A Trick to Learn Drawing More Easily
Have you ever felt that the art of drawing seems reserved only for those born with a special gift? Do you get frustrated when your hands can’t capture what your mind visualizes? If so, this article could completely transform your artistic experience. We’ll unveil a revolutionary method that demystifies the process of learning to draw, making it accessible to anyone with passion and determination.
In this article, I’ll explain in detail and perfectly a great trick so you can learn to draw in a simpler way. By following it step by step, plus the techniques I’ll reveal below, you’ll undoubtedly be able to advance quickly in your learning process. Pay attention and keep reading!
Is it Really Possible to Master Drawing Without Innate Talent?
Get ready, because right now you’re going to read something that will save you many headaches and wasted time. A revelation that could have completely changed my own artistic path had I known it earlier.
It was really hard for me to learn to draw when I started. I must admit, it wasn’t easy, and you’re probably experiencing the same thing that happened to me when I decided to start studying drawing. I didn’t know if I had what it takes to achieve it, but I loved the idea and intended to become a good artist, to enjoy my hobby and maybe, why not, in the future be able to show my qualities to the world.
The good news is that, after years of practice, experimentation, and study, I’ve discovered that drawing is not a magical skill reserved for a lucky few. It is, in reality, a set of observational skills and techniques that anyone can develop with the right approach.
The Learning Roller Coaster: Between Frustration and Small Triumphs
Things at the beginning didn’t turn out as I wanted. It was very evident that I wasn’t born with the innate quality of drawing, which meant that, in my case, I would have to work much harder if I really wanted to achieve my goals. This realization, far from discouraging me, became my greatest motivation.
I tried hard, but my first strokes weren’t giving the result I expected. I drew, copied, and spent too many hours in the attempt, but I wasn’t getting the fruits of my dedication. Frustration accumulated with each crooked line, each incorrect proportion, each failed attempt to capture what my eyes saw.
I thought that if I could personally see how this or that artist did it, that way, I would discover their secret and then, everything would be easier for me. This mindset of looking for “the secret trick” kept me stuck for months, until I understood a fundamental truth about art.
After having wasted a lot of time, I knew that there are no dark mysteries hidden waiting to be discovered, but rather it all comes down to a group of techniques that when you know them and apply them consistently, things change and you realize that everything starts to work wonderfully. This discovery was liberating: drawing is not magic, it’s method.
The real change began when I stopped looking for shortcuts and started trusting in the structured learning process. Discover here the fundamental tools that every artist needs to master to transform their visual perception and improve quickly.
The Transformative Power of Correctly Applied Techniques
As I mentioned earlier, it’s essential to know and apply techniques consistently and in an orderly manner, so that everything turns out perfectly and there are no mistakes. Discipline in learning to draw should not be confused with rigidity; it’s more about building a solid foundation upon which your creativity can freely flourish.
What differentiates an experienced artist from a beginner is not so much innate talent as the ability to see the world in a particular way: breaking down the complex into simple forms, observing spatial relationships, and translating three-dimensionality to a two-dimensional plane. These skills may seem mystical, but they are absolutely learnable.
Pay close attention because this is one of the fundamental techniques I’m going to teach you that will revolutionize your approach to any drawing, regardless of its complexity.
First: Search, Find, and Trace the Shapes
One of the most logical ways used to practice drawing, when you’re just taking your first steps, is to try to copy from good photos or drawings by other artists. Also from life, doing it through direct observation of an object or a figure that is in a certain pose.
The trick is to be able to establish quick proportions at a glance, allowing you to create the general shape of the main object you’re drawing. This technique, known in professional circles as “blocking” or “massing,” is used by artists of all disciplines, from comic illustrators to classical painters.
What’s revolutionary about this approach is that it trains your brain to process visual information hierarchically, starting with the largest and simplest shapes before worrying about details. It’s like building the skeleton of your drawing before adding the flesh and skin.
