Warm up drawing with a loose hand

When you start a drawing session, you may wonder why your first sketches are clumsy. Your hand muscles are not yet that agile. It’s good to start with a bit of warm up. For that, draw anything with a loose hand.

Warm Up drawing with a loose hand – Wacom Cintiq 22HD with Sketchbook Pro

00:01 Start drawing with simple shapes

00:04 Keep your hand loose

00:12 Draw with a moderate precision

00:15 We’ll adjust later

00:21 Use some light reflexion to the eyes

00:27 Add grey value using oblique hatching

00:31 Don’t follow the hair direction

00:42 Touch up to give more contrast

00:45 Using the bold pressure of the pen

Below is a quick tutorial on how I draw step-by-step.

I start with a vertical axis

A simple circle for the head

I add the Chin.

I like to continue with BOTH eyes. I don’t finish one eye to start an other. I purposely draw both together to make sure that both are aligned before adding more details in them.

Then the lips and the nose.

I readjust a bit the chin to make it more narrow.

I start to give the rough shape of the hair style like a “block”.

I draw the hair thinking of the weight. The hair start to curl below the chin.

Ok ! We got our main shape. Time to add some details and add values.

Time to ad some details to the eyes.

Think of adding a bit of light reflexion. It’s just a blank ellipse that partly hide the pupils.

A bit of touch up to give more contrast to the overall.

Voila, for the quick sketch of the day. I often start a drawing session drawing something that is not that accurate but beneificial for a good start.

If you havn’t draw for a while (few weeks for example), at the opposite you can plan to warm up with “precision exercises”. Instead of drawing with a loose hand, trace straight lines, ellipses and circles. You will help your brain to recalibrate with your pen.

3 comments

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Throw Away Your Eraser! Learn Product Design Sketching Faster! – ✏️THE DESIGN SKETCHBOOK says:

December 16, 2024 at 5:32 pm

[…] As a beginner, your focus should be on mastering basic shapes first like straight lines and circles. These shapes serve as the foundation for developing your sketching abilities and calibrating your brain’s connection with your hand. […]

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les images 2 Renata says:

January 29, 2015 at 2:52 am

I LOVE YOUR VIDEO!

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- Chou-Tac Chung says:
  
  January 31, 2015 at 11:34 am
  
  Thank you very much ! :)
  
  Reply

Derry: “22, Riva, Google Search, perspective drawin problems, i want to change my mindset about sketching.” Jun 15, 23:46
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Simona: “Hi, I’m Czech living in Italy, I’m 42. I graduated a few months ago in product design. I would like…” Jun 14, 22:05
Smash Karts: “This tutorial is fantastic! I loved how you broke down the steps for drawing a cube in 2-point perspective. The…” Jun 14, 03:57
Chou-Tac: “Love that answer. :)” Jun 14, 00:32
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Chou-Tac: “Sure you can Leo :)) I invite you to try this tutorial. It is great for beginner to get instant…” Jun 8, 15:10
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