Line art exercises and tutorials are a great way to sharpen your skills in this minimalist and challenging art form. Line art often requires an amount of planning for a successful composition plus precision in the execution since it uses only variations in line to create depth, rather than shading or colour fills.
We've published a range of line art tutorials, exercises and tips over the years to provide opportunities for practice and inspiration. I've rounded them up here with links to the original artists. Many of these can apply equally whether you're using the best pencils for artists or pens for artists, or working in the best digital art software.
Learning line art
Basic line drawing exercises
In our roundup of line drawing exercises for digital art practice, we look at eight basic but essential drills that can help beginners improve their line drawing skills and also serve as warm-up exercises for experienced artists.
Exercises like connecting points, bullets, zebra strokes, ghosting and flat textures help train both the eye and hand for accuracy and sensitivity, whether you're working on paper or digitally with one of the best drawing tablets.
Scribble art exercises
Sometimes we want our lines to be perfect, but scribbling can be a very liberating form of line art, both for beginners and experienced artists. It can be great for loosening up and finding new inspiration. In this feature, we suggest seven scribble art exercises to help you set your creativity free.
Pro line art tips
In this tutorial MrHass shows how to Improve your line work with some pro drawing tips for hand-drawn illustration, and in particular, the creation of line work with dip pen and black Indian ink. He illustrates his process with an interpretation of Mephisto, the demonic antagonist in the German legend of Faust.
Create line art for a colouring book
In this line art tutorial, Kev Crossley shows us how he created detailed line art for a colouring book based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to accompany Jonathan Green’s adventure game book. His step-by-step guide shows that although line art for colouring has to be clean with minimal shading, it should still follow a development process from rough sketch to finished ink illustration.
Draw a cat
Feline companions are popular subjects for line art. In our tutorial, Kate Oleska outlines a complete process for how to draw a cat, from deciding on a pose to drawing the skeleton, adding fur and refining facial features.
How to create line art that glows
Line art that glows? Yep, in this line art tutorial, the artist Emma Vieceli shows us that line art doesn't have to be monochrome. She demonstrates how she powers up illustrations in a simple but effective way by making them glow. She uses Manga Studio to sketch and ink the lines, and then Photoshop to add blur, a similarly coloured background and some coloured brush work.
Draw an interior using line art
Moving on to more complex scenes, this workshop focuses on using line art to create an inviting background. Disney artist Nick Kennedy shows us how create an interior background using line art and then add a textured paint style. He takes us through the planning stages, showing how to tell a story with the composition, create lighting and colour keys and block in the main shapes.
Create sci-fi Cyberpunk concept art
Tano Bonfanti's work relies heavily on line art since he likes the freedom it gives him to create anything quickly. In this tutorial, he takes us step-by-step through how he creates a striking piece of cyberpunk concept art with a space-Western feel. He starts with a sketch, explores lighting, develops contrast and adds decals and fog to balance the image and create atmosphere.
How to draw vibrant character art
Lidia Cambon's tutorial starts with line art before moving on to fill in colour and shading to create a striking character illustration using markers. She retains a limited colour palette to show that you don’t require an extensive collection of markers to achieve great results.
Line art inspiration
If you're looking for line art inspiration, there are many famous artists to turn to. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock and Keith Haring were all known for their use of the line (see our feature on pop artists to learn about the latter).
You can also find a lot of inspiration in doodle art examples.
Swedish illustrator Mattias Adolfsson has created line art for books and video games.
Lizzie Mary Cullen combined line art with surrealist impressionism in her brilliant London psycho-geographies.
The simple line illustrations of Romanian illustrator Paula Rusu show that sometimes all you need is to stick to lines and maybe a single colour fill to create great, minimal artwork.
You can also find inspiration in animation. Check out these clever single-line line art animations.
Line art FAQs
What is line art?
Line art in the strictest sense refers to artworks in which the image comprises only distinct, contrasting lines, without the use of shading, gradients, or colour fills to create form and depth.
Artists use different line weights, angles and sometimes colors to create monochromatic or duotone illustrations on a solid background, like technical drawings, which could be considered a form of line art.
Form and depth are conveyed only with lines, rather than shading or blocks of colour, usually in two contrasting colors (most commonly black lines on a white background) . The variations in the thickness of lines create a sense of depth.
Is line art difficult?
Line art can be challenging because it requires a strong understanding of form and and the ability to draw confident, smooth lines with different weights to create depth and visual interest in an image. This requires a lot of coordination between the brain and hand to control precise motor movements.
Line art also requires artists to draw implied forms and to accurately render proportions. Artists need to be able to see and understand the whole form before breaking it down into lines.
How can I improve my line art?
The best thing you can do to improve line art is to keep practising. Consistent, patient practice is the key to developing confident line work since it trains both the eye and the small muscles that need to coordinate to draw a straight, accurate line.
You can also try the line art tips and tutorials on this page and elsewhere online. See our pen drawing techniques and tips if you're doing traditional pen art.
How to I draw a clean line?
Shaky lines are often caused by a lack of confidence and poor control but also by making the line too slowly. Speed is key to creating a smooth confident line. Try drawing lines in a single swoop from the shoulder with a relaxed arm and loose grip
This allows for smoother, quicker lines. Conversely, going over a line multiple times can give a timid and hesitant character to finished pieces.
How can I draw clean lines in Photoshop?
Setting your Photoshop smoothing to 10% can help with the slippery surface if you're working on a tablet like an iPad that doesn't have bite. If you want a consistent line weight, you can turn off tapering by clicking the pressure sensitivity box. For long lines that are hard to draw in a single stroke, you can use the Photoshop pen tool, using the bezier handles on the path to define the curves.
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