1 You Can Sketch Anything

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artwithflo.com

1 You Can Sketch Anything

 Hi there! Thanks for picking up this book!

I’m Flo, a digital artist based in the Netherlands. I have always loved drawing, scribbling in my notes during
classes when I was younger and always eager to learn as much as I could. About 12 years ago I found out about
digital drawing and fell in love instantly!
I bought my first drawing tablet right away and started practicing. I have learned a lot since then and a few years
ago I started sharing my art and knowledge online on Instagram and YouTube. That’s probably how you found me!

I don’t just have a passion for drawing and painting (mostly digital), but I also have a passion for teaching. Creating
art can bring so much joy and it can be so relaxing. I love sharing that! That’s why I have dedicated my life to
teaching drawing and painting skills online!

Anyone can learn how to draw and I’m happy to be able to help with that!

2 You Can Sketch Anything

 Introduction
You picked up this ebook because you want to improve
your sketching skills! That’s exactly what this book will
help you with. After reading this book you will have the
tools to sketch anything and to keep improving your
skills with a variety of exercises.

This book doesn’t contain step by step instructions to

sketch different subjects, instead you will get the tools
to sketch any subject you would like.

I’ve been drawing for over 30 years and I’ve experienced

many epiphanies during my artistic journey. At some
point things just started to ‘click’ and I found my own
way of sketching. Reading this book will save you the
time that it took me! I’ll tell you exactly what techniques
and visions opened my eyes and made sketching that
much easier.

I made this drawing when I was about six years old

3 You Can Sketch Anything

 The Tools
A great thing about sketching is that you can use just charcoal and is harder to erase. Compressed charcoal is
about anything for it! A pen and a napkin, a pencil and available as sticks and pencils.
an envelope or your iPad, you can sketch wherever you
are. Try experimenting with different sketching tools Charcoal is great when you want to add some value to
to find your favorite and also to improve your overall your sketches. That means adding areas of shadow to
sketching skills. your sketch for ex-
ample. A kneaded
Tools to sketch don’t need to be expensive at all! You eraser can come in
can get started practicing right away without making big handy when working
investments. with charcoal, just
like some blending
stumps.
Graphite Pencil
Ballpoint Pen
An HB pencil is a great tool for sketching. It has a me-
dium hardness and can be bought just about anywhere. A ballpoint pen is a great tool for sketching. You cannot
Wondering what the H and B stand for? The H actual- erase the lines when you work with a ballpoint pen and
ly stands for Hardness and the B stands for Blackness. that makes using it a great practice. Just go with the
There is a range of pencils available, a 6H is harder than flow when using a ballpoint pen for sketching and don’t
a 2H for example and a 5B is darker than a 3B. Using worry about the lines that you can’t erase. When you
a range of graphite pencils gives you access to a wide work like this, you
range of values, might get some
where harder nice surprises!
pencils give a light-
er value and softer Sketching with a
(high B value) ballpoint pen might
pencils give a dark- take some practice,
er value. but it is possible
to get control over
When you use a graphite pencil for sketching, you can the pen. You can make lines ranging from very thick and
easily vary your line thickness, which can add dynamics opaque to very thin and light lines.
to your sketch. The thickness of your line depends on
the angle in which you hold your pencil. You can also
Marker
vary the value of you sketch lines by pressing harder or
lighter. Just like the ballpoint pen, markers make permanent
lines. A marker can be perfect for making bold sketches,
Charcoal exploring different shapes and movements. Using mark-
ers can be exciting
Just like graphite pencils, charcoal is a great tool for and challenging, but
sketching. It might be a bit more challenging for begin- it sure can be
ners though. Charcoal smudges pretty easily and you liberating as well!
might end up with dirty hands (or even arms!). There are
different types of charcoal available, like vine charcoal You could start out
for example. Vine charcoal consists of burned willow with a bold marker
wood. It makes light marks and is easily erased (and sketch which you
smudged!). Compressed charcoal is darker than vine can use as a base for

4 You Can Sketch Anything

 a pencil sketch for example. Go and experiment! If you’re working digital, you can do the same thing
of course! You can arrange your favorite sketches in a
Digital Pencils digital folder. That way you can always go back to check
your progress or to find inspiration by looking at older
If you’re using digital art software to sketch, draw and sketches.
paint, then you have total creative freedom. You can
switch from graphite pencil, to marker, to ballpoint
pen. You can use whatever tool you like to create your
sketches.

A great plus when

sketching digital is
the ability to lower
the opacity of your
sketch. You could
make a pretty dark
and messy sketch
and then turn down
the opacity of your layer, you could then make a new
layer on top to start refining your sketch.

