Free-hand Drawing

A picture made by the hand and eye and without the aid of a rule and compass is called free-hand drawing.

To be able to do free-hand drawing is one of the nicest accomplishments you can have for then you can sketch the things you see and want to remember; and, further, sketches made with a pencil or pen and ink are, to my way of thinking, just as interesting as photographs provided they are well done.

Talent versus Practice

Some fellows have a natural bent for sketching and are what you might call born artists, while others seem to be entirely minus this talent and the only way they can ever learn to sketch is by following certain rules and then practicing.

Now the chances are you have a little talent but whether you have or not if you will follow the simple instructions I have written down in this chapter you will be surprised to find what really clever pictures you can draw.

Pictures for You to Draw

There are two kinds of free-hand sketches for you to do and these are (1) of life models and (2) of still life, that is, fruit, flowers, furniture and inanimate objects of all kinds.

I shall tell you first how to make simple drawings of living figures including man and beast and by beginning where your savage ancestor left off you will be able to at least represent anything your fancy dictates.

Simple Line Sketches

As you will see by looking at A and B in Fig 42, the sketches of the man and horse consist of merely straight lines but you will also observe that A looks like a boxer because the action is there.

This is because when I sketched it I was careful to note the exact position of the boxer's head, arms, legs and body as they appeared at that given moment. The keynote in sketching a figure in action is always to draw it, not as you wish or believe it to look but as it actually is.

Fig. 42. A Simple Line Drawing Of A Man And A Horse

The line sketches A and B only look as like a man landing a right, and a horse coming down the home stretch as they do because (a) all the lines are properly proportioned, that is, of the right length when compared with each other, and (b) they are set in the correct positions. The way to become a good judge of proportion is always to notice the relative sizes of the things you draw.

Sketching Simple Outline Figures

When you can sketch straight line figures to show men and animals in action you can then draw outlines around them and so make them much more realistic as shown at A and B in Fig. 43.

Fig. 43. Simple Outline Drawing Of A Boxer And A Race Horse

To do this draw a straight line sketch first and then draw the outline around it, when you can rub out the straight lines if you want to. In these outline sketches you will see that only the lines that are actually needed to give the picture the contour, that is, the shape of the figure, or body, are used.