This article will discuss art tips for elementary students and will give a very brief overview of how to utilize basic concepts such as anatomy and perspective.

Understanding the fundamentals of drawing has a great deal of value in your art and can open up new creative avenues for you to explore.

This article will go over the basics of understanding what makes up a drawing: the lines, the shapes, the objects, the actions, etc.

First off, a big tip is that lines don't actually have to be perfect or even straight.

Most lines have imperfections or indents. Sometimes lines need to be curved or bent a bit in order to look good or to draw the shading you want.

I like to refer to the lines as the 'bones' of the drawing. Every drawing needs these bones to exist, and once they are drawn, they can be reused and manipulated into different shapes to accomplish a different effect.

When we talk about drawing a line, we are really talking about understanding the structure that goes into drawing the line. As soon as the line is drawn, what is underneath is up for grabs.

The most basic way to put together a drawing is to draw every element together on the paper before you create any of the details.

You draw all the dots, all the lines, all the rectangles, etc. and you put them all together before you even think about shading and anything else.

This way, all you have to worry about when you start putting down detail is the underlying structure of your drawing.

An important thing to understand about drawing is that no two lines look the same. In fact, they rarely look anything alike. What you should look for is a solid structure that doesn't change.

You should be able to look at a line and immediately identify its style. Is it crooked? Is it curved or squiggly? Is it really straight? What about the angle? Is it perfect or does it have an angle?

Things change constantly, so be sure to look for that structure that stands out in the line. Once you've found that, you can begin to build up from there.

In order to draw a line properly, you need to think about the "form" of the line. You need to think about the shape of the line, how it moves, and what the profile of the line looks like.

You need to understand where the line starts, where it ends, and how it curves.

Drawing the lines that create a form on a sketch is the simplest and most basic way to draw a line.

Line of action

When you draw a line of action, you're basically drawing the flow of something. It's not about your best angle or the details you put into your line. It's about how the line of action flows through space and how it changes over time.

For example, let's take a look at two straight lines of action. One line is a dotted line with a brief upward slant. The other line is the slanted line of action.

This simple line of action demonstrates the simplest of actions. If you look at the dotted line, you'll see that it starts out horizontally and slowly climbs into the sky.

Once it's higher in the sky, it starts to slant downward. As it ascends, it doesn't stay at the same level. It slowly rises higher and higher into the sky.

The slanted line starts as horizontal and starts to move downward slowly.

The slanted line, once it's going downward, starts to slant upward. Once it gets higher, it starts to slant down. As the slanted line gets lower, it starts to slant up. This pattern continues until the line disappears into the sky.

The two lines of action look very similar, except one of them isn't really a line at all. It's not really even a line at all. It's a shape that's been drawn on the paper to symbolize something, but it's not a real line.

This is the challenge when we're trying to draw action, the challenge of thinking about the shape and flow of something rather than focusing on drawing the details of what we're drawing.

Think about this: if you were drawing an object, would you want to draw the shape you were drawing or would you focus on the details?
With a drawing of an object, you're not focusing on the things that are visible. You're focusing on what isn't visible.

Tell the "Story of Drawing"

“In art, there is always a thing, the thing itself, which will act for you, the thing you draw and which exists in your imagination, for you, the only thing, the idea.” ~ Pablo Picasso

Many artists have spoken about the stories that they are trying to tell. How they are trying to convey something important and meaningful to the world.

But it’s important to remember that we are not artists for the sake of art, or for the sake of being artists.

The artist is not there to make us feel better. The artist is there to make us feel. That’s the most important part.