Learning in Tandem: #draw21days Challenge Day 2: Continuous Line Drawings

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

#draw21days Challenge Day 2: Continuous Line Drawings

The Day 2 challenge posted and I feel like I'm in way over my head, after taking great pride in my cat drawing yesterday. The challenge today was "continuous line drawings" and we needed to draw 4 of them: a smiling face, a hand holding a soda bottle, a man riding a unicycle, and a running dog.

My first question was: how do I draw a continuous line drawing? Are there rules? If I pick up my pencil, do I lose? Can I go back over previous lines? Is it just a matter of not taking my pencil off the paper? What if I really screw up? Can I go back and erase the mistake and pick up where I left off, or do I need to start all over again?

Clearly I'm a perfectionist and not used to this loosey-goosey direction of "draw a continuous line drawing."

I'm stressed. But I did the drawings, so there's that at least.

First, I started with the smiling face:

I was not sure what the heck I was doing, so I kept it REALLY simple. It's not bad, but it kinda looks like some kind of free icon.

Next I drew the hand holding a soda bottle. This one was really hard, and I did erase the bottle a few times and start over because I couldn't get the size perspective quite right. I did decide to do some shading (without lifting my pencil, since I was so concerned with doing it "right"), and I decided with this drawing that it was ok to go back over lines I'd already drawn as long as I didn't lift my pencil. Makin' up my own rules ;)

I was a little more confident going into the man riding a unicycle and a little less concerned about how to add detail once I gave myself permission to draw over previous lines. He looks a little like elastic man, but I am pretty proud of my glasses/eyes/nose/mouth combo, as well as the tire treads. This one was hard, but I enjoyed trying to figure out the little details (even though his arms and shoulders need some work!).

The last drawing I completed was the running dog. I looked up some images on Google of dogs running for inspiration, and I picked a little dog that looks a lot like one of our dogs, Sherlock. I decided to try shading again, to get the feeling of fur. I liked drawing this one the most, even though I was not at all sure how to capture the idea of motion.

So there you have it! Day 2 is on the books. I'll be interested to see everyone else's drawings, how they interpreted "continuous line" and hear what challenges they faced. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow's challenge!