There are many ways to learn to draw. They are all valid and they all work! If you practice enough, any technique will work if it suits you. I suggest you try lots of them until you find one that feels right to you.

What I want to talk about here is a little different. I want to show you some simple techniques for drawing a subject you love and want to work with. I want to introduce you to line drawing. It's a simple and beautiful way to draw and can be very expressive too. In this series, we will explore composition and line drawing using a favorite subject traced from a photo because I want you to have some instant creative success.

The various line drawings I will be showing you were all created one after the other as I worked with the image. Each new way to express the drawing made itself known to me as I was deeply focused on creating the current image. I am presenting them to you in about the same sequence they occurred to me.

I used the following tools to create the various line drawings in this lesson:

A photo of a favorite subject ... plant, animal or person ... whatever it is, make it something you really love. A 3x4 or 4x5 photo would be the perfect size to start with.

Tracing paper

A #2 pencil

A fine tipped black pen

A set of colored pencils

An eraser

Water colors (they don't have to be expensive) and a small brush

A scanner, a printer and an image editing program

You may find an image editing program like PhotoDeluxe, Photoshop LE, Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro very useful in your art explorations. You can find older versions these programs at online auctions for very good prices and they will work great for you.