Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.

3
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: 63.9
Drawspace Curriculum 2.1.R4 - 7 Pages and 16 Illustrations

Identifying
Straight Lines
Find and examine straight and angle lines
in drawings and in your surroundings

Straight lines can be drawn in any

direction and are used to quickly
and efficiently sketch and draw the
shapes, forms, textures, and patterns
of many drawing subjects.
Skilled artists who seem to render
straight lines effortlessly have, in
fact, invested many hours into the
practice of drawing straight lines.
Three basic types of straight lines
include (Figure 1): vertical (straight
up and down and at a right angle to
a horizontal line); horizontal (level
and at a right angle to a vertical line);
and diagonal (slanting or sloping at
an angle).

ArtSpeak
Pattern: The visual arrangement of different values
of a drawing subject as represented by lines and/or
shading.
Texture: The surface detail of an object which
can be identified by sight, touch, and/or a general
knowledge of the subject.
Angle: The size of the space between two straight
lines that intersect or meet, usually measured in
degrees.
Angle line: A line created when two straight lines
meet or intersect to form an angle (or angles). Angle
lines are used to draw such shapes as squares,
rectangles, and triangles.

Before you can draw straight lines,

you need to be able to find and
examine them on your drawing
subjects. Straight lines are easy to
see on man-made objects.

Figure 1

Examine the straight lines marked in

red in drawings of wooden objects
(Figures 2 and 3).
Vertical

Horizontal

Diagonal

ISBN: 978-1-927365-02-1
Copyright 2011 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.1.R4

Figure 2

Challenge!
Find at least five straight lines in manmade objects around you.

Figure 4

Figure 3

You can draw everything you can see

or imagine with straight and curved
contour lines. When looking for straight
lines in nature, be careful not to become
overwhelmed by small details.
Look for the simple lines that define the
shape of your object. For instance, you can
ignore little bumps on a tree trunk, or the
uneven shoreline of a lake. Sometimes it
helps to squint a little to get a view of the big
picture.
In a simple preliminary sketch, tree trunks
and shorelines present natural contours that
can be quickly rendered with straight lines
(Figure 4).
The same sketch looks quite different after a
few extra details and shading are added to
the contour drawing (Figure 5).

ISBN: 978-1-927365-02-1
Copyright 2011 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.1.R4

In nature, you can also find straight lines

along the contours of such things as
mountains, rocks, and trees.

Figure 5

Remember to look for lines that are vertical,

horizontal and diagonal.
Check out an example of each of these
three types of straight lines that are outlined
in green in Figure 6.

Figure 6

Challenge!
How many other
sections of this same
scene (refer to Figure
7 this time) could be
represented in a sketch
with straight lines?

Figure 7

ISBN: 978-1-927365-02-1
Copyright 2011 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.1.R4

Angle lines are abundant

in cityscapes, but can also
be found almost anywhere
humans live. In fact, almost
anything man-made will have
an angle or two in it.

Figure 8

Figure 9

Whenever two straight lines

meet, at least one angle line is
created (Figures 8 and 9).
While its important to train
your eye to see angle lines,
it is also important to learn to
see the angles themselves.
The ability to visually identify
the approximate sizes of
angles will help you draw them
accurately.

Figure 10

For example, the size of the angle in this angle line is 90

degrees (Figure 10). This is also known as a right angle.
You need to be able to approximate the sizes of angles from
any viewpoint when you examine drawing subjects. When
two perpendicular lines AB and CD intersect, four right
angles are created (Figure 11). As you can see, angle sizes
dont change even when the angle lines are rotated.
Figure 11

ISBN: 978-1-927365-02-1
Copyright 2011 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.1.R4

An angle line can be drawn with

an angle of any size. An angle
that is as large as it can be is a
straight line.

Figure 12

The series of angles in Figure

12 become increasingly larger
(lines 1 to 5) until the two
straight lines that make up the
angle line become a single,
vertical, straight line with an
angle of 180 degrees (line 6).
A drawing of the famous fishing
village of Peggys Cove in Nova
Scotia, Canada was rendered
with angle lines (Figure 13).
Several of the angle lines have
been outlined in red.

Challenge!
How many unmarked angle lines can you find in Figure 13?

Figure 13

Although most
man-made
structures
have angle
lines present,
angle lines can
also be found
in abundance
in rural
landscapes.
Look for
natures angle
lines in parks,
mountains, and
wooded areas.
Straight-sided
rock formations
and trees have
many hidden
angles.

ISBN: 978-1-927365-02-1
Copyright 2011 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.1.R4

Figure 14

The
branches of
a wonderful
old tree
(Figure
14) have
more angle
lines than
anyone
would try to
count.

Figure 15

A few of
these angle
lines are
marked
green in a
close-up
(Figure 15).

ISBN: 978-1-927365-02-1
Copyright 2011 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.1.R4

Challenge!
Examine the drawing of the Reid Newfoundland Railway station in St. Johns, Newfoundland. The station
was built in the 1890s and presents a good challenge to any artists line-drawing skills (Figure 16). Identify
at least three vertical, three horizontal, three diagonal straight lines, and ten angle lines.

Figure 16

Figure 9

Challenge!
Take a good look at your
surroundings (inside and
outside) and identify at least 15
contours that can be sketched
with straight lines.

ISBN: 978-1-927365-02-1
Copyright 2011 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.