--- title: Drawing: lines, shapes and drawing what you really see — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Drawing: lines, shapes and drawing what you really see», a lesson of the arts course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Drawing is a skill learned by practice, like riding a bike: almost every artist's early drawings look odd, and simple --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Arts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/) / Drawing: lines, shapes and drawing wha… # Drawing: lines, shapes and drawing what you really see Lesson 12 of the arts course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/0/) — Drawing is a skill learned by practice, like riding a bike: almost every artist's early drawings look odd, and simple tricks help a lot. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/1/) — The biggest trick is to draw what you SEE, not what you THINK things look like: your brain has ready-made symbols, like a lollipop tree, but a real tree has messy branches, gaps and many greens. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/2/) — Artists start with light, simple shapes, circles, ovals and boxes, then add details on top; they show distance by making far things smaller (perspective) and show roundness by shading the side away from the light. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/3/) — Picture Ling drawing a horse whose legs look wrong: she checks a photo and sees that the joint that bends "backwards" is really the horse's ankle, because horses walk on tiptoe. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/4/) — Gen Z "mid" means average, "it's giving cartoon" means it looks like a cartoon, and "lowkey" means kind of; in Britain "binning" something means throwing it in the bin. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/5/) — Drawing improves a lot with practice; teachers agree that people are not simply born able or unable to draw, and keeping old drawings shows how far you have come. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/6/) — Artists lightly sketch big simple shapes first, then add details; light guide lines drawn first and rubbed out later are called construction lines. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/7/) — A reference is a photo or object you look at while you draw, like the photo Ling checked for her horse. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/8/) — Proportion means how big each part is compared with the others. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/9/) — On a real head the eyes sit about halfway down, not near the top. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/11/) — Perspective shows distance on flat paper: far things look smaller, and parallel lines like road edges seem to meet at a vanishing point on the horizon. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/12/) — Italian artists worked out the rules of perspective about 600 years ago. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/13/) — Shading makes parts darker where light does not reach; a light side, a dark side and a shadow make a round object look 3D, and the brightest spot is the highlight. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/14/) — Most people will not notice one wobbly line, and you can draw over it; sketchbooks are full of wobbly lines. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/15/) — Anime and manga have their own style with big eyes and simple noses; copying a style is good practice, and drawing from life teaches different things. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/16/) — What looks like a horse's backward knee is really its ankle; its knee is higher up, and artists study anatomy so legs look right. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/17/) — Small shakes are normal; artists draw lightly with many strokes from the shoulder and elbow, then darken the line they like. - ← previous: [Concerts, orchestras and live gigs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/11-concerts-orchestras-and-live-gigs/) - next →: [Colours: mixing, the colour wheel, warm and cool](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/13-colours-mixing-the-colour-wheel-warm-and-cool/) - ↑ back to [Arts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/)