Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

The Fundamentals of Markmaking

Drawing is at its simplest level, the act of putting marks on a page in order to communicate or convey something. Therefore, at its very core, the most basic concept we must learn is how to go about making a mark. There are many different marks you'll find yourself needing to draw, but at their very core, they follow one central rule:

Marks must flow continuously, smoothly, and maintain a consistent trajectory. This tells us a couple things - first off, if a line must stretch all the way from one side of the page to the other, it must be made up of a single continuous stroke. Secondly, a line should not wobble back and forth with an unsteady hand. Thirdly, if you are drawing some kind of detail that zigzags back and forth, following distinctly different directions (like a tuft of grass or fur), wherever the trajectory changes, the stroke should end and a fresh one should begin.

This may seem contradictory or unclear, so I'll provide some examples.

Flowing smoothly

What you see in line A is the result of a student having their priorities mixed up, and it's a pretty normal occurrence. It shows that the student is focusing mostly on the accuracy of the stroke, and in order to continually follow the path they've set out for themselves, they sacrifice the flow of the line.

Between these two priorities - accuracy and flow - it is in fact flow that must be put first. When you execute your mark, you need to draw with a confident, persistent pace - enough to keep your brain from interfering and attempting to course-correct as you go. This is such a critical point that I drew this silly comic to illustrate the point.

Now, this probably will make your lines less accurate - but this is something that will improve with practice, and the ghosting method introduced later in this lesson will help a great deal as well.

Maintaining a consistent trajectory

This one relates to the previous point (avoiding wobbles, as a wobbly line does not maintain a single consistent trajectory), but it can also be applied when deciding how many individual marks one requires. The problem set out here is an advanced one that won't come into play until at least lesson 3, but it's still worth discussing.

When tackling something like this, beginners will often attempt to draw a single, continuous stroke to capture all the tufts and shapes that arise when drawing fur, or grass, or anything of that nature that features seemingly repeated elements (though frequently they have a lot of unique, individual features between them).

The problem here is that it causes the student to go into auto-pilot. They stop considering the design of each of those tufts, and the continuous stroke is liable to round out corners that should be pointed. All in all, it makes the result very muddy and indistinct. In general, remember that if you're zigzagging mindlessly - unless there's a clearly repeating rhythm that you're following - you're probably doing something wrong.

The correct approach, as depicted in B, is to separate the marks out by trajectory. As soon as a trajectory changes - usually at some kind of a hard corner - the mark should end, and a new one should start. This keeps us consciously aware of what we're drawing, of the nature and purpose of each stroke, and allows us to continue to design the result.