6 Habits for Good Line Quality
Summary
TLDRThis video script emphasizes the importance of line quality in art, highlighting how poor lines can undermine an artist's skill. It advises avoiding common mistakes like short, scratchy lines and chaotic searching lines, which can convey anxiety and lack of confidence. The script offers practical tips for improving line quality, such as finding a comfortable drawing speed, following through with strokes, and practicing 'ghosting' to refine lines. It also encourages using simple strokes to construct complex lines and rotating the paper for more natural stroke directions. The video is part of a drawing basics course aimed at developing good habits for artistic success.
Takeaways
- 🎨 Lines are fundamental in art, used for early-stage placeholders and final-stage details.
- ❌ Avoiding poor line quality is crucial as it can negatively impact the perception of your artwork.
- 🚫 Common mistakes include short, scratchy lines and chaotic, searching lines which can convey anxiety and lack of confidence.
- 👨🎨 Even masters like Glenn Keane and Carl Kapinski use chaotic lines deliberately, but for beginners, it's best to build good habits.
- 💡 Practice drawing with a comfortable speed to achieve fluid, relaxed, and confident lines.
- 🏓 Follow through with your lines, similar to a baseball swing, to improve accuracy and line quality.
- 🤲 Use your whole arm for drawing to achieve a natural taper at the end of your lines.
- 👻 Ghosting, or practicing lines without marking the paper, can help improve line quality and accuracy.
- 🔄 Rotate the paper to find natural angles for drawing lines that feel comfortable for your hand.
- 🔍 Use simple strokes like tapered, C curves, S-curves, and straight lines to construct complex lines.
- 💻 For further learning, the script suggests checking out the full drawing Basics course at proko.com.
Q & A
Why are lines important in the art of drawing?
-Lines are crucial in drawing as they serve multiple purposes such as placeholders in early stages for measuring, indicating perspective, contour, and gesture, and in final stages for shading tone or as a visual element guiding the viewer's eye.
What impact can poor line quality have on a drawing?
-Poor line quality can quickly ruin a drawing and give off a bad impression of the artist's skill, potentially leading to habits that are hard to break if practiced over time.
What are the two common mistakes artists make with lines that can affect their drawings negatively?
-The two common mistakes are short scratchy lines and chaotic searching lines, which can express a feeling of anxiety and lack of confidence to the viewer.
How can artists avoid developing bad habits with line quality?
-Artists can avoid bad habits by practicing with purpose, being conscious of their strokes, and developing good habits early on to control line quality effectively.
What is the significance of finding a comfortable speed when drawing lines?
-A comfortable speed allows for fluid, relaxed, and confident lines. It prevents the hand from moving faster than the brain, which can lead to bad line quality.
Why is following through with a line important in drawing?
-Following through with a line improves accuracy and adds power and motion to the stroke, similar to the follow-through in sports like baseball, which enhances the line's quality.
What is ghosting and how does it help in drawing?
-Ghosting refers to practicing drawing lines with the pencil hovering just above the paper without marking it. It helps in achieving clean, less wobbly lines, improves accuracy, and builds confidence.
How can artists ensure they maintain the same motion from ghosting to the actual line drawing?
-To maintain the same motion, artists should ghost the full line, hold the pencil close to the paper, and ensure the hand's position, pencil angle, and motion speed remain consistent between the ghosted and final line.
Why is it beneficial to rotate the paper while drawing?
-Rotating the paper can make certain angles of lines feel more natural and comfortable to draw, reducing awkwardness and improving the line's quality.
What is the advice for artists when drawing complex shapes or lines?
-It's advised to break down complex shapes into simple strokes like tapered strokes, C curves, S-curves, and straights. This simplification helps in achieving more fluid and accurate lines.
What additional resource is mentioned for artists looking to improve their drawing skills?
-The script mentions the full drawing Basics course at proko.com, which offers lessons, projects, demonstrations, warm-up exercises, and critique videos to help artists improve their skills.
Outlines
🎨 Developing Good Line Quality in Drawing
This paragraph emphasizes the importance of line quality in artistic drawings. It explains that lines are used for various purposes, from initial sketches to final shading, and are crucial for conveying an artist's skill. The paragraph warns against developing bad line habits, such as short scratchy lines and chaotic searching lines, which can indicate anxiety and lack of confidence to viewers. It suggests practicing to avoid these habits and highlights the need for a balance between brain dumping and creating presentable drawings. Tips for improving line quality include finding a comfortable drawing speed, ensuring fluid and confident strokes, and leaving enough time between strokes for visualization. The paragraph also introduces the concept of 'ghosting' lines, which is practicing drawing with the pencil hovering above the paper to achieve a natural taper at the beginning of lines.
