Transcripts
1. Class Introduction: Hi, there. My name is Attabeira and I'm a one-line illustrator. I make abstract and realistic one line drawings to sell online and share with my following on social media. I've worked with clients and companies from all over the world; Turkey, Australia, Poland, Sweden, the UK, the US, and many other countries. My experiences have given me insight into what makes abstract one-line drawings particularly unique. In this course, I'll teach you how to discover your unique abstract one line drawing style and create abstract one-line drawings with it. This class is great for the intermediate artists who needs some guidance in finding the one-line drawing style, and for beginners who love minimalistic one line art and would love to give it a try. If you love one-line portraits that say a lot with very little, then this class is for you.
2. Class project: For this class project, we will create an abstract one line illustration in your own unique one line drawing style. We will start by looking at examples of one line artwork by artists who have a very defined aesthetic. We will analyze what characteristics would be throughout their drawings and why it is considered their style. Then we'll be trying out different approaches through a set of exercises we will be completing together, in order to decide which parts feel good to you. Finally, we'll try the same drawing in our own way as we find what is most fitting for us and share it here on the project board. Defining your own one line drawing style is great for building your brand as an illustrator and growing your art in a way that is unique and speaks with your voice. I can't wait to get started with you. See you in our first lesson.
3. Defining Abstract: Isn't all one line art abstract? Not exactly. Here's an example to show you what I mean. One line art can be very, very detailed or very, very abstract. That depends solely on what you want to do. This is a good example because this used to be a realistic one line portrait that I made of a girl with her shoulder in the front. This drawing was very specific. It had a lot of lines on it, it had detail in her eyes, it had detail on her hair. Then I remade this drawing into an abstract one line drawing and I took a lot of that detail away without taking from her expression, without taking from the field that this drawing gives you. I think actually, I like it more as an abstract drawing than as a realistic one. Maybe perhaps because it's more of my style and more how I like it. But notice how the details on her chins disappeared, the detail on her eyes disappear, a whole eye disappeared as well. Which means that sometimes abstract drawings are going to look a bit empty, a bit incomplete. But that also brings niceness, it brings more feeling into it because we get rid of the things that are superfluous, the things that are just maybe too much. How do I know what to keep and what to leave out? Well, that's a good question. That depends on what is your purpose for this drawing. Let's look at some examples. Sometimes our purpose is a facial feature, and by this I mean it could be lips, it could be eyebrows, it can be a nose, it can even be something about hair, like in this example. This is a drawing I made as a commission for a barber shop. They wanted someone to have a very, very obvious beard. So the only feature, one but not the only, but one of the most predominant features in this drawing is his beard, and that's what I mean when I say a feature as a purpose. If you are making an abstract one line drawing for an eyebrow service or for lip service, you would want to enhance that feature that is the most important. The next one is feelings. Sometimes your purpose is to deliver a feeling through your drawing. In this case, in my drawing I was trying to deliver serenity. Sometimes it's joy, sometimes it's anxiousness, in this case it's serenity. I used all the lines that I thought were important in order to make that drawing still kind of abstract but mostly with all the parts that it needs to convey that feeling. Next one, style. In this case, it is about trying to make a drawing that speaks with your voice. In my case, I really love thin and thicker lines. I think it adds depth to a drawing. In this particular case, I want to enhance parts of the drawing or parts of the subject that allow me to use that thin and thick line just like I want to in order to show my style and my voice. Now that we got that, see you in the next lesson.
