You Can Sketch Anything! [PDF]

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1 You Can Sketch Anything

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Hi there! Thanks for picking up this book! I’m Flo, a digital artist based in the Netherlands. I have always loved drawing, scribbling in my notes during classes when I was younger and always eager to learn as much as I could. About 12 years ago I found out about digital drawing and fell in love instantly! I bought my first drawing tablet right away and started practicing. I have learned a lot since then and a few years ago I started sharing my art and knowledge online on Instagram and YouTube. That’s probably how you found me! I don’t just have a passion for drawing and painting (mostly digital), but I also have a passion for teaching. Creating art can bring so much joy and it can be so relaxing. I love sharing that! That’s why I have dedicated my life to teaching drawing and painting skills online! Anyone can learn how to draw and I’m happy to be able to help with that!

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Introduction You picked up this ebook because you want to improve your sketching skills! That’s exactly what this book will help you with. After reading this book you will have the tools to sketch anything and to keep improving your skills with a variety of exercises. This book doesn’t contain step by step instructions to sketch different subjects, instead you will get the tools to sketch any subject you would like. I’ve been drawing for over 30 years and I’ve experienced many epiphanies during my artistic journey. At some point things just started to ‘click’ and I found my own way of sketching. Reading this book will save you the time that it took me! I’ll tell you exactly what techniques and visions opened my eyes and made sketching that much easier.

I made this drawing when I was about six years old

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The Tools A great thing about sketching is that you can use just about anything for it! A pen and a napkin, a pencil and an envelope or your iPad, you can sketch wherever you are. Try experimenting with different sketching tools to find your favorite and also to improve your overall sketching skills. Tools to sketch don’t need to be expensive at all! You can get started practicing right away without making big investments.

Graphite Pencil An HB pencil is a great tool for sketching. It has a medium hardness and can be bought just about anywhere. Wondering what the H and B stand for? The H actually stands for Hardness and the B stands for Blackness. There is a range of pencils available, a 6H is harder than a 2H for example and a 5B is darker than a 3B. Using a range of graphite pencils gives you access to a wide range of values, where harder pencils give a lighter value and softer (high B value) pencils give a darker value. When you use a graphite pencil for sketching, you can easily vary your line thickness, which can add dynamics to your sketch. The thickness of your line depends on the angle in which you hold your pencil. You can also vary the value of you sketch lines by pressing harder or lighter. Charcoal Just like graphite pencils, charcoal is a great tool for sketching. It might be a bit more challenging for beginners though. Charcoal smudges pretty easily and you might end up with dirty hands (or even arms!). There are different types of charcoal available, like vine charcoal for example. Vine charcoal consists of burned willow wood. It makes light marks and is easily erased (and smudged!). Compressed charcoal is darker than vine 4 You Can Sketch Anything

charcoal and is harder to erase. Compressed charcoal is available as sticks and pencils. Charcoal is great when you want to add some value to your sketches. That means adding areas of shadow to your sketch for example. A kneaded eraser can come in handy when working with charcoal, just like some blending stumps. Ballpoint Pen A ballpoint pen is a great tool for sketching. You cannot erase the lines when you work with a ballpoint pen and that makes using it a great practice. Just go with the flow when using a ballpoint pen for sketching and don’t worry about the lines that you can’t erase. When you work like this, you might get some nice surprises! Sketching with a ballpoint pen might take some practice, but it is possible to get control over the pen. You can make lines ranging from very thick and opaque to very thin and light lines. Marker Just like the ballpoint pen, markers make permanent lines. A marker can be perfect for making bold sketches, exploring different shapes and movements. Using markers can be exciting and challenging, but it sure can be liberating as well! You could start out with a bold marker sketch which you can use as a base for

a pencil sketch for example. Go and experiment! Digital Pencils If you’re using digital art software to sketch, draw and paint, then you have total creative freedom. You can switch from graphite pencil, to marker, to ballpoint pen. You can use whatever tool you like to create your sketches. A great plus when sketching digital is the ability to lower the opacity of your sketch. You could make a pretty dark and messy sketch and then turn down the opacity of your layer, you could then make a new layer on top to start refining your sketch. Drawing digital also enables you to draw beneath your sketch. You can keep your sketch layer on top of your painting layers to use it as a reference when painting for instance.

