Drawing for Beginners PART 2 - Draw with Lines - PaulPriestleyArt

Hello, my name is Paul Priestley. Welcome to ArtTutorialsOnline.com. Today's video is the second in my series on drawing for beginners. Yes, today we're going to be looking at line. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, it is, but line can tell us lots of things about direction, about volume, about shapes, lots of things. It's exciting. So come on, let's make a start. Now I'm going to draw a single line here with a 4B pencil. It means nothing, it just looks a line, but if I put two or three lines next to it, you can see it looks like eyes and a nose and a mouth. It isn't, it's just line. If I draw a circle around it, it becomes a face and we read it as a face. Now look at these, two vertical lines and one horizontal, another horizontal line. It means nothing, but if I put a curve next to each one, look, I've written the word face. We read lines. This is what's most important about drawing. Now we can do the same thing with any little sketch. We can read the lines. The lines will tell us lots of things about the individual sketch. So if you look at this, it just looks like a flat shape, but if I start putting lines down the side, now I'm going to put them very close together here and gradually get wider apart and press on slightly less. Now have you noticed, it now makes the shape look curved. It looks like a cylinder, all because we are reading the lines. The lines are telling us that it's a cylinder. Do you see how it works? Now the same thing can apply to other shapes too. For example, imagine I draw a circle here. Not a very good circle, so we're just drawing a little bit in there. You see, I'm not worrying about rubbing it out. I'm going to draw a vertical line down the middle, but look what I'm going to do now. I'm drawing lots and lots of curves. They're gradually getting more and more curved, but going to that two points at the end of the original line. Now can you see, this now looks like a ball shape, simply because I'm drawing curved lines on here. So your brain is reading what is effectively a flat object, but now seeing it as a curve and seeing it as round as a ball shape, simply because of the lines I've put on. You see how curved it looks? Now we can add a shadow underneath by simply putting more lines in. You see how we can create a little shadow underneath there? And if you want it to stand on something which gains in shadow, look how I draw the lines. Have you noticed they all radiate out from the one point? And because of that, it makes it look as though it's standing on top of a flat surface. Simple. Lines are really important. Now look at this. Imagine you are drawing a landscape and we are going to draw some hills. Now look at the lines I'm going to draw here. The lines define the shape of the hills. You see that hill now looks as though it's curving down. These lines here, look at those lines. You see how it makes it look as though the landscape is now curved. Now if you were painting this, your brush strokes would follow the same line and that would help to make the whole thing look much more three-dimensional. Following the lines is really, really important. See those lovely curves we're getting? So we can develop this further. Imagine this. I'm going to draw this little shape here and I'm going to shade it in, but I'm not going to think too much about the line when I shade it in. This is what children often do. They'll just scribble something in. Here, look. I'm shading it in, just putting lines in, almost randomly scribbling them in like children do. Now when you look at that, it is very difficult to make any sense of it at all. It doesn't look like anything. But look what happens when I draw the lines in an organised fashion. These lines are all horizontal, which tells us the surface is now flat. These lines are all drawn at an angle, as you can see here, and it now looks as though we've got a flat road possibly going between two areas of land or it could be a river going through. Do you see the idea? See the difference when the lines are organised? We can read the shape much better. So the angle of your lines is really important to your drawing. You must get the angles of the line right. Look at this final little example here. Similar sort of idea, but this time the lines are going to be done differently. Look, single vertical line, but now all the lines are going to radiate out from that single point and this gives the effect of pointing your eye into the distance. We're going down this road, if that's what it is. You see? We also want to emphasise the distance by doing this. I'm going to put vertical lines in, but the vertical lines are going to get wider as they come towards you, which makes it look as though the angles are receding into the distance. You see the idea? Look how that makes it look as though you're going into the distance. All done with line. Lines are really important, so no scribbling, organise your lines. If you can organise your lines, your drawing will look wonderful. Good luck with your work. Thank you for watching ArchieToursOnline.com. I hope you've enjoyed the video and learnt something about the use of line. If you have, then maybe you could give the video a like. If you really like the video, then perhaps you could tell your friends about it and subscribe to my channel. That would be really much appreciated. Thank you very much for watching.