The First Thing You Should Learn To Draw
478,318
Published 2017-03-16
Demonstrating the basics of construction! The basic shapes that you can build everything else out of.
Warming up with simple shapes improves your stroke control, which will in turn make your work more fluid and energetic and will make your workflow much more efficient.
It also drills construction. You’ll find that the better you get with construction, the more you will internalize it.
Eventually it will permeate everything you draw – naturally giving your drawings a feeling of weight, form and dimension.
Lastly, it gets you in the right mind-set before you begin the Study Phase. You’ll be primed to think in terms of stroke control and construction as you continue your study.
Here’s what you’ll want to focus on in the warm up:
Straight Lines and Ellipses
Keeping your hand controlled but relaxed, draw straight lines. It can help to draw two points first and then quickly “ghost” between them, moving the pencil above the paper to practice the stroke. Slowly bring your pencil closer to the paper until you set down the stroke. Once you’ve done some point to point lines, try some freehand lines. Check your lines with a ruler.
Once you’ve done some straight lines, try some free-hand ellipses. You can start with a full circle and slowly squash it with every subsequent ellipse. You may want to use an ellipse template, or create some ellipses in illustrator and print them out to use as reference. Draw a line through the major and minor axis (the line that divides the ellipse on it’s longest side and shortest side, respectively). Your ellipses should be symmetrical on both sides.
Perspective Grids
Practice drawing perspective grids freehand. Start with a horizon line. Mark a vanishing point and draw lines radiating out from it.
Three dimensional Shapes
Build simple three dimensional shapes out of lines and ellipses. You can lay them on to the perspective grid or they can be free floating.
Complex curves
Draw several points and connect them with freehand curves. Weave curved lines through the ellipses you’ve drawn.
You can do a little of each of these in your warm up, or spend time with just one, but you’ll want to make sure that you cover each of these areas regularly. 5 to 10 minutes a day, should be plenty of time to get the job done.
WARNING: You will draw crap. That’s okay. Just make note of where you can improve, but don’t stress out about it.
How to use this as a warm up: brandondayton.com/2013/06/how-to-practice-phase-1-…
More on drawing ellipses: brandondayton.com/2013/07/the-one-rule-to-drawing-…
The masters of technical drawing:
fengzhudesign.com/
scottrobertsonworkshops.com/
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All Comments (21)
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I'm unironically glad you're here to guide me through drawing lines and shapes. Wading into the art community felt like walking into a gym with buff people lifting their max reps akin to master artworks while you took time out of your day to show me a basic push-up.
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I tried this for 1hr and now I can draw the monalisa...thank you
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I been really lost and I haven’t really tried to start drawing even though I really want to draw all these kind of cool characters, animals and other fun things. But my mind have been full of thoughts like: “I can’t draw.” “Where do I even begin?” This video showed my the first step, first drawing lesson that I have been looking for. Really thanks for making this video.
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Thanks for sharing!!! My two boys(5 & 13) and myself decided we wanted to learn "how to draw", so we ran out and bought a cheap sketchbook at michael's and started our drawing class tonight. We were all super excited that we could actually draw a straight line. lol.. Great instruction and easy enough for my 5 year old to successfully draw a cube that is is extremely proud of! We will keep watching!
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"Now these may seem kinda basic and silly, you may be thinking, 'Hey, I wanna get on to drawing wizards, and robots, or my fursona.'" You know me too well...
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I watched this video and immediately I was able to draw a conclusion.
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I drew constantly, everyday, from the age of 5-16 and then stopped cold. I'm OLD now and decided to pick it up again last week. THIS is the lesson I've been looking for.
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I subbed at 3:20 in after you explained your elbow was anchored. We cant see your technique and the fact you explained thats what you were doing off camera just shows your are excellent at explaining as well as demonstrating technique. All signs of an exceptional teacher. Cheers now lets continue with the vid ;)
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Spend the entire day drawing cubes and i cant stop I'm getting really paranoid man its so addictive
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This instruction l had been looking since I started drawing for the last 65 years ago(I am 70)...so glad that I found you.Thank you very much!!!!!!!
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thank you for giving good tips for peoples who cant draw at all, nice place to start
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Fursona, this guy is straight woke.
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Man, I never thought to start a cube by just drawing three lines to the vanishing point. I always started with two flat squares (planes) and one or the other would always be off. That little tip is going to make things a lot easier for practicing.
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Drawing the circles has helped me in drawing pitchers and glasses for some paintings. I didn't realize that the circle can have some many things you can use in watercolor painting. I am just starting to get into watercolor painting so this exercise has helped me. Dana
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"They seem basic and simple" Fun fact. I know how to draw. It's just absolute trash. So I'm gonna relearn how to draw entirely. That's right. I'm trashing most of everything I know and starting over. Teach me
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That 3 set line direction tip for cubes made it so much easier to understand. I understood before, but that was the best and simplest way of learning it.
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Thank you Brandon. I'm a beginner so I found your instruction very helpful with tips to practice daily, learned new things.
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"An ellipse is like a little circle" made me smile :), nice vid, thumb up !
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I've searched YT for shading and drawing tutorials and while they maybe just as talented as you, you have the capability of breaking it down to easy to understand steps. Brandon, you're natural teacher. Believe me, this was my 18 video on drawing basics/ shading.Thanks mate for posting this and heres hoping you will do a series on the basics👍
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Thanks for the tips! I just started learning how to do digital art via iPad & I'm using your exercises to practice every day!