Other materials Finally, what medium should you use for your sketches? It doesn’t really matter that much, you can grab a napkin, some printing paper, an envelope or you can buy a sketch book. It’s very nice to have a sketch book, that way you can make a nice collection of sketches. A sketch book can also bring some pressure with it though, a fear of filling that first page. But also the fear of keeping your sketches consistent for example. That’s why keeping a folder with loose papers can also be a nice idea. That way you can keep whatever sketches you like.

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If you’re working digital, you can do the same thing of course! You can arrange your favorite sketches in a digital folder. That way you can always go back to check your progress or to find inspiration by looking at older sketches.

The Vision Anyone can learn to draw, that is something I truly believe. As long as you keep practicing and spend a lot of time drawing, you will see your skills improve. Some people are just faster learners than others and some people have just been practicing since childhood, because they were so interested in art. This gives these people a big head start. Of course it doesn’t mean you can’t catch up! Sketching complicated subjects, might seem like an impossible task. Or what about animal or human anatomy? I used to think that I had to understand every little part of the human body or the human face before I could even get started trying to draw those. As a kid I used to read a lot of books about drawing. These books had titles like ‘How to draw horses’, ‘How to draw the human figure’, ‘How to draw wildlife’, etcetera. They showed lots of construction images and taught the reader how to build up a horse for example, using different rectangles. It made me think that I had to memorize all these constructions, understanding all of them before I could really draw.

This is the way we’ll sketch in this book, working our way from the outside to the inside. We’ll move from big shapes to smaller shapes. You’ll be sketching complicated subjects in no time!

You won’t need to fully understand a construction to use this method. What you do need is to train your eyes, your observational skills. I’ve added some easy exercises in this book to improve those skills!

Exercise

To improve your sketching skills, I’d greatly recommend to do regular exercises. Here’s a simple exercise to improve your motor skills and get more confident drawing lines.

Right This is the way the books in my childhood showed me how to draw. I found it really hard to turn this into a proper looking horse

It took me a lot of years to realize that this wasn’t the case. Of course understanding anatomy and basic construction comes in very handy when drawing. But it is not a necessary requirement before you get started with drawing. You can actually learn how to sketch AND learn about anatomy and construction at the same time! With the method I will teach you in this book, we’ll be working from the outside to the inside of a subject. Moving from big shapes to smaller shapes. 6 You Can Sketch Anything

Start in one of the corners of your paper or digital canvas and make a fluid curved line. The next step is to make a line next to it that follows the same flow. Continue doing this until you have filled your entire paper. Try to keep the distance between the lines equal.

Motor vs Observational Skills To improve your sketching and overall drawing skills, you need to work on two things: Your motor skills and your observational skills. Drawing isn’t just about making the right hand movements, it’s also about observing and analyzing both your subject and your drawing. You can have great observational skills, but if your hand won’t listen, you’ll still have a problem. And you can have a hand with superpowers that is able to draw any line that your want, but if you lack the observational skills, your drawings will look off. The great news is that you can train both your hand and your eyes. With special exercises you can work on your motor and observational skills.

Exercise

To get more confident making sketching, you can do this simple exercise. This will greatly improve your measuring skills and at the same time you’ll be working on your motor skills, making more confident lines as you progress.

Motor Skills So what do I mean with motor skills? Well, that’s the skill of your hand and arm. How well can that hand of yours draw a straight line? Can it make a fluid circle or arch? Do your hand and arm listen to you when you want to go in a certain direction? You start developing these motor skills from a very young age, when you start coloring, drawing and writing. So we all have these base motor skills that can be used for drawing, but some have developed them more than others. If you were interested in drawing from a very young age, then you probably had more practice developing your motor skills. That’s why some people might seem more ‘gifted’ than others,

Exercise

Here’s an exercise that is great to get a more steady hand when drawing. You’ll be practicing drawing straight lines in this exercise

Use a ruler to create straight lines on a paper, or if you’re using digital art software, you can use automatic shapes to create these lines. Vary your lines, some should be close together and some should be farther apart. Now grab a pencil and try to make straight lines in between these lines that you have just made. Try to not touch the lines that you made with the ruler.

