Put your mark maker on the paper, start drawing, don’t take your marker off the page until you have finished the drawing.
This is a great technique for loosening up. It forces you to put lines where you don’t see lines – you have to get from one place on the paper to another. It forces you to draw faster than you might be used to – if you don’t draw quickly you are just holding your pencil against the paper. In a life drawing class you would often be asked to do this type of drawing early in the class when you will generally draw a number of short poses of 1-2 minutes.
You are likely to complete a drawing that looks a bit scribbly, so the technique of drawing a continuous line almost forces you to give up on the notion that you are going to finish up with a masterpiece sketch that you will keep for ever.
This is all great because if you are not focussing on making the perfect mark on your paper, you might spend more time looking at your subject. Your drawing is likely to be fresh, and by going through this exercise you have quickly observed and dealt with the challenges of the figures’ pose.
You might even use this technique if your subject is posing for a longer time. You could take a minute or two completing a continuous line drawing, and use this to help you frame and decide your approach for the longer drawing.
As with any drawing you should not spend too much time on any one area of the drawing, but let your mark maker flow freely over all areas of the figure. If you focus on one area at a time your drawing may become unbalanced and poorly proportioned. Continuous line is a great method to help you consider the whole figure rather than just a part of it. Try to imagine that you may not have a full minute to complete the drawing and time might be called at any moment. When you run out of time you want to have a representation of the whole figure, not just a hand or a head.
Continuous Line Drawing is also called ‘gesture’ drawing. The aim is to capture what the figure is doing, to show the action of the figure on the page. If the figure is relaxed then try to capture that relaxation in your drawing. If the figure is tense try to capture that. If the figure leans, has their weight on one foot, lifts something, holds something, twists or bends, then try to capture that with your continuous line.
To help you understand the figure’s gesture you might try to feel it in your own body. Imagine how the pose would feel if you were in it – or try putting yourself in the pose for a moment. How does it feel? Which muscles are you using?
Try it now. If you don’t have a figure to draw right now draw your desk lamp, or your garden, and make a note to definitely try this when you next have a figure to draw. Remember, keep that pencil on the paper until you have finished!