📝 Enhancing Line Quality with Ghosting and Simple Strokes
The second paragraph delves deeper into the technique of 'ghosting' lines, which involves drawing without marking the paper to practice the motion and ensure a clean, tapered beginning to lines. It discusses the benefits of ghosting for improving line cleanliness, confidence, and accuracy. The paragraph provides tips for effective ghosting, such as ghosting the full line, maintaining pencil proximity to the paper, and keeping the same speed and hand position as when drawing the actual line. Additionally, it addresses the challenge of drawing lines at unnatural angles, suggesting that artists rotate the paper or adjust their grip to find a more comfortable angle. The paragraph concludes with advice on using simple strokes, like tapered, C-curves, and S-curves, to construct complex lines and achieve a more fluid and accurate drawing. It encourages artists to practice these techniques to develop good habits and improve their overall drawing skills.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Line Quality
💡Scratchy Lines
💡Searching Lines
💡Tapered Strokes
💡Follow-Through
💡Ghosting
💡Natural Movement
💡Simple Strokes
💡Proko Drawing Course
💡Controlling Chaos
Highlights
Artists use lines in various stages of drawing, from initial placeholders to final visual elements.
Poor line quality can negatively impact the perception of an artist's skill.
Avoiding bad line habits is crucial as they become harder to break with time.
Two common mistakes are short scratchy lines and chaotic searching lines, which can convey anxiety and lack of confidence.
Master artists like Glenn Keane and Carl Kapinski use chaotic lines with confidence, but beginners should focus on building good habits.
Tips for better line quality include finding a comfortable speed and being fluid, relaxed, and confident.
Practicing with tapered strokes can improve line quality and control.
Drawing with purpose and not scribbling aimlessly can enhance line quality.
The importance of following through with a stroke, similar to a baseball swing, for accuracy and power in drawing.
Using the whole arm for drawing lines can help achieve a natural taper at the end of the stroke.
Ghosting lines, or practicing without marking the paper, can improve line accuracy and confidence.
Ghosting lines should be done with the same speed and motion as the actual drawing to be effective.
Rotating the paper or adjusting one's posture can help with drawing lines in less natural angles.
Using simple strokes like tapered, C curves, S-curves, and straights can lead to more fluid and accurate lines.
Simplifying complex shapes into basic segments can make the drawing process more manageable.
The drawing Basics course at proko.com offers comprehensive lessons for improving drawing skills.
Transcripts
[Music]
as artists we use lines a lot we use
them as placeholders in the early stages
of our drawings to measure indicate
perspective contour and gesture and we
use them in the final stages of our
drawings when we're shading tone or as a
powerful visual element that can guide
the eye so bad line quality can quickly
ruin a drawing and give off a really bad
impression of your skill you want to
avoid building habits of poor line
quality the longer you practice bad
lines the stronger those habits will
become and the harder it will be to
break out of those bad habits so I want
to get you on the path to develop the
good habits and if you like this video
make sure to check out the full drawing
Basics course at proka.com drawing it's
designed to give you the foundation you
need to draw from observation or from
imagination number one avoid the common
mistakes two very common mistakes are
short scratchy lines and chaotic
searching lines I did mention in a
previous video that searching lines do
have a purpose we can use them to brain
dump images from our head onto the page
this way we avoid letting our
perfectionist Tendencies stifle our
creativity and limit our potential for
exploring new ideas
but we have to be able to switch between
these two modes are you brain dumping or
are you trying to draw something that's
more presentable
in this lesson we're going to focus on
drawings with attractive line quality so
let's get back to those two common
mistakes short scratchy lines and
chaotic searching lines usually when
done by newer artists these types of
lines expressed to the viewer a feeling
of anxiety and a lack of confidence
sometimes the artist wants the viewer to
feel that way and some Masters can use
chaotic lines deliberately with
confidence Glenn Keane Carl Kapinski and
they look amazing but assuming you're
not a master yet let's start building
good habits so that one day you too can
Control the Chaos so let's move on to
some tips that you can do right now to
practice better line quality find that
comfortable speed when practicing
drawing with tapered Strokes the goal is
to be fluid relaxed and confident
if you catch yourself scribbling
aimlessly through something that you
don't know how to draw pause and just
think for a moment sometimes bad line
quality can come from your hand moving
faster than your brain you want to draw
consciously and with purpose make sure
to leave enough time between Strokes to
visualize the next one as you're pulling
a tapered stroke do it at the right
speed
if you move too slow your hand might
jiggle a bit and create a wobbly line if
you go too fast the stroke might not
land where you intended it you should
draw fast enough so that you feel like
you're drawing with energy but slow
enough so that you can control your
lines it's like throwing a ball if you
throw it as hard as you can you'll lose
some control and end up losing the ball
in your neighbor's backyard but if you
throw without building up any momentum
your ball will just land three feet in
