Exercise 01: Warming Up!

Hi! My name’s Yasuko. Most of the time, I study the art of skateboard-fu…

When I practice skate-fu, I always make sure to warm up with stretches and light running. That makes sure that my joints are flexible, and my muscles are awake and ready to work!

When I draw, I also have to warm up — I don’t think a lot of people know this!

Here’s one of my warm up pages. I’m using a pencil here, and I’m drawing all over the paper. From corner to corner, squares and circles, and even coloring in!

It really helps me loosen up — I feel sad when I just stare at a blank piece of paper, too nervous to draw anything! By warming up like this, I practice my straight lines and my curves… I learn how dark my pencil can color… and I can really “activate” the whole page for art!

Can you imagine a marathon runner who only took teeny tiny steps? It’s healthier and more fun to be able to stretch your legs and run everywhere! Art is the same.

Here’s another warmup, this time with watercolor:

You can see I’m practicing my circles and my lines like before! I can also see now how the colors mix together. I love all the little splashes of orange or green that came out. I didn’t know how they’d mix until I did this!

I think I even got some ideas of how to color that sunset I’ve been thinking about!

Your challenge today is: Go grab a piece of paper and a pencil, then warm up with them! Try using your whole arm — shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers — to draw little and big, circles and squares, shading and coloring!

If you have a tablet or a mouse, you can even “warm up” at this online doodleboard!

Another great reason to practice your wiggly lines is for your gesture in drawings. Check out Exercise 11: Lights, Camera, ACTION LINES! - Using Gesture!

Go for it! Have fun and draw! See you next time!

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