How to draw
anything
LEARN SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS
IN 7 STEPS
JULIABAUSENHARDT.COM
Hi, I'm Julia Bausenhardt! The core principles that I teach in my
sketching courses are universal and can
I'm a professional illustrator and be applied to any subject. I mainly
sketching artist who loves to teach work in different drawing mediums
nature enthusiasts how to capture the (graphite, ink, colored pencil) and
beauty of nature in their sketchbook. watercolor - it's my favorite
I help my students to connect the combination of mediums and it's
exploration of nature with making art, flexible and very portable.
how they can build their drawing skills I like how I can combine detailed and
through starting a nature sketchbook, precise pencil lines with layers of loose
and how this leads to a deeper flowing watercolor, and this technique
connection and understanding of the allows me to truly capture the beauty of
natural world. nature in my sketchbook.
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
How to draw anything
You don't need any special skills or talent To take this exploration a step further,
for drawing when you start, it just takes let‘s train your hand-eye coordination a
a bit of practice and the desire to learn. bit. Take your pencil and practice
My approach to learning how to draw is drawing a few straight and curved lines,
that even if you have no idea how to do long ones and short ones. Don't worry
this, you can get really decent after a about doing this right or wrong, it's just
while if you learn the basic concepts a warm up.
techniques and if you practice regularly.
Then draw a few round shapes like
1 Warm up + practice hand-eye circles and ellipses, and try out loose
coordination shapes like lying eights. Vary the size and
also vary the pressure of your pen. See
It‘s always a good idea to get warmed up
what changes if you draw with your
a bit and get comfortable with your
entire arm, that means locking the elbow
tools, and a warm up is also a great way
and wrist and making motions from the
to loosen your drawing muscles. By
shoulder joint. What will give you the
playing with different mark-making
smoothest arks? Fill a page with these
techniques, you‘ll see what you can do
explorations. Keep it fun and playful. If
with your pen.
you feel bored, you don't need to
So grab your pencil or pen and make continue. But try to notice how your
different marks. Line work can be hand feels now, are you more
incredibly varied. Make scribbles, doodle comfortable with the pencil?
around, create dots, stipples, hatching,
I find it helpful to do just a few of these
zig zag lines - explore the range of your
warm ups at the start of a drawing
drawing tool. Also try varying pressure.
session, it helps me to create smoother
Have fun with this - it‘s important to
line work. And for beginning sketchers it
keep your practice enjoyable and playful,
can be helpful to loosen up and learn
otherwise you will stop.
pencil control.
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
2 Start with basic shapes + light specific structure and more defined
lines shapes in a second step. But right now,
it‘s all about getting the proportions
After our warm up, let's start properly right and produce a solid underdrawing
with drawing. Let‘s look at what is the that you can work with. you don‘t need
basis for all drawing skills. Essentially, to focus on perfect lines or shadows or
you can break down everything you want details in this stage, that can all come
to draw into basic shapes. Basic shapes later.
are circles (we already practiced those),
rectangles and triangles. If you can draw These gestural drawings can be very loose
these basic shapes, and I'm pretty sure and spontaneous, they‘re great for
you can do this, you can essentially draw warming up and getting down the
anything. essence on the paper.
So how does this work? When you look
at an object in real life, all you need to do
is figure out how you can break it down
visually into easier to manage basic
shapes, and put those down on paper. So
you might look at a rose, or a house or a
bird, and figure out how to reduce them
to basic shapes. It's much easier to draw
a circle with a triangle attached, and
refine that, than to attempt to
understand all the complex angles and
shapes of a bird's head.
So you can use those basic shapes as a
loose underdrawing. For this, we‘ll start
with very light linework and rough
shapes, that we can refine to a more
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
3 Refine your drawing Tip: Negative space is another helpful trick
for measuring. Sometimes it‘s easier to draw
In the next step, you‘ll want to refine the space around something than to figure
what you have drawn through a solid out the actual object. Instead of drawing
outline. Again, observing what you draw objects next to each other, focus on the space
is much more important than actually between them. This is often a good way to
placing the line. Drawing is as much as describe visual relationships between objects
observing and learning to see, as it is or the angle of several lines.
about putting lines on paper.
Take your gesture drawing as a basis and
check all the angles and edges against
your subject. See where you need to
make adjustments. Observe the angles,
shapes and curves of your subject. Travel
around the contour, and be mindful
about the proportions you‘ve already
explored. Are they true to what you've
drawn? If not, make your corrections
now.
Again, observe closely before you place
your lines. Really notice what your
subject looks like before you place your
line. Draw what you see, and not what
you think you see.