As we see in the image, once you have established that shape, you can subordinate the rest of the elements to it. This way, you will use the main shape you made at the beginning as a reference. This will allow you to correctly place the rest of the objects that appear in the image in terms of space and proportions.
You can then begin to focus on adding details, but always starting from the largest to the smallest. But after, never before. This hierarchical order is crucial and constitutes one of the most common mistakes among beginners: falling into the temptation of starting with the details before having the general structure correctly established.
The Art of Seeing: Training Your Visual Perception
It’s logical that your sight gets lost in the details when you try to copy something, it’s normal for that to happen, it happened to all of us, without a doubt, but you have to avoid falling into this when you take your first steps. The great masters of drawing have a secret: they don’t draw what they think they see, but what is actually in front of them.
A technique to acquire the ability to see the basic shape is that, before you start drawing, take the image you’re going to use and place a transparent paper over it. Then start drawing on this paper.
This will give you an idea of what you need to look for with your sight. The transparent paper acts as a first filter that helps you simplify visual information, allowing you to concentrate only on the contours and general shapes without being distracted by textures, shadows, or minor details.
Next, draw that same shape on your blank sheet, simultaneously observing the drawing of the reference image, and the simple shape you have captured on the transparent paper. This step is crucial because it establishes a direct connection between your visual perception (what you see) and your motor skill (what you draw).
Enhance your observation capacity with practical exercises designed to train the artistic eye, a fundamental skill that separates amateur from professional artists.
Why Does This Method Work? The Science Behind the Trick
This visual exercise will help you gain confidence and be able to interpret the shapes you “see” in the image, using directly your sight and perception, and thus, be able to transfer them to your blank sheet. Neuroscience has shown that when we learn a new skill, our brain creates new neural connections. This exercise specifically strengthens the connections between the visual and motor areas of your brain.
By repeatedly practicing this method, you are essentially reprogramming your brain to process visual information more efficiently. Over time, the identification of basic shapes becomes automatic, freeing your cognitive capacity to focus on more creative aspects of drawing.
Great masters like Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo used similar methods, beginning their works with simple sketches that captured the essence of what they wanted to represent before adding any detail. This demonstrates that even the most talented recognized the importance of this structured approach.
The Power of Negative Space: What You Don’t Draw Is as Important as What You Draw
After you manage to interpret the basic shape of your drawing, pay special attention to the opposite shapes, which are simply all those that surround your main shape. This concept, frequently ignored by beginners, is one of the best-kept secrets of professional artists.
These are the blank spaces or open spaces of a certain composition, known as NEGATIVE SPACE (The green area in the example). Being more strict, we would say that negative or empty space is the space that remains between the different elements of a composition.
Check if they are the same as those you see in the image of the drawing you’re using as a reference. If not, try to adjust it until it looks quite correct. Focusing on negative space has an almost magical effect: it allows your brain to “trick” itself and overcome preconceived schemas that make us draw what we think should be there instead of what we actually see.
For example, when drawing a face, it’s common to draw eyes larger than they actually are, because our brain gives them greater importance. By focusing on the space between the eyes and around them (the negative space), we can overcome this bias and represent more accurate proportions.
This dual approach—paying attention to both what you draw and what you don’t draw—is what separates advanced artists from beginners. With practice, you’ll begin to see every image as a harmonious set of interrelated positive and negative shapes.
Enhancing Learning: How to Maximize the Benefits of This Exercise
If you want to add more value to this exercise, I suggest that after doing all of the above, you start again, but hiding the transparent paper that has the marked lines. Remove it from the middle, don’t look at it anymore. This additional step activates a deeper learning process, forcing your brain to resort to recent memory and consolidate what you’ve learned.
Now try to do the whole exercise from scratch, just as if you were observing the basic shape for the first time, but without the help of the transparent paper. What will happen? Somewhere in your mind, you’ll have stored a small record of the previous exercise, and then it will be easier to do it in this second attempt.
This is very beneficial, as it records the conscious process you did the first time using transparent paper as an aid, and this is strengthened with the effort of the unconscious process you’re doing now. Learning psychologists call this “spaced retrieval”—a proven method for transferring information from short-term memory to long-term memory.
