Improve your artistic ability with these drawing basics. Discover the secrets of the Old Masters. Sandra McFall Angelo presents her own four-level drawing program. She also introduces you to a grid system for simplifying shapes and drawing negative space. A grid will help an artist of any level improve accuracy and perspective.
Artists see the world in terms of four elements.
They see shapes first, then lines, values, and textures. If you can learn the language of art and start to see the world the way artists do, you will draw much more accurately. After establishing the placement of objects in the shape drawing, they move to a line drawing, where they place interior and exterior lines. These will serve as a map for the future placement of shapes and shadows, which helps tremendously when shading. For value drawings, all the lights, darks, shapes and shadows are shaded.