Tip: You can use your pencil as a measuring
help. If you match an angle with your
pencil, it's much easier to translate it to the
paper.
Often you will draw several loose lines in
the first explorative stage, now is the time
to decide on one contour line and define
it with a solid line. Try to stay true to
what you see in front of you.
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
4 Do lots of loose quick sketches These basics may seem very simple and
mundane, but they’re really important
You now have a loose underdrawing with for learning how to draw. Over time,
basic shapes that's been refined with a these techniques will become second
more solid contour and a few defining nature to you and you won‘t even think
angles and edges. about them a lot.
At this stage, it can be helpful to just So practice your quick sketching skills a
produce a lot of quick drawings in the lot, it will make a difference!
same way to practice what you‘ve
learned.
Grab an object, and draw it with lots of
quick gestural sketches from different
angles. Try to get your hand to a stage
where it seems easy to see a line, and
transfer it to the paper.
You want this to become a fluid process.
This will take a bit of time, but it's
important to become comfortable with
hand-eye-coordination. You will want to
create many quick drawings, not one
perfect drawing at this stage. How do
you practice this in the best way? I find
shorter sessions over several days will give
better results than one long session once
a week.
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
5 Finishing a drawing with details As for contrast and shadows, the same
concept applies. Add darker areas to
At this point, you‘ll want to make your show volume here and there, don‘t
sketch a bit rounder, a bit more finished. overwork your sketch. I know this is a lot
of fun and hard to stop, but you only
Do not proceed with this step when need a few accents in your drawing. For
your basic framework and the right a simple pencil sketch, it’s best not to add
proportions aren‘t in place, rather make to many dark and heavy shadows.
another drawing or correct the one you
have. It's fine to simply start over.
In this step, you can add contrast, light
and dark areas, and a bit of detail, like
textures in a few places.
All of these are techniques for themselves
that should be learned practiced, in any
case I'd like to caution not to overdo it
with the details. You want to have just a
few places with more details and textures,
this is where you lead the viewer's eye.
Think back to the mark-making exercise
and remember the different marks and Tip: For adding loose shadows, you can
lines your pencil can produce. Dots, squint your eyes slightly to see the light and
lines, hatching, broken up lines, varied dark areas of your subject a bit easier.
lines. Try to think what kind of texture
will be most fitting for your subject and
add a bit of detail - sparingly, not all over.
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
6 Practice over and over, learn from Let me add a quick word about mistakes.
your mistakes Mistakes will happen, they‘re part of the
process. Don‘t get too focused on
Here is the process for creating a mistakes, they‘ll help you learn and make
drawing: your next drawing better. I understand
that we all want this to come easy, but
1. start with basic shapes, light lines, find
the hand needs time to understand these
the right proportions
concepts.
2. refine lines, check angles, add solid
You‘ll need to build muscle memory, and
outlines
this means working through mistakes.
3. add detail and texture, shadows and
So try not to feel frustrated about
highlights, color
mistakes and trust the process. This is
That‘s really all there is to it. The key to what it looked like for Leonardo da Vinci
getting good at drawing is to practice to learn drawing, and this is what it looks
these skills a lot, over time. You need to like for the rest of us. So expect and try
get in your pencil miles until this process to embrace your mistakes, they will help
becomes second nature to you. So you along the way to become a better
practice a lot, and start building your sketcher.
habit.
Tip: If you practice a bit each day you’ll
make a lot of progress over time.
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
7 Deepen your knowledge and learn This course is a foundational drawing
more advanced concepts class that will guide you step for step and
teach you all the principles of drawing.
The drawing process you’ve learnt here is
a great start, and it will hopefully help The course will teach you how to draw
you in your everyday sketching. anything - with a focus on the natural
world. I offer the course as a guided
If you're ready for more, there are many version with direct feedback from me on
more advanced drawing techniques. your assignments several times a year, or
Understanding those will help you to if you prefer learning on your own you
really get good at it. Learning concepts can take the course in your own pace.
like seeing in 3D volumes, You can learn more about the course in
understanding perspective, values, light the links below:
and shadow, and foreshortening will
really advance your skills and help you to I offer the course on
create fully rounded drawings. Gumroad and Skillshare.
I really hope this guide was helpful to
you and that the process of creating a
drawing seems less of a mystery now.
And this fluffy cormorant also
appreciates your new skills:
If you want to understand and apply
these concepts and get really well-
rounded drawing skills, then take a look
at my course „Sketching Fundamentals“.
All content and images ©2023 Julia Bausenhardt
https://juliabausenhardt.com/blog/
