Chapter 2 | A RELAXED DRAWING HAND

Watch the video where I demonstrate how to draw light and dark ovals of different sizes as relaxed as possible.

Recording: De Foto Firma

Exercise: Try to imitate the exercise from the video. Move your arm as relaxed as possible, without bending your wrist or squeezing your pencil. Start the movement in the air before you hit the paper. Let your hand  gently glide over the paper while drawing. Try it both clockwise and and counterclockwise.

Exercise 2: While rotating flat ovals, move up or down on your paper. Let your hand gently slide over the paper on the side of your little finger and keep your wrist and fingers relaxed. Try to keep the ovals more or less the same width. It now becomes a so-called helix or spiral. 

In this tornado, the helix becomes wider towards the top and sometimes changes direction.

Exercise 3: Draw one or more tornadoes. Try small and big ones. Draw your tornadoes in one line, so without letting go of the paper in between. If you like it, you can make up things that are thrown into the air by the whirlwind. Hopefully everything will land safely on the ground again.

EXTRA: To draw a true screw thread, the spiral must be evenly angled and exactly the same width. Use two vertical guide lines to ensure the thread is evenly angled. If you start by drawing everything lightly, you can later make the thread more realistic with some light-dark contrast and shadows. Keep your arm, wrist, and fingers relaxed, even when drawing so precisely.

Screw threads