Using these exercises, you’ll better understand how to search for and find these shapes when successfully copying a drawing, starting from a reference. Want to make the definitive leap in your ability to capture shapes and proportions? Explore specialized resources here that will help you develop this crucial skill.
This is something fundamental and indispensable when you’re learning to draw. With each repetition of this exercise, you’ll be strengthening the “mental muscles” responsible for visual perception and hand-eye coordination, crucial elements for any artist.
Applying the Method to Different Styles and Techniques
This approach based on fundamental shapes is incredibly versatile and can be applied to any artistic style you wish to explore. From hyperrealism to manga, from caricature to abstract art, all styles benefit from a solid understanding of basic shapes.
In manga and Japanese comics, for example, professional artists use simplified geometric shapes to construct complex characters. Heads begin as ovals, bodies as combinations of cylinders and rectangles. Only after establishing these structures do they add the characteristic elements of the style: large eyes, elaborate hair, and dynamic expressions.
For realistic drawing, this method is even more crucial. Artists like Andrew Loomis revolutionized the teaching of human figure drawing by breaking them down into basic three-dimensional shapes that anyone can learn to visualize and represent. His methods continue to be a mandatory reference for professional illustrators worldwide.
Even in more expressionist or abstract styles, where it might seem that traditional rules don’t apply, the most accomplished artists begin with a clear understanding of fundamental shapes before consciously deciding how to distort or reinterpret them to achieve their personal expression.
Now, when you have to make a drawing copying directly from life, the process for taking measurements and establishing proportions is quite different, but it’s still based on the same fundamental principles of observation and simplification. In life drawing, you’ll use references like your extended pencil to measure relative proportions and angles, but always starting with the largest and simplest shapes.
Avoiding Common Mistakes That Slow Your Progress
Throughout years of teaching these techniques, I’ve identified some recurring obstacles that prevent many aspiring artists from advancing as quickly as they could. Knowing them will help you consciously avoid them:
- Impatience for details: As mentioned earlier, many beginners rush to draw details before correctly establishing the basic shapes. It’s like trying to decorate a house before building the foundation.
- Drawing what you “know” instead of what you see: Our brain has pre-established symbols for many common objects (how an eye, a nose, etc. “should be”). Learning to ignore these symbols and draw what we actually see is a fundamental challenge.
- Holding too tightly to initial lines: The first shapes you trace are guides, not absolute truths. Many beginners resist modifying them even when they notice something isn’t well proportioned.
- Underestimating the importance of repetitive practice: Drawing skills, like any other complex skill, require repetition to be internalized. There are no shortcuts.
- Constantly comparing yourself with more advanced artists: This often generates frustration and abandonment. Remember that all great artists went through their own learning phase.
Recognizing these patterns will allow you to consciously address them and overcome them faster. Metacognition—thinking about how you’re thinking and learning—is a powerful tool in artistic development.
Delve into advanced strategies to overcome creative blocks and accelerate your artistic progress, resources that have helped thousands of artists overcome their limitations.
The Neuroscience Behind Learning to Draw
Recent advances in neuroscience have shed light on why methods like the one described in this article are so effective. When we learn to draw, we are essentially rewiring parts of our brain, specifically the areas involved in visual perception and fine motor coordination.
The right hemisphere of the brain, traditionally associated with holistic and spatial thinking, plays a crucial role in the drawing process. The techniques I’ve shared help activate this hemisphere, allowing you to “see” differently: perceiving spatial relationships, proportions, and abstract shapes instead of labeled objects.
Neuroimaging studies have shown that experienced artists use different neural networks when drawing, compared to beginners. With repeated practice of techniques such as identifying basic shapes and negative spaces, you are literally developing new neural connections that will allow you to process visual information more efficiently and accurately.
This knowledge is liberating: knowing that you are physically changing your brain with each conscious practice can give you the patience and perseverance needed to continue improving, even when progress seems slow.
