How To Draw Curves Accurately: The One Big Secret

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One thing many beginners as well as more experienced painters have problems with, is how to draw curves accurately.

Curved shapes are important in many paintings, not only in paintings with figures in them, but also if you are trying to capture the gesture of a particular tree, an archway on a bridge, or even a vase like this painting of wildflowers from my garden in a simple glass jar. But if you draw curves inaccurately, your painting will lose something.

Many drawing books concentrate on teaching you to draw curves by following the outline of a curved shape as accurately as you can. This technique is called contour drawing. However there is a major problem with this technique — it is impossible for most people to do this accurately.

Even after many years of practice learning to draw curves accurately and getting them in the correct proportion at the same time is extremely difficult. For most people, including me, it is an impossible task.

But luckily there is a much easier way for how to draw curves accurately. It is called the straight line approximation technique.

In this technique, you approximate every curve by a series of straight line segments. It is much easier to get the proportions of these straight lines accurate. Once you have drawn these straight lines accurately, you can then easily convert them into curves as shown here. This is what you do:

How to draw curves accurately

The great classical master draftsmen, such as Pierre Paul Prudhon, used this technique to draw the complex curves of the human figure. Follow these steps for how to draw curves accurately

Step 1: Draw the straight lines

Simplify each curve and turn it into a straight line. Start a new line every time the curve changes direction by a lot.

Step 2: Smooth the lines into curves

Round off the transitions between the small lines to turn it back into a curve.

If you don’t know how to draw straight lines accurately, see triangulation.

Thank You

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you find it useful. If you would like to get free painting tips by email, please sign up for my free tips newsletter.

If you are interested in a structured approach for learning how to paint, take a look at my online painting classes.

Happy painting!

Barry John Raybould
Virtual Art Academy