The first step is to draw a shape, you can do this by hand or by using a ruler. If you’re working digital, you can use the shape tool to make your shapes. The next step is to try and copy the shape as accurate as you can. Try to take a close look at the size and angles of your shapes. You can do this with any shape you like!

this has a lot to do with an interest or even passion at a young age. Even when your passion gets sparked at a later age, it’s never too late to start practicing! You might just need more hours to get to a certain level. Observational Skills What do I mean with observational skills? That’s the ability to analyze your subject and compare it with your sketch (and vice versa). With your observational skills you’ll find the simple shapes in a subject, measure angles and lengths and evaluate the sizes of objects for example. We all develop these skills when we grow up, when making puzzles for example. Or you might have done these drawing exercises as a kid where you had a grid and had to copy an image. To get your sketching and drawing skills to the next level you’ll need to put these skills to good use and learn how to observe in the right way and with the right focus. Motor Skill Exercises To improve your motor skills you can do a variety of

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Exercise

This next exercise is great to improve your motor skills and at the same time you’ll be making a nice pattern!

exercises. Throughout the book you’ll find different ideas for exercises you can do. Even if you do these exercises for 5 minutes a day, you’ll see your skills improving. You can improve your motor skills by doing exercises like hatching, making paralell lines, filling pages with circles, squares or other shapes, doing pressure control exercises and more. Observational Skill Exercises

Start out by picking a shape, like a triangle, circle, square, whatever you like! Start making big shapes first and fill your paper with it. Continue making these shapes and start adding smaller and smaller shapes, filling every gap your can find. Do this until the shape becomes too small to draw.

To improve your observational skills you can do exercises that involve copying shapes. You can start off with exercises that involve copying simple shapes, like circles, squares and triangles. As you gain more confidence and skill, you can move to more complicated shapes. When practicing like this, try to focus on the angle and length of lines. It helps to isolate lines in your mind. Improving your skills If you want to improve your sketching skills, and that’s probably what you want, since you are reading this book. Then I’d suggest doing regular exercises. Improving your skills takes time, so don’t try to rush yourself. If you want to train to become a bodybuilder, you won’t expect to be super muscular in a week either. Training your motor and observational skills is the same! But just like with bodybuilding or any other sport, if you train on a regular basis, you will see yourself improve. After a while, try comparing your old sketches to your new sketches and see how you improve. All the hard work will be worth it!

Exercise

A fun way to improve your drawing skills is by doodling! You will improve your motor skills by making doodles and at the same time you might spark your creativity. The thing with doodling is that you can’t go wrong. Doodling is not about creating realistic drawings, it’s just about having fun and letting your mind wander. Just pick random things around you to get started with doodling or listen to a podcast or watch a tv show and doodle anything that comes to mind. Doodling every once in a while can also release some tension. Don’t be hard on yourself when doodling and just have fun! Who knows what lovely things will come out.

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Ways of Measuring Measuring and observational skills play an important role in drawing. There are some methods for measuring that can greatly help you. My mind was actually a little bit blown when I heard about these methods. No one had ever taught me these ways at drawing class at school for instance. They are so simple, yet so effective, that they might change the way you look at your drawings and sketches!

Exercise

Here’s another exercise that is great to improve both your motor skills and your measuring skills. This exercises helps you to improve measuring with your ‘minds eye’

Extending lines A way of measuring proportions in your sketches and drawings is by extending lines. Imagine drawing a straight line along a specific feature in your subject and then imagine where that line would end. Would it end in the same place in your sketch? In the image below

First thing you’ll need to do is draw a vertical line (but you could also do this with a horizontal or diagonal line of course!) and make some random shapes on one side of the line. If you use digital painting software, you can use automatic shapes for instance. Now try to sketch the shapes on the other side of the line, making a mirror image. Try to keep a close eye on the angles of the lines, compare sizes and measure lengths with your minds eye.

you can see an example of how you can extend lines. You can extend the lines of the cloth or the stalks of the pears. See how, when you extend the line along the cloth on the left, the line eventually touches the top of the stalk of that pear in the middle. Or check how the line along the stalk of the pear on the left extends to touch

the top of the middle pear. You can choose to either make imaginary lines, or you can actually draw these lines over your reference image. If you are drawing from life, you can use your pencil to help you out. You must’ve seen artists extending their pencil in front of them to measure their subject, right? If you are using digital painting software, you can check your sketch by making a new layer on top of your sketch, you can draw your measuring lines on this new layer. This is a great way to check proportions in your artwork. Compare sizes Comparing features and sizes is another great way to measure. Try to look at your subject and compare sizes, perhaps a certain part is twice as big as another, have