Drawing digital also enables you to draw beneath your

sketch. You can keep your sketch layer on top of your
painting layers to use it as a reference when painting for
instance.

Other materials

Finally, what medium should you use for your sketches?

It doesn’t really matter that much, you can grab a nap-
kin, some printing paper, an envelope or you can buy a
sketch book. It’s very nice to have a sketch book, that
way you can make a nice collection of sketches. A sketch
book can also bring some pressure with it though, a fear
of filling that first page. But also the fear of keeping your
sketches consistent for example. That’s why keeping a
folder with loose papers can also be a nice idea. That
way you can keep whatever sketches you like.

5 You Can Sketch Anything

 The Vision
Anyone can learn to draw, that is something I truly be-
lieve. As long as you keep practicing and spend a lot
of time drawing, you will see your skills improve. Some
people are just faster learners than others and some
people have just been practicing since childhood, be-
cause they were so interested in art. This gives these
people a big head start. Of course it doesn’t mean you
can’t catch up!

Sketching complicated subjects, might seem like an im-

possible task. Or what about animal or human anatomy? This is the way we’ll sketch in this book, working our way from the
I used to think that I had to understand every little part outside to the inside. We’ll move from big shapes to smaller shapes.
of the human body or the human face before I could You’ll be sketching complicated subjects in no time!
even get started trying to draw those. As a kid I used
to read a lot of books about drawing. These books had
You won’t need to fully understand a construction to
titles like ‘How to draw horses’, ‘How to draw the human
use this method. What you do need is to train your eyes,
figure’, ‘How to draw wildlife’, etcetera. They showed
your observational skills. I’ve added some easy exercises
lots of construction images and taught the reader how
in this book to improve those skills!
to build up a horse for example, using different rectan-
gles. It made me think that I had to memorize all these
constructions, understanding all of them before I could
really draw.
Exercise
To improve your sketching skills, I’d greatly recommend to
do regular exercises. Here’s a simple exercise to improve
your motor skills and get more confident drawing lines.

Right
This is the way the
books in my childhood
showed me how to
draw. I found it really
hard to turn this into a
proper looking horse

It took me a lot
of years to realize that this wasn’t the case. Of course
understanding anatomy and basic construction comes in
very handy when drawing. But it is not a necessary re-
quirement before you get started with drawing. You can
actually learn how to sketch AND learn about anatomy
and construction at the same time! Start in one of the corners of your paper or digital canvas
and make a fluid curved line. The next step is to make a
line next to it that follows the same flow. Continue doing
With the method I will teach you in this book, we’ll be this until you have filled your entire paper. Try to keep the
working from the outside to the inside of a subject. distance between the lines equal.
Moving from big shapes to smaller shapes.

6 You Can Sketch Anything

 Motor vs Observational Skills
To improve your sketching and overall drawing skills, you
need to work on two things: Your motor skills and your
observational skills. Drawing isn’t just about making the
Exercise
To get more confident making sketching, you can do this
right hand movements, it’s also about observing and simple exercise. This will greatly improve your measur-
analyzing both your subject and your drawing. You can ing skills and at the same time you’ll be working on your
have great observational skills, but if your hand won’t lis- motor skills, making more confident lines as you progress.
ten, you’ll still have a problem. And you can have a hand
with superpowers that is able to draw any line that your
want, but if you lack the observational skills, your draw-
ings will look off. The great news is that you can train
both your hand and your eyes. With special exercises
you can work on your motor and observational skills.

Motor Skills

So what do I mean with motor skills? Well, that’s the skill

of your hand and arm. How well can that hand of yours The first step is to draw a shape, you can do this by hand
draw a straight line? Can it make a fluid circle or arch? or by using a ruler. If you’re working digital, you can use
Do your hand and arm listen to you when you want to the shape tool to make your shapes. The next step is to try
and copy the shape as accurate as you can. Try to take a
go in a certain direction? You start developing these
close look at the size and angles of your shapes. You can
motor skills from a very young age, when you start col- do this with any shape you like!
oring, drawing and writing. So we all have these base
motor skills that can be used for drawing, but some have
developed them more than others. If you were interested this has a lot to do with an interest or even passion at a
in drawing from a very young age, then you probably young age. Even when your passion gets sparked at a
had more practice developing your motor skills. That’s later age, it’s never too late to start practicing! You might
why some people might seem more ‘gifted’ than others, just need more hours to get to a certain level.

