An Introduction to Contour Drawing

---------------------------------------------------------------Kitchen implements make great subjects.
The first thing we do when beginning to draw is contour drawing, which is another name for drawing the outline. With contour drawing, we are focusing on the edges - the outside of an object or the line made by a fold or pattern. The line that goes across an object, hinting at the form, is called a cross-contour. Don't get fooled into using the line to draw light and dark. The WEIGHT of a line, that is, how dark and thick it is, will make it jump out from the paper (if it is a strong, dark line) or sink into the paper (if it is light or thin). This is useful when you are trying to give the impression of something being closer or further away.
When you look at an object, the shapes you see vary depending on your point of view. Take a simple mug, for instance - you know it has a perfectly cylindrical shape, with a circle top and bottom and sides that go straight up. But look at the cup on the table - the circles seem a little squashed, and if you are look from a higher angle, so that the top of the cup is nearly circular, the sides seem to taper.
When you are drawing an object, you need to select a viewpoint and stick to it. This means setting the object down, and sitting so that you can look from your object to your paper with minimal movement. You want to always have your head in the same place whenever you look at the object. In this way, the shapes will always look the same. A small movement can make a surprisingly big difference once you start drawing details.

Contour drawing uses the 'taking a line for a walk' approach, picking a spot and continuing until the drawing is complete. Along the way, the relative sizes, shapes and directions of lines are noted and copied, a bit at a time. Take your time in the beginning, as the first parts of the drawing establish scale for the whole drawing. A common mistake is to run the picture off the page, having started too large or in the wrong place. If this happens, don't worry - either finish off, use another part of the page for a drawing, or start afresh.

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Colored Pencil Basics

Colored Pencil for Beginners - Basic Pencil Strokes
This lesson introduces some basic color pencil strokes which will be useful in your drawing. Make sure to go on to the next page for some exercises to help you practice your color pencil technique. It is a good idea to spend some time exploring the color pencil medium with small pieces before attempting a major drawing.
As with graphite pencil, there are a range of techniques which you can employ when drawing with colored pencil. Which one you choose will depend on the final effect you are aiming for:
SHADING
Using a straightforward side-to-side shading motion, a smooth even layer of color is built up. A very light touch can be used to deposit the faintest amount of pigment for graduated shading.
HATCHING
Rapid, regular, evenly spaced lines are drawn, leaving a little white paper or underlying colour showing.

CROSS-HATCHING
Hatching overlaid at right-angles. This can be done with different colors, or carried through multiple layers, to create a textured effect.
SCUMBLING
The 'brillo pad' method, tiny overlapping circles rapidly drawn. Again, it can be used to build up a single color or different colors.
DIRECTIONAL MARKS
Short directional lines which follow a contour, or the direction of hair or grass or other surfaces. These can be densely overlaid to form a rich textural effect.
INCISED MARKS
Incised Marks: Two thick layers of color are overlaid, then the top color gently scratched into with a blade or pin to let the lower layer show through.
BURNISHING
Burnishing is simply layers of colored pencil overlaid with strong pressure so that the tooth of the paper is filled and a smooth surface results. This image shows a burnished surface compared with a basic overlay of color. With some colors, especially with waxier pencils than the watercolor pencils used for this example, a quite translucent and jewel-like effect can be obtained with careful burnishing.
~Helen South
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Learn To Draw - Beginner Lessons

H South, licensed to About.com, Inc.

You can learn how to draw. It's easier than you think. Start here with these free learn how to draw lessons. This Learn to Draw lesson hub will guide you through each step of the process, so make it your homepage for easy reference. Work through each article in each section, doing the exercises and trying out the ideas. Don't skip the exercises - they are like scales for musicians and will help you learn to draw much faster.

These beginner drawing lessons can be done with any scrap paper and pencils, so you can start learning to draw right away, before you need to visit the art store. A number 2 pencil and some A4 office paper or an old exercise book will do fine.
Tip: Don't think of everything as a masterpiece. Exercises might just be scribbles, but will help your technique. Think of a musician playing scales.


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Applying Negative Space Drawing

Seeing negative spaces correctly is a skill worth developing. Negative space is used a great deal when you want to avoid outlining and create true value drawing. It is needed when you have a texture like light-colored hair or grass, when you need to focus on the dark shadows behind and underneath the strands. The 'foreground' - the positive shapes of light hair or grass - are 'left behind' as white paper while the shadows and darks are drawn with dark charcoal or pencil.
A sound understanding of negative space drawing is critical for watercolor painting, as a watercolor is built through a progressive overlaying of negative-space areas, working from light to dark.
In the photograph below, note how the red-outlined dark areas lock together to reveal the form of the foreground shapes of the leaves. Focusing on the leaf forms is fine for a line drawing, but if you want a shaded value drawing, you'll need to observe the negative spaces as shown, so that you can leave behind the positive space, drawing the leaves lighter, and leaving the white edges and veins of the leaves clear.

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Negative Space Drawing - Observing Shapes and Spaces

The correct approach to negative space drawing involves observing the shapes formed between different parts of the object, or between one edge of the object and a boundary. By drawing the background spaces or shapes between the edge of the object and the opposing edge or boundary, the positive form of the object is left 'undrawn', resulting in a correct negative space drawing. This is the reverse of normal positive space drawing, where you would be looking at the form and drawing its edges. In the in-progress example below, note how a sketched border closes off external shapes. The stripes in the background cloth allow the observation of small shapes which add up together to reveal the silhouette of the object. The most obvious example of clear negative spaces in this drawing are the arches and triangles, which are easy to observe.

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Negative Space Drawing - What is Negative Space?

In negative space drawing, instead of observing the positive shape of an object, you draw the shape of the space around the object. This may include any background detail or pattern, or it may be drawn as a simple silhouette. In many drawing books, you'll find an example which begins with drawing an outline of the object, and shading all around it. Although it is a silhouette, this is NOT correct negative space drawing. As you draw the outline, you are doing a POSITIVE drawing - focussing on the positive spaces - the solid shapes of the object. The in-progress example below has been drawn that way, looking at the shape of each part of the object, and drawing its outline, then shading. This method will not help you achieve the objective of the negative space drawing exercise, which is to understand the shapes and spaces around an object.

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Archieving Dense Color

Archieving Dense Color
Watercolor can be densely layered like regular colored pencil. Water can be applied to heavily applied color, though it can be tricky to control. Experiment with applying just a little water at time, to minimise dilution of the pigment. Applying more water can give a painterly effect, though it is difficult to control.

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