Free Guide on How to Sketch with Expression

Download Your Free Guide on How to Sketch Today!

The art of drawing sketches is at the core of every effective figurative image, whether it’s a loose three-minute drawing, a tight resolved three-week drawing, or an obsessively observed and reworked three-year painting. That is why Artists Network has put together this free how to sketch tutorial, filled with pencil sketch lessons for you to use as a guide for all your drawings.

Learning how to sketch is a fundamental skill for all artists. Keeping a sketchbook is essential to gather inspiration and explore new creative ideas. When working on a new piece, your initial sketch drawing establishes the overall proportion of your object, quickly fixing the mood, the sweeping action of the pose, and the underlying rhythms of your composition. Correctly capturing the gesture of your models serves as a foundation that keeps all of your later, detailed observations vital and alive.

Follow Dan Gheno as he focuses on anatomy sketches and portrait sketching and walks you through his fundamental sketching techniques. Study his sketch drawings and discover how he expresses his models’ gestures with vigorous strokes, capturing the rhythm of what he sees, finding the perfect balance between the positive and negative shapes of his subject.

Add feeling and strength to your compositions by learning to sketch with expression and power. These pencil sketch drawing lessons include beautiful illustrations by Gheno and detailed descriptions of the artist’s proven sketching techniques. Whether you’re portrait sketching, drawing sketches of your surroundings, or working on anatomy sketches, you will find the expert tips included in this free sketching tutorial extremely clear, complete and useful.

Sketching Techniques: Speed

Gheno recommends moving quickly when you first begin drawing sketches. You shouldn’t worry about making mistakes. You need to get something on the paper before you can start making adjustments. Learn to sketch by regularly drawing quick anatomy sketches. It will help you maintain your sense of proportion while expressing the energy of a moment in time.

Sketching Techniques: Contrapposto

Many artists look to the torso to establish a sense of action in their figures, especially the contrasting tilts of the chest and pelvis. Italian artists called this effect contrapposto. Contrapposto literally means contrast or counterpoint, it’s the principle that the torso is not one solid and straight form but 2 contrasting forms.

Sketching Techniques: The Line of Gravity

Every pose, no matter how simple or bland, has a distinctive but subtle gesture and line of gravity. When portrait sketching, even a slightly off-center line of gravity can destabilize the look of a calm, relaxed standing pose. Try to grab onto some of that dynamic instability when you draw action poses.

Sketching Techniques: Rhythm

Rhythm is especially important in anatomy sketches. The human body, particularly the nude human form, has enormous metaphorical and symbolic power. Don’t squander its potential, and don’t let your drawings—gestural or otherwise—become scholastic exercises.

Sketching Techniques: Line Quality

The quality of your line is very important and it can make or break a pencil sketch. Emphasize the complex rhythms of your composition by alternating thick and thin strokes, saving your strongest lines for the dominant rhythms.

Sketching Techniques: Foreshortening

Use the masters for inspiration when you’re drawing sketches. Look for cornering effects in your anatomy sketches: For instance, in the arm, an elbow joint might jump out into space. Perhaps you could emphasize it with a heavy overcutting line. Look for bones, look for the separation of muscle functions.

Sketching Techniques: Positive Shapes vs. Negative Shapes

Gheno’s sketching tutorial emphasizes negative space as a very useful and constructive force. Artists often use background tones to establish the limits of figures. Shadow masses can seem to bump up against a figure, riding along the outside of the form.

Sketching Techniques: Concepts and Composition

Looking at added issues that go beyond the visual of your pencil sketch drawing will help you get excited and motivated about what you are sketching. Even though you are working quickly, you should still think about composition or give some thought to placing the figure or object in an environment.

Sketching Techniques: Long-Term Drawing

Once you know how to draw sketches, there is nothing more exhilarating than getting a good start on a drawing. And, often there is nothing more terrifying than watching your drawing evaporate in front of your eyes as it turns into a stiff, brittle echo of your dynamic beginning gesture. It’s very difficult to hold onto that initial gesture while working on a long-term drawing. Gheno shares some personal tips on how to translate the expression and power you captured in your initial sketch drawings into your long-term drawing or painting.

What are you waiting for? Download this FREE guide on how to sketch today!

Have you been carrying your sketchbook everywhere you go, trying to capture new ideas, not wanting to miss out on what you see? Have you been looking for freehand sketching lessons to improve those initial captures, to sharpen your ability to establish your compositions and record your impressions? Look no further! Artist Network’s 32 Sketching Techniques to Learn How to Sketch with Expression and Power will help you develop strategies to systematically observe, record, and retain the subtleties of what you see and to learn how to draw sketches that translate the line of action of your figures.