Observational Skills
Exercise What do I mean with observational skills? That’s the
Here’s an exercise that is great to get a more steady hand
when drawing. You’ll be practicing drawing straight lines in ability to analyze your subject and compare it with your
this exercise sketch (and vice versa). With your observational skills
you’ll find the simple shapes in a subject, measure an-
gles and lengths and evaluate the sizes of objects for
example. We all develop these skills when we grow up,
when making puzzles for example. Or you might have
done these drawing exercises as a kid where you had a
grid and had to copy an image. To get your sketching
Use a ruler to create straight lines on a paper, or if you’re
using digital art software, you can use automatic shapes and drawing skills to the next level you’ll need to put
to create these lines. Vary your lines, some should be close these skills to good use and learn how to observe in the
together and some should be farther apart. right way and with the right focus.
Now grab a pencil and try to make straight lines in be-
tween these lines that you have just made. Try to not
Motor Skill Exercises
touch the lines that you made with the ruler.

To improve your motor skills you can do a variety of

7 You Can Sketch Anything

 exercises. Throughout the book you’ll find different ideas
Exercise for exercises you can do. Even if you do these exercises
for 5 minutes a day, you’ll see your skills improving. You
This next exercise is great to improve your motor skills and
at the same time you’ll be making a nice pattern! can improve your motor skills by doing exercises like
hatching, making paralell lines, filling pages with circles,
squares or other shapes, doing pressure control exercis-
es and more.

Observational Skill Exercises

To improve your observational skills you can do exercis-

es that involve copying shapes. You can start off with
Start out by picking a shape, like a triangle, circle, square,
exercises that involve copying simple shapes, like circles,
whatever you like! Start making big shapes first and fill
your paper with it. Continue making these shapes and squares and triangles. As you gain more confidence and
start adding smaller and smaller shapes, filling every gap skill, you can move to more complicated shapes. When
your can find. Do this until the shape becomes too small to practicing like this, try to focus on the angle and length
draw.
of lines. It helps to isolate lines in your mind.

Improving your skills

If you want to improve your sketching skills, and that’s

probably what you want, since you are reading this
book. Then I’d suggest doing regular exercises. Improv-
ing your skills takes time, so don’t try to rush yourself.
If you want to train to become a bodybuilder, you won’t
expect to be super muscular in a week either. Training
your motor and observational skills is the same! But just
like with bodybuilding or any other sport, if you train on
a regular basis, you will see yourself improve.

After a while, try comparing your old sketches to your

new sketches and see how you improve. All the hard
work will be worth it!

Exercise
A fun way to improve your drawing skills is by doodling!
You will improve your motor skills by making doodles and at
the same time you might spark your creativity.
The thing with doodling is that you can’t go wrong. Doodling
is not about creating realistic drawings, it’s just about having
fun and letting your mind wander.
Just pick random things around you to get started with
doodling or listen to a podcast or watch a tv show and doo-
dle anything that comes to mind. Doodling every once in a
while can also release some tension.
Don’t be hard on yourself when doodling and just have fun!
Who knows what lovely things will come out.

8 You Can Sketch Anything

 Ways of Measuring
Measuring and observational skills play an important role
in drawing. There are some methods for measuring that
can greatly help you. My mind was actually a little bit
Exercise
Here’s another exercise that is great to improve both your
blown when I heard about these methods. No one had motor skills and your measuring skills. This exercises helps
ever taught me these ways at drawing class at school for you to improve measuring with your ‘minds eye’
instance. They are so simple, yet so effective, that they
might change the way you look at your drawings and
sketches!

Extending lines

A way of measuring proportions in your sketches and

drawings is by extending lines. Imagine drawing a
straight line along a specific feature in your subject and
then imagine where that line would end. Would it end
in the same place in your sketch? In the image below

First thing you’ll need to do is draw a vertical line (but

you could also do this with a horizontal or diagonal line of
course!) and make some random shapes on one side of the
line. If you use digital painting software, you can use au-
tomatic shapes for instance. Now try to sketch the shapes
on the other side of the line, making a mirror image. Try to
keep a close eye on the angles of the lines, compare sizes
and measure lengths with your minds eye.

you can see an example of how you can extend lines.

You can extend the lines of the cloth or the stalks of the the top of the middle pear.
pears. See how, when you extend the line along the cloth You can choose to either make imaginary lines, or you
on the left, the line eventually touches the top of the can actually draw these lines over your reference image.
stalk of that pear in the middle. Or check how the line If you are drawing from life, you can use your pencil to
along the stalk of the pear on the left extends to touch help you out. You must’ve seen artists extending their
pencil in front of them to measure their subject, right?
If you are using digital painting software, you can check
your sketch by making a new layer on top of your sketch,
you can draw your measuring lines on this new layer.
This is a great way to check proportions in your artwork.