4. Style Study: Looking at someone else's work with a very critical eye is a very important trait, in order to find your own one line style. It is very difficult to know what works for us if we don't try it. Also it is very difficult to know what works for us, if we don't see it. Here are some things. Here are some of the examples of my favorite one line illustrators that have very different style than mine. It's their voice. We want to see what is it that makes their style unique. Here's the first one. I like this one for being amorphous and by that, I mean that it has no shape. This is Koketit, and she's on Instagram and she has no clear shape or features in her drawing. She has carefree, distressed lines, and she usually paint over photography, giving us a different perspective of how that photography could look. I really love it. It looks very nice and it's very carefree. The next style we're going to be looking at is no sharp edges. This is another one of my favorite one line illustrators on Instagram. Her name is Miriam Tribe or her, the handle is miriamtribe. All of her drawings have a very curvy, circular feel to them. The lines are always curved. The faces look exactly consistent. You will always find the same characteristics on her drawings. The circular cheeks I really like cheek highlight on abstract drawings, on one line drawings in general and that's one of the things I love the most. She has a consistent theme. The next one is also one of my favorite one line illustrators on Instagram. He's name is Moimaere, I don't know how to say it, Moimaere. He uses geometric shapes in his art and it's one of the things that you can look at it and know it's his, its signature style. It has straight lines and arcs and it's like a collection style posts. Not only he doesn't have a specific subject or theme when he draws, he has collections. Sometimes is his take on known art in this case, for example. Sometimes is feelings or thoughts or it's really cool. I think you should check it out and I think that is one of the things that I appreciate the most when designing your own style, is the fact that he was creative enough to get out of the box of one-line drawing has to be continuous. Yes, it looks good when it is continuous, but it looks better when it's unique. When he has that thing that becomes your voice. Now, last and not least, this is my style. I wanted to discuss it because it is actually what I feel works for me. What works for me is lines that make sharp twists and turns and loops, I really like loops, and lines that become thinner and thicker throughout the drawing. I have a consistent theme, which is women's faces. I find them the most appealing, the most beautiful, the aesthetic is what is attractive to me, and therefore, that's my voice. Now, let's get on to our exercises.
5. Exercises Preamble: Okay guys, let's get started with the exercises. I've attached here a photo that we are going to be using as our trial photo. We're going to be trying out doing the styles of all these four artists that we have gone through already. This does not mean that we're going to be copying their art. We're going to be using their style to make our own version of this image. Let's get right to it.
6. Amorphous One Line: First of all, you're going to open Procreate. I usually use my own sizing which is the biggest sizing available on Procreate, just in case I want to print in a very big format. Then we're going to import. We're going to go to Actions, we're going to add and then insert a photo. We're going to insert the photo of the subject that we're going to be using for all of our styles. Then I go to my Layers tab and I change the opacity to about 40 percent. I do this so I can use the photo as an example, so I can use it as guidance, but I can draw on top of it without missing out how my drawing will look like in the end. If you feel like you can go lower 20 percent, 29 percent, do so, 40 is as much as I can handle, I guess. Then I open a new layer. Make sure that is on top of your subject layer. I'm going to be using just a normal monoline pencil brush. We're going to be doing this drawing, [inaudible] style. Don't think too much about shape, don't think too much about anything, just make it free, loose, and get to it. Remember that we are in the same boat here. This is not my style either. So feel free to make as many mistakes as you have to. Here we go. Let's see. This is my attempt to make a free, loose one-line drawing style. That's it. Make sure you put your drawing on the board below so that I can see how it looks like. Let's move on to the next exercise.
7. Geometric One Line: Okay, so let's get right to it. We have our document open. We have our base photo already visible and in transparency. The next style we're going to be copying is [inaudible]. Let's do this. Geometrical, straight lines, and overall clean. I'm going to be using the same chalk board, but I'm going to be using the snap straight line tool on Procreate, I don't know if you guys knew this but Procreate allows you to do different shapes by keeping the pen in place so this is how it looks. I want this to be a straight line and if you can see already, it snaps into a line. It says "line created" on the top. I can move it around as long as I don't take the pencil away from the screen. I love this line of her neck here so I'm just going to go for the line there. If you notice, on the lesson in which we talk about this particular artist's style. He loves little stairs. He has little stairs somewhere in his drawing very often. If you guys want to make it an exact circle, you make a loop that looks like a circle and just put your index finger or just one finger down on the screen and it becomes a circle, like that. Yeah, I guess I'm going to make another line here for her eyebrow. Okay, this is what mine looks like. Oh my God that looks so cool. I really like it. How did yours come out? I really, really want to see it. See you in the next exercise.
