step 4
Contour line art drawings often form the basis for other types of artwork. An artist may use the contour drawing to capture the overall forms and lines of the subject. Sometimes the artist may then add texture. Observe the texture of your subject carefully and then add pencil line markings to recreate an illustration of how the textured items in your subject feel. A tennis ball feels very different than a ping pong ball. Using very light, short strokes to cover a drawing of a tennis ball in tiny lines would recreate with an illustration how this object feels to the touch. This takes practice. Rough textures often appear most realistic when applied with a brisk, hard stroke. Smooth textures often require the use of a softer, lighter stroke.
Step 5
An artist might also add shading or highlighting effects to a line art drawing. Locate the light source of your subject matter. Notice the location of it as well as the shadows and lighter areas it creates. Use dark areas, created with more lines within your drawing, to recreate shadows. These add depth to your artwork. Create highlights with your eraser by rubbing out and making these lighter. Lights and darks create drama when added to a line art drawing you make.