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you reflected that in your sketch as well? Check the example below, of the kingfisher. You can see that the beak has the same length as the head for instance. And when you look at the height of the head, you can see that it fits in its body twice and the tail is about the same height as the head. Comparing sizes is also handy when

and the start of the eyebrows. Also notice how you can draw a line from the middle of the upper lips, along the edges of the nostrils to the outer corners of the eyes. Try to find connections and ancher points in your subjects to help you measure your sketch. When you are working in a digital painting program, it’s easy to make guides like this on a separate layer. If you’re struggling using guides like this, you could draw the guides on top of your reference photo first and then transfer this layer with guides to your sketch. This way you can easily correct your own sketches. If you keep practicing, then in time you won’t need guidelines anymore and measure everything with your minds eye.

looking at its eye for example. See how the distance between the top and bottom of the eye is shorter than the distance between the left and right corner of the eye. You can either measure parts of your subject with your minds eye, or you can measure by drawing on top of your reference. Or when you’re drawing from life, you can use your pencil to measure by extending your arm in front of you. Anchor points With anchor points I mean certain markers in a subject you can use. When sketching a face for example, you could use the corners of a mouth as an anchor point to decide where the pupils in the eyes should be. And the edges of a nose could serve as anchor points for where the inner corners of the eyes should be, or vice versa. Try to find anchor points in your subject to help you get the correct proportions in your sketch. Look at the photo on the right and notice how you can use the corners of the lips and inner corners of the eyes as anchor points. You can draw a straight line up from the corners of the lips to the inner corners of the eyes. This is something you can easily check in your sketch. You can see the same thing with the corners of the nose 10 You Can Sketch Anything

The Method To sketch any subject, we’ll go through a series of steps. First we’ll try to find a very simple shape, a silhouette around our subject. Try imagining laying planks or sticks around subject, these need to be fairly long to keep the shape simple.

You can either do this with your minds eye, or you can actually draw these lines on top of your reference. Let’s use the image of the lion as an example to illustrate the technique. Drawing on top of the image, I tried using as little straight lines as possible, making the shape as simple as I could.

Why are we doing this? Drawing simple shapes is much easier than getting lost in small details and complicated lines. I think you can quite well manage to draw a square or a triangle. You can also evaluate such a shape pretty well probably. I’m guessing you can see the difference between the two angular shapes above. Seeing the difference between two shapes that are a bit more complicated, can be a lot harder though. Look at the two shapes on the right side of the page for instance. Seeing the subtle differences is quite challenging and these shapes aren’t even that complicated. Real life subjects can look way more complicated. Angular shapes like you see above, are a lot easier to evaluate.

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Making a simple shape of your subject is very helpful and can form anchor points for the rest of your sketch. Try using light lines for this part of your sketch. If you’re working digital, you don’t have to worry about the lightness of your lines, you can easily lower the opacity of this initial sketch layer and continue working on a new layer on top.

This is the simple shape of the lion in the example, it takes away all the distractions and complicated shapes of the lion.

The next step is to move inward, we’ve created this kind of bounding box for our shape and now we’ll start adding smaller shapes. Try to use straight lines, or imaginary ‘sticks’, to make the shapes as simple as possible. Use the measuring methods discussed in the previous chapter to evaluate your lines and make adjustments where it’s needed.

shapes in your subject? Then here’s a little tip that might help you out when you are just getting started. Get a reference photo of your subject and use a trans-

The next step is to move inward and find more simple lines.

Once you have enough simple shapes, you can start adding more details to your sketch. You have enough simple lines and shapes when you feel like you have enough anchor points to be able to sketch in more refined shapes. You can use the angular shapes that you have created to measure where other features need to be placed.

parent paper and lay that on top of the image. If you’re working digital, you can just make a new layer on top of the reference photo. Now try to find the simple shapes, try to make the angular lines as long as you can. Once you have found that basic shape your subject, get rid of the reference photo (don’t throw it away though! You’ll need it later). Without the distraction of the image, it’ll be easier to copy the simple shapes. You can do the same thing with the smaller shapes in the image. In the example on this page you could find the angular lines in the fingers for example and make a

Keep adding smaller lines until you have enough anchor points to start detailing your sketch.