8. Curved One Line: Okay guys, moving onto the next example. Let's follow Miriam Tribe's style. Again, toggle the visibility of your base photo and open a new layer so that you can draw on top of it. Toggle the visibility of your base layer and then see how your drawing looks like without it. Let's get started. I'm going to be using a Charcoal brush for this. I'm going to go and get a Hard charcoal brush. I'm going to make it maybe 13 points and I'm going to go ahead. Let's remember which traits make her drawings unique. She has circular lines, circular movements, circular cheeks, circular eyes, circular noses, so let's draw. Remember always to make a new layer just so that we don't lose those different tries. See you guys, my style is so ingrained in me and I've practiced it so much that I can't avoid to make this type of mistakes when I'm trying to copy or practice someone else's style. This is a sharp turn you guys. This is something that I do a lot. This is how it looks. Let's move on to the next exercise.
9. Thick & Thin One Line: Guys, this is our next exercise. We're going to be trying to do my style. It's a bit unfair because my style is the thing I do best, but just so you try it as well. I have to delete one layer because I don't have space for enough layers, and let's go. Same thing, we have our image as a background, our example guidance image. My favorite pen for my style I think it's a pen called Syrup. Syrup is really easy for my style because the pressure is really sensitive. It's very sensitive to pressure. It allows you to make thin and thicker lines with a very big difference between those two very easily. I usually start at the neck or at the shoulder. I love how the shoulder looks. I just added it there. Let's see how it looks. This is very much my style. Thin and thicker lines and lots of attention to hair, eyes, nose, and lips, I would say, in my case. Now onto the last exercise and the most fun one. Moving on. Remember to show me what you came up with with this style as well. See you next.
10. Your Voice: I'm so glad you guys took the time to practice all of these different artist style. Now let's get to the important part, your own unique style. I want you to use the same exact photo we were using as an example for all of the other four drawings we made before. I want you to try and take what you like from all of those different styles and incorporate it into your own unique one-line drawing style. These are the only guidelines you have to take into consideration: one, the drawing must be abstract. It can't be really detailed. I don't want you to copy thing by thing, detail by detail what your example photo has or is. I want you to decide what is it you want to enhance, what is it you want to show when it comes to your drawing. Second, it must be your voice. It must be what you think a drawing made by you would look like. Last but not least, you have to have fun with it. I want you to stop thinking whether it looks acceptable, whether it looks cool, whether it is the right thing to do, I want you to have fun. Try it as many times as necessary and share it below because I can't wait to see it. Please also let me know, why is it that this is your style? What is it about it that works? I can't wait to start reading your comments and to start seeing your results. Let's go.
11. Last Thoughts: I'm so glad you decided to take this course, but I cannot leave without leaving you these last thoughts. Thought number 1: plagiarism versus inspiration. I think this is really important to mention. There are so many brilliant artists out there and the most logical thing to do is to look up to them and take from their art in order to build yours. That is inspiration. What we did today is analyzing bit by bit following these artists and seeing what is it that they do that we love and putting it into practice to see if it works for us. Style is such a unique thing that copying someone else's style is not going to give your work soul because your voice is unique and everybody's voice is supposed to be unique. If you decide to use someone else's voice as yours, your work is never going to go through and reach people the best way possible. Plagiarism, taking someone else's style and ideas is plagiarism. Deciding to use a trade of a style that works for you, it's one thing. I encourage it, it's great. But deciding to use someone else's ideas and style to do your own work, it's copying. One thing that I would leave you with is keep practicing those things that you love that other artists do and try to implement them in a way that only you would be able to. Now, styles are ever-changing and ever-evolving. That's my second thought. You are always going to have a different style from two months ago, from one day ago, from three weeks ago; don't let it stop you from creating. Your style, just like your growth, is always going to be different. The more you practice it, the more you do it, the more individual it becomes. It might have been inspired in someone else's work or someone else's way of drawing, but in the end, the more you practice it and the more you do it, the more it's going to become yours. See you in any other of my classes. If you want to know more about one-line drawing, go to my profile and check out the other courses I have ready for you. Bye-bye.
Attabeira German, One-Line Illustrator
