Drawing Exercises

Up until now, all of my exercises have been on a light green background. This page is all exercises, so I'm getting rid of the green so as not to hurt our eyes :>. Some of these exercises are my own invention, and some are from drawing books. If they are from books, then the sources are noted.

While these exercises are definitely geared towards an animation student, they should help just about anyone interested in drawing.

The 1-minute character sketch

Pick a character, any character. Now pick and emotion, or an action (eg happy, excited, angry , fearful; walking, talking, exploring). Set your timer to beep every minute. Now, every minute, make one full-bodied (no close-ups) drawing of your character in whatever emotion or motion you have chosen. Keep going as long as you can. I generally run out of ideas at about the 30 sketch mark; if that happens, take a break and try again later. This exercise teaches you about staging (composition), as well as expression emotions with the full body (as there is not enough time to draw the face). I recommend one hour of this exercise, with breaks every 20 minutes or half hour (use another timer to time that).

"Extreme" Life Drawing

Also known as the flash pose or cafe drawing, this simply involves drawing anyone or anything around you. In the case of the drawings on the left, I was getting bored at a rehersal so I simply started to draw the people around me - in this case, a drummer practicing and a girl having a conversation with someone. This exercise is where you learn to draw FAST because you never know when people will move. Drawing the drummer was interesting. The drawing is not quite a pure gesture because, to a certain extent, you are trying to get a rough likeness, but the style of drawing is definitely very gestural.

The 1 minute movie sketch

This exercise requires a VCR with freeze-frame; that is, when you push the "Pause" button the picture should be clear with no fuzzy lines. Put in a movie - any movie, animated or not - and start watching it. Set your timer to beep every minute, like you did with the 1-minute character sketch. Start your timer. When the timer first beeps, pause the film. Now, draw - either the entire scene, or just one character in the scene. When the timer next beeps, resume the movie. Repeate as often as you wish. This exercise will increase your awarness of staging and action.

I developed this exercise on my own, and then learnt about six months later that it is actually taught at Sheridan and other art colleges. So I guess this one works after all!