When you’re working digitally, it’s easy to just turn down the opacity of the layer with the angular shapes. This way you can focus more and more on the detailed sketch. If you’re sketching using traditional media, then it’s important to keep the initial angular lines very light.

Making it easier Are you having trouble finding these simple lines and 12 You Can Sketch Anything

simple shape of the nose and the lips. What’s great about this method is that you can check your own sketch by laying the transparent paper over your own sketch (or by placing the layer that you created over your sketch when working digital). This way you can check your own mistakes. You’ve just created your own feedback loop! Once you have all the simple shapes in place, you can start adding

more curved shapes and details into your sketch by looking at your reference image. Be sure to use the measuring techniques that we discussed earlier. So extend lines, find anchor points and compare sizes and angles. The rules aren’t that tight Of course the rules aren’t all that tight. You don’t have to make angular shapes all the time when sketching. If you same time in your sketching process. You can either start out with the angular shapes in your sketch or create circle to create a hold fast for yourself. The basis of the method is to start with big and simple shapes and then move on to smaller and more detailed shapes. Next are some more examples of reference images and how I simplify the shapes to make a sketch from these.

see a circle in the basic shapes of your subject, then by all means, make circles to help yourself out. The whole purpose of the method is to make it easy for yourself and to create anchor points and simple shapes to make sketching from a reference easier. Take this vase with flowers for example. You can create angular shapes around the flowers, but at the same time you can see these round and oval shapes. Both can be used at the

Pro Tip

A tip I would like to give to you when sketching and drawing, is to not just look at the shapes filling spaces, but also look at negative shapes and spaces. What do I mean? When drawing an eye for example, don’t just look at the shape of an iris and pupil, it’s probably easy to see that these are round and probably cut off on the top and maybe on the bottom as well. In stead, also look at the negative space surrounding the iris, what shape does the white of the eye have? In the image on the left you can see some shapes that you might identify when making a sketch. You might think about the shape of the iris, the shape of the eyelids and how they curve, the shape of the eyebrow, etc. In the right side image you can see an example of negative space. When comparing your sketch or drawing to your reference, it might be easier to find flaws when looking at these negative shapes as well. Also, try to let go of the idea that you are drawing (or anything else you are drawing). For me it helps a great deal to just think about the shapes and angles and not about the fact that I’m trying to draw an eye.

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Example 1 First I’ll wrap long lines around the subject. It doesn’t matter that some hair sticks out on the sides. Just try to find a shape that is easy to copy in your sketch.

tails later on. When copying this simple shape of the face, try to take a close look at the angles of the lines and the sizes of the shapes they create. Make sure you use light lines to create the basic shapes, this makes it easier to make a more detailed sketch on top. If you’re working digital, you can just lower the opacity of your layer and make a new one on top. Look how the angular lines serve as an anchor, the diagonal line of the hair can be used to decide how much the hair sticks out for example.

Next I’ll try to find simple lines around the face and neck. I’m not paying any attention to the facial features yet. Again, it doesn’t matter if some parts stick out a bit. I just try to make shapes that are easy to translate to a sketch and that I can use as an anchor point for de-

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Example 2 Here’s another example to get a better idea of how you can use the sketching technique.

Again, I’ve boxed in the subject, laying long lines around it. To support this, you could also draw an oval for the body and a circle for the head, since the shape of an owl is a pretty simple one.

Once I have the box like owl, I start adding more details to the sketch, using the angular lines to measure everything out.

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Final Thoughts Thank you for reading my You Can Sketch Anything ebook! I hope it gave you some food for thought AND practice. I hope this book will enable you to improve your sketching skills and gave you new ways to look at your own drawings. Of course no rules are set and the way described in this book isn’t the only way to make sketches. I encourage you to experiment and find your own way to draw and sketch. The way described in this book is just how I approach sketching complicated subjects. I’m looking forward to seeing your work and your progress. Always feel free to reach out to me, I really appreciate your messages and always do my best to respond emails.

Contact floortje@artwithflo artwithflo.com instagram.com/floortjesart youtube.com/artwithflo patreon.com/artwithflo

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