Compare sizes

Comparing features and sizes is another great way to

measure. Try to look at your subject and compare sizes,
perhaps a certain part is twice as big as another, have

9 You Can Sketch Anything

 you reflected that in your sketch as well? Check the ex- and the start of the eyebrows. Also notice how you can
ample below, of the kingfisher. You can see that the beak draw a line from the middle of the upper lips, along the
has the same length as the head for instance. And when edges of the nostrils to the outer corners of the eyes. Try
you look at the height of the head, you can see that to find connections and ancher points in your subjects to
it fits in its body twice and the tail is about the same help you measure your sketch.
height as the head. Comparing sizes is also handy when
When you are working in a digital painting program,
it’s easy to make guides like this on a separate layer. If
you’re struggling using guides like this, you could draw
the guides on top of your reference photo first and then
transfer this layer with guides to your sketch. This way
you can easily correct your own sketches. If you keep
practicing, then in time you won’t need guidelines any-
more and measure everything with your minds eye.

looking at its eye for example. See how the distance be-
tween the top and bottom of the eye is shorter than the
distance between the left and right corner of the eye.

You can either measure parts of your subject with your

minds eye, or you can measure by drawing on top of
your reference. Or when you’re drawing from life, you
can use your pencil to measure by extending your arm in
front of you.

Anchor points

With anchor points I mean certain markers in a subject

you can use. When sketching a face for example, you
could use the corners of a mouth as an anchor point to
decide where the pupils in the eyes should be. And the
edges of a nose could serve as anchor points for where
the inner corners of the eyes should be, or vice versa. Try
to find anchor points in your subject to help you get the
correct proportions in your sketch.
Look at the photo on the right and notice how you can
use the corners of the lips and inner corners of the eyes
as anchor points. You can draw a straight line up from
the corners of the lips to the inner corners of the eyes.
This is something you can easily check in your sketch.
You can see the same thing with the corners of the nose

10 You Can Sketch Anything

 The Method
To sketch any subject, we’ll go through a series of steps.
First we’ll try to find a very simple shape, a silhouette
around our subject. Try imagining laying planks or sticks
around subject, these need to be fairly long to keep the
shape simple.

Making a simple shape of your subject is very helpful

and can form anchor points for the rest of your sketch.
Try using light lines for this part of your sketch. If you’re
working digital, you don’t have to worry about the light-
ness of your lines, you can easily lower the opacity of
You can either do this with your minds eye, or you can this initial sketch layer and continue working on a new
actually draw these lines on top of your reference. Let’s layer on top.
use the image of the lion as an example to illustrate the
technique. Drawing on top of the image, I tried using as
little straight lines as possible, making the shape as sim-
ple as I could.

This is the simple shape of the lion in the example, it takes

away all the distractions and complicated shapes of the
Why are we doing this? Drawing simple shapes is much
lion.
easier than getting lost in small details and complicated
lines. I think you can quite well manage to draw a square
or a triangle. You can also evaluate such a shape pretty The next step is to move inward, we’ve created this kind
well probably. I’m guessing you can see the difference of bounding box for our shape and now we’ll start add-
between the two angular shapes above. Seeing the dif- ing smaller shapes. Try to use straight lines, or imaginary
ference between two shapes that are a bit more compli- ‘sticks’, to make the shapes as simple as possible. Use
cated, can be a lot harder though. the measuring methods discussed in the previous chap-
ter to evaluate your lines and make adjustments where
Look at the two shapes on the right side of the page for it’s needed.
instance. Seeing the subtle differences is quite challeng-
ing and these shapes aren’t even that complicated. Real
life subjects can look way more complicated. Angular
shapes like you see above, are a lot easier to evaluate.

11 You Can Sketch Anything

 shapes in your subject? Then here’s a little tip that might
help you out when you are just getting started.
Get a reference photo of your subject and use a trans-

The next step is to move inward and find more simple lines.

Once you have enough simple shapes, you can start

adding more details to your sketch. You have enough parent paper and lay that on top of the image. If you’re
simple lines and shapes when you feel like you have working digital, you can just make a new layer on top of
enough anchor points to be able to sketch in more re- the reference photo. Now try to find the simple shapes,
fined shapes. You can use the angular shapes that you try to make the angular lines as long as you can. Once
have created to measure where other features need to you have found that basic shape your subject, get rid of
be placed. the reference photo (don’t throw it away though! You’ll
need it later). Without the distraction of the image, it’ll
be easier to copy the simple shapes.

You can do the same thing with the smaller shapes in

the image. In the example on this page you could find
the angular lines in the fingers for example and make a

Keep adding smaller lines until you have enough anchor points to
start detailing your sketch.

