“I can teach anyone to draw,” my new friend, Gina (pronounced “Jenna”), told me. We sat at T.G.I.F.’s one evening during a writer’s conference.

“Obviously you haven’t seen my attempts at stick figures.” I drew one in the condensation on my glass for emphasis.

She took a napkin and her glass and proceeded to explain her process.

I’ve been trying it out. My sketches may not be masterpieces, but they’re identifiable. And they’ve provided a new way to be creative, to pray, and to work through life.

So I asked Gina to guest blog about how to draw. Gina, I hand the mike to you.

When Heather asked me to guest blog on drawing, I wondered if I would be able to explain in blog-form what I teach everyday to the kids in my classes. After all, I have them there in front of me to mold their minds of mush art into what it should be.

All you have is the words on the page without the benefit of one-on-one guidance.

But we’ll give it a whirl.

First let me tell you my philosophy on this subject. I believe anyone can draw. Yes, you, the person that says, “All I can draw is stick figures.”

You only say that because you haven’t met me.

When I stumbled into started teaching high school art, my husband and I debated this idea. He thought that natural talent would play a more important role in the success of my students. I thought drawing was a technical skill that most anyone could do.

Have no fear, I am right.

Anyone who knows me could’ve told you that would be true. Heh-heh.

Every single student that wants to draw comes out of my class knowing how to draw anything they want. And I teach them everything they need to know on the first day of class.

Don’t you wish you were getting paid all year for one day’s work?

The secret to drawing is this, always draw what you see. It’s 90% looking, 10% pencil to paper. The problem is most people draw what they THINK they see instead of what’s really in front of them.

For instance, do you remember the first time you drew a 3D box? You know, you drew a box overlapping a box and then connected the corners. Then you marveled at how it looked like the box was jumping off the page?

Most kids come into my class thinking everything they need to know they learned when they drew a 3D box. So I start their education with boxes.

I get shoe boxes, new boxes, old boxes, skewed boxes, perfectly straight boxes . . . you get the idea. No box really looks like another box.

The students all start with their 3D boxes in mind but quickly learn that is not what boxes really look like.

Drawing is very mathematical. Before you freak out at that statement, let me reassure you by saying I suck at math. Truly suck. So, when I say that I don’t mean you need a firm grasp of calculus, I just mean you have to pay attention to things like proportion, angles, lines and shape.

Take the boxes for instance, if the box you are drawing is twice as tall as it is wide, then the lines on your paper must be twice as tall as they are wide. I know this seems stupid to say that, but you’d be surprised at how often someone will draw that shaped box like a square. It really is all about what you see. I spend the first four weeks of a class walking around saying things like, “Gee whiz, is that REALLY the direction that line is going?” or “Wow, I didn’t realize that coffee mug was the same size as that tea pitcher. I thought the tea pitcher was three times larger. Hmmm.”

Yes, I’m sure I’m a little annoying, but they usually get the point.

You must train yourself to see what you are really seeing instead of what you imagine you see. That’s why you look 90% of the time and draw 10% of the time.

That really is the key.

Then you practice.

I’m not going to tell you that the first time you try you’ll get it right and I suspect the students in my class really do have an advantage because they have me right there seeing what they should be seeing and correcting them right in the middle of their mistakes, but if you try to draw something and it doesn’t look right, I PROMISE you it is because you are not looking at it closely enough.

Start with cups, Tupperware, boxes, baskets and other things that are simply shaped. Don’t worry about shading anything until you learn how to draw the shape correctly. It doesn’t do you any good to know how to shade if the cup you’re drawing ends up looking like a frying pan.

Maybe one day you can come back and find a quickie how-to on shading. Who knows?

Until then, if you want to draw, you can.

Just make sure you know how to see.

Gina Hernandez is an art teacher, writer, minister’s wife, and mother. And she’s not afraid to speak her mind (which makes her a great friend but borderline minister’s wife). She blogs at Blame It on the Loudmouth Gene where she makes me laugh on a continual basis.

Psst–If you find this post interesting and think others might as well, would you mind taking a minute to stumble it? It would mean a lot to me.