front of you practice so that you can
find the most natural and optimal speed
for you and keep in mind you might need
to slow down when you're drawing
something more complicated with more
detail or if you're trying a new tool
follow through
in baseball you'll notice they follow
through with their swing after they hit
the ball The Arc of the motion doesn't
stop in front of their chest they keep
going with the motion and bring the bat
to the opposite side this results in
more power and improves accuracy drawing
lines is similar if I know I want my
line to end at that dot pulling my hand
toward the dot and following through
past it will help with accuracy also the
energy and motion of my arm is recorded
in the quality of the line this line
without follow-through doesn't carry the
same sense of motion as the one with
follow through
using your whole arm will help you feel
the rhythms and gesture of what you're
drawing again don't draw with your
fingers unless you're drawing with the
smallest details using the whole arm
allows us to gradually lift the pencil
off the page this will get you that
taper at the end of your line but what
about getting that taper at the
beginning of the line
ghosting
hey I'm here in the car it's been a
while my uncle here
now I'm not talking about ghosting your
friends although that can help you
practice more often
I'm referring to ghosting your lines
that is practice drawing it a few times
with your pencil hovering just slightly
above the paper without making a mark
just like you have to ease out of the
line to get the taper at the end you
have to ease into the line to get the
taper at the beginning this means you
have to be moving your arm in the
direction of the stroke before the
pencil touches the paper when you're
ghosting the line keep your hand moving
don't pause between each ghosted line
this will ensure that your hand is in
motion as you begin drawing the real
line and give you that taper at the
beginning ghosting has even more
benefits it helps make your lines look
cleaner and less wobbly by tuning your
arm to the motion your arm will execute
the stroke more effectively and you'll
approach it with more confidence
resulting in a more confident looking
line also ghosting helps to improve
accuracy by practicing it before
committing the line will more likely
land where you you intended if the
ghosting part feels good but the line
looks different when you put it down
you're probably changing too much from
the ghosted motion to the final line so
here's some tips to make your ghosting
more effective ghost it in more than
once
ghost in the full line as if you're
actually doing it not just a portion of
the line hold the pencil very close to
the paper about a millimeter to minimize
the change from Ghost to final line
ghost your line at the same speed as you
draw it
don't change the position of your hand
don't change the angle of the pencil and
don't pause between the ghosted motion
and the final motion
basically don't change anything except
actually touching the pencil to the
paper
rotate the paper
not every angle of line we draw will
feel natural like this for example it's
hard for me to pull this stroke because
it goes against the natural movement of
my wrist elbow and shoulder
figure out which angles feel the most
natural and which feel awkward when you
identify the awkward ones you can
practice them or you can rotate the
paper
by the way every line has two directions
it can be drawn you can draw a vertical
line downward or upward to me upward
feels awkward especially if I'm holding
the pencil with the overhand grip I feel
like I'm going to stab through the paper
I notice that if I imagine a
perpendicular line to the angle of the
pencil the stroke Direction feels more
natural to me if I start on this side
and pull the stroke this way keep in
mind though that the angle of the pencil
with the tripod grip is different from
the angle of the pencil with the
overhand grip
if this is all too technical for you
right now no worries just get your
Sketchbook out and see what feels right
now you can rotate the page to get your
hand in a more comfortable angle for
each stroke but sometimes you might be
working on a surface that you can't
rotate like a chalkboard or an easel in
those cases it helps to rotate your
shoulders a bit
as you practice and you train that
muscle memory those awkward angles will
become less awkward
use Simple Strokes now we've already
been doing this in this course we can
use tapered Strokes to construct complex
lines using many simple lines C curves
s-curves and straights if you notice
your lines getting messy or chaotic try
to stick to just those three simple
Strokes Trying to draw with more
complicated Strokes usually results in
less fluid lines unless you have more
experience under your belt using simple
Strokes also helps you be more accurate
trying to draw a more complicated shape
in one swoop makes it harder to draw the
correct shape with the correct
proportions with practice and knowledge
about your subject you can do this
successfully until then if you're
drawing an arm considering all the parts
that make up the hole all at once can be
intimidating
the arm has a lot of anatomical bumps
that make the shape more nuanced we need
to consider these nuances to make the
arm feel natural if I simplify segments
of the shape the whole process becomes a
lot more digestible again don't move
your hand faster than your brain can
think okay guys I
need them Proco videos If you like this
lesson there's way more like it in the
full drawing Basics course over at
proco.com drawing with the premium
course you get access to all the lessons
projects demonstrations warm-up
exercises and critique videos so if you
don't want your drawings to look like
this go to progo.com drawing and learn
the basics
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