When you’re working digitally, it’s easy to just turn

down the opacity of the layer with the angular shapes.
This way you can focus more and more on the detailed
sketch. If you’re sketching using traditional media, then
it’s important to keep the initial angular lines very light.

simple shape of the nose and the lips.

What’s great about this method is that you can check
your own sketch by
laying the transparent
paper over your own
sketch (or by placing
the layer that you cre-
ated over your sketch
when working digital).
This way you can check
your own mistakes.
You’ve just created
your own feedback
loop!
Making it easier Once you have all the
simple shapes in place,
Are you having trouble finding these simple lines and you can start adding

12 You Can Sketch Anything

 more curved shapes and details into your sketch by
looking at your
reference image. Be sure to use the measuring tech-
niques that we discussed earlier. So extend lines, find
anchor points and compare sizes and angles.

The rules aren’t that tight

Of course the rules aren’t all that tight. You don’t have to
make angular shapes all the time when sketching. If you

same time in your sketching process.

You can either start out with the angular shapes in your
sketch or create circle to create a hold fast for yourself.
The basis of the method is to start with big and simple
shapes and then move on to smaller and more detailed
shapes. Next are some more examples of reference
images and how I simplify the shapes to make a sketch
from these.

see a circle in the basic shapes of your subject, then by

all means, make circles to help yourself out. The whole
purpose of the method is to make it easy for yourself
and to create anchor points and simple shapes to make
sketching from a reference easier. Take this vase with
flowers for example. You can create angular shapes
around the flowers, but at the same time you can see
these round and oval shapes. Both can be used at the

Pro Tip
A tip I would like to give to you when sketching and drawing, is to not just look at the shapes filling spaces, but also look at neg-
ative shapes and spaces. What do I mean? When drawing an eye for example, don’t just look at the shape of an iris and pupil, it’s
probably easy to see that these are round and probably cut off on the top and maybe on the bottom as well. In stead, also look
at the negative space surrounding the iris, what shape does the white of the eye have?
In the image on the left you can see some
shapes that you might identify when making
a sketch. You might think about the shape
of the iris, the shape of the eyelids and how
they curve, the shape of the eyebrow, etc. In
the right side image you can see an example
of negative space. When comparing your
sketch or drawing to your reference, it might
be easier to find flaws when looking at these
negative shapes as well.
Also, try to let go of the idea that you are
drawing (or anything else you are drawing).
For me it helps a great deal to just think
about the shapes and angles and not about
the fact that I’m trying to draw an eye.

13 You Can Sketch Anything

 Example 1 tails later on.
When copying this simple shape of the face, try to take a
First I’ll wrap long lines around the subject. It doesn’t close look at the angles of the lines and the sizes of the
matter that some hair sticks out on the sides. Just try to shapes they create.
find a shape that is easy to copy in your sketch.
Make sure you use light lines to create the basic shapes,
this makes it easier to make a more detailed sketch on
top. If you’re working digital, you can just lower the
opacity of your layer and make a new one on top.
Look how the angular lines serve as an anchor, the diag-
onal line of the hair can be used to decide how much the
hair sticks out for example.

Next I’ll try to

find simple lines
around the face
and neck. I’m not
paying any atten-
tion to the facial
features yet.
Again, it doesn’t
matter if some
parts stick out a
bit.
I just try to make
shapes that are
easy to translate
to a sketch and that I can use as an anchor point for de-

14 You Can Sketch Anything

 Example 2 Again, I’ve boxed in the subject, laying long lines around
it. To support this, you could also draw an oval for the
Here’s another example to get a better idea of how you body and a circle for the head, since the shape of an owl
can use the sketching technique. is a pretty simple one.

Once I have the box like owl, I start adding more details
to the sketch, using the angular lines to measure every-
thing out.

15 You Can Sketch Anything

 Final Thoughts
Thank you for reading my You Can Sketch Anything
ebook! I hope it gave you some food for thought AND
practice. I hope this book will enable you to improve
your sketching skills and gave you new ways to look at
your own drawings.

Of course no rules are set and the way described in this

book isn’t the only way to make sketches. I encourage
you to experiment and find your own way to draw and
sketch. The way described in this book is just how I
approach sketching complicated subjects.

I’m looking forward to seeing your work and your prog-

ress. Always feel free to reach out to me, I really appre-
ciate your messages and always do my best to respond
emails.

Contact

floortje@artwithflo
artwithflo.com
instagram.com/floortjesart
youtube.com/artwithflo
patreon.com/artwithflo

16 You Can Sketch Anything