From Beginner to Artist: Creating a Sustainable Development Plan
Once you master the fundamental trick explained in this article, what are the next steps to continue your artistic evolution? Below, I present a structured approach to further developing your skills:
- Establish a daily practice: Even 15-20 consistent minutes every day will generate better results than sporadic longer sessions.
- Master a set of basic shapes: Circles, ovals, cubes, cylinders, and cones are the fundamental building blocks for almost any complex object.
- Develop a progressive understanding of anatomy: Start with simple structural shapes and gradually add knowledge about muscles, proportions, and movement.
- Study perspective systematically: From basic one-point perspective to more complex systems.
- Explore different media and techniques: Each material (pencil, ink, digital) teaches different aspects of drawing.
- Analyze the work of artists you admire: Not just to copy their style, but to understand their structural and compositional decisions.
Remember that artistic development is not linear; there will be plateaus and sudden leaps of understanding. The important thing is to maintain a constant focus on the fundamental principles while exploring your particular interests.
Discover a complete system to develop your skills from basic to advanced level, with a methodology that has proven its effectiveness with thousands of students from around the world.
Integrating the Technique into Your Creative Workflow
As you progress, you’ll discover that this method of identifying basic shapes is not just a learning technique, but a tool you’ll continue to use even when you reach advanced levels. Drawing professionals, whether in animation, comics, or fine arts, invariably begin their works with this structural approach.
In animation studios like Pixar or Disney, concept artists always start with quick sketches that capture the essential form and movement before worrying about details. In the comic world, legends like Jack Kirby or Jim Lee use basic geometric shapes to build their dynamic compositions.
Over time, this process will become so natural that it will happen almost automatically. True mastery doesn’t consist of abandoning fundamental techniques, but internalizing them to the point that they become intuitive, freeing your conscious mind to focus on more expressive and creative aspects of your art.
The Path to Personal Expression Through Technical Mastery
Many beginners fear that focusing too much on techniques like the one described in this article might limit their creativity or lead them to a style that’s too rigid or academic. This concern, though understandable, reflects a misunderstanding about the relationship between technique and expression in art.
Art history teaches us that the most innovative and expressive artists generally mastered the technical fundamentals first before effectively breaking the rules. Pablo Picasso, for example, mastered traditional academic drawing before developing cubism. His deep understanding of structure allowed him to deconstruct and reinterpret shapes in meaningful ways.
Technical mastery is not a prison but a launching platform for your unique artistic voice. When you don’t have to constantly struggle with basic problems of proportion or structure, your mind is free to explore deeper concepts, emotions, and complex visual narratives.
Are you ready to transform your technical skills into true personal artistic expression? Find inspiration and guidance here to take your art to the next creative level.
Conclusion: The Transformative Power of Seeing the World Through Shapes
We have traveled together on a fascinating journey through one of the fundamental techniques that can revolutionize your approach to drawing. Far from being a simple trick, what you have discovered is a new way of perceiving the visual world around you, breaking it down into manageable elements that you can transfer to paper with confidence and precision.
As I mentioned at the beginning and throughout the article, this method requires concentration and deliberate practice, but, once you master it, you’ll be able to create your drawings in a faster and simpler way. The most fascinating thing is that you’ll begin to “see” the world differently even when you’re not drawing, noticing shapes, proportions, and spatial relationships that previously went unnoticed. This is perhaps the most profound transformation experienced by someone who learns to draw: a permanent enrichment of their everyday visual perception.
Without a doubt, what you’ve learned today will be of great use in your artistic future. It doesn’t matter if your goal is professional art or simply enjoying the pleasure of drawing as a hobby, these fundamental skills will accompany you and develop throughout your creative life.
That said, I invite you to pick up your pencil and test this simple but infallible method right now, which will immediately increase your confidence and skill when you need to plan a drawing, no matter how difficult it may be. The perfect moment to begin your artistic transformation is right now, with the next stroke you make on paper.
And I assure you it works!
