9 Line Art Drawing Ideas Perfect for Beginners

Line art focuses on the lines in a drawing, whether it’s on paper or digital. In many cases, you might use only a pen or pencil, though artists will occasionally add color to their work.

Because lines provide the primary structure of your work, exploring different forms of line art is helpful for building skills and coordinating the visual with your fine motor skills. For example, playing with the continuous line method to draw flowers or simple faces means you’ll focus on the most important elements of the subject, rather than getting lost in the details.

With Skillshare, you have a wealth of classes and articles to learn from, no matter your skill level, style or artistic goals. You may want to check out these helpful guides before getting started:

This article includes nine unique line art projects, each offering a simple way to start creating for fun or even to make some money!

1. Line Art Basic Shapes

Two black and white ink line drawings, on the left, a fish with flowing fins surrounded by blue waves; on the right, a sunflower in full bloom — You’ll be amazed at how realistic and detailed line art can be, and it all starts with basic, familiar shapes.

Class: Line Art for Basics | Easy Tricks and Steps to Draw for Beginners by Supritha Shet

What You'll Make: Using botanical inspiration, you’ll draw five shapes of your choice. If you want to follow along with Supritha’s piece, you’ll draw a simple, leafed branch, an abstract wave design and a sunflower from lines of ink.

Who Teaches It: Supritha Shet is an illustrator and digital artist from India. Line artwork is one of her favorite styles to work with. After a couple of years in the field, Supritha continues to spend a lot of time drawing and experimenting with different mediums.

Why We Love It: This class is designed for beginners and requires minimal supplies. It starts with basic shapes and allows you to choose the shapes yourself, so you’ll have plenty of space to work toward your own goals and style.

Take the Class: Line Art Basics

2. Creative Ink Line Art Masterclass

Ink line drawing of a woman with her hands around her mouth, her head surrounded by flowers and her hands encircled with leaves; her eyes are open but blank, and the foliage around her head contains several eyeballs and braided hair; select spots are colored with light pinks and blues — Line drawing might seem simple, but you can absolutely create highly complex and imaginative images.

Class: Masterclass: Creative Line Art Drawing with Ink Pens by Gio Vescovi

What You'll Make: Taking inspiration from any subject you wish, you’ll focus on techniques to create a beautiful and detailed drawing. Gio guides you through including natural and abstract elements, light and shadow and patterns and textures.

Who Teaches It: Gio Vescovi is a Canadian visual artist who’s always enjoyed drawing for fun and relaxation. She’s created a wide range of classes on line art and ink, as well as instruction on using Photoshop to draw mandalas.

Why We Love It: This class is accessible to beginners yet allows more experienced artists to explore the process in great detail and experiment anew with familiar techniques. Gio offers step-by-step instructions, and you’ll be amazed at what you can create when you truly understand the process.

Take the Class: Creative Line Art Masterclass

3. Doodle Sketch People with Continuous Lines

Open sketchbook on a blue work surface, featuring multiple human ink portraits, many from the same line and with pops of lined color on hats, glasses and hair — Drawing people doesn’t require a rigid process and fully realistic finished products, and may use loose, fun techniques for a unique final portrait.

Class: Doodle Sketching People - With Continuous Line Portraits by Toby Haseler

What You'll Make: Keeping in mind that less can always be more in art, you’ll learn to eliminate detail, find a point of interest and neaten up lines to create simple portraits of multiple individuals, all with just one, continuous line.

Who Teaches It: Toby Haseler is a UK urban sketch artist who uses a fun and loose style to sketch the world he sees around him. With a growing set of classes on a range of platforms, he leads an active community of artists and learners.

Why We Love It: This class is able to meet you wherever you are on your artistic journey. For experienced sketch artists, this can be a fun and relaxing technique. If you’re newer to drawing, continuous line portraits will challenge you to focus on core elements as you learn.

Take the Class: Doodle Sketch People with Continuous Lines

4. Create Line Art in Procreate

Several outlined cartoon-like characters, including an insect, a dragon and other fantastic creatures, all in red against a pinkish-sepia toned background — Playing around with line drawings in Procreate is ideal for revisiting the basics of 2D drawing and creating fun characters.

Class: Line Art Like a Pro in Procreate by Dave Reed

What You'll Make: Using Dave’s customized Disney Ink brush, you’ll draw the outline of a cartoon dragon and get guidance on some other sketches as well. From strategizing your rough sketch to editing techniques for clean lines, you’ll develop a sense of the entire process.

Who Teaches It: Dave Reed is a Brooklyn-based 2D and 3D illustrator who offers numerous classes on creating digital art. While he loves working with 3D, he designed this class to help you get back to drawing basics.

Why We Love It: This class proceeds with a relaxed, encouraging style that puts artists at ease, whether you’re experienced or just starting out with Procreate. Beyond that, the focus on fun characters is an entertaining way to build skills.

Take the Class: Create Line Art in Procreate

5. Doodle Sketch People with Continuous Lines

Open sketchbook on a green gridded work surface, with artists’ hands drawing a variety of flowers, each using one, continuous line in ink — Despite the fact that you’ll never lift your pen from the paper, each flower includes its own distinct shapes and textures.

Class: Learn to Draw Flowers - The Art of One-Line Floral Doodling by Toby Haseler

What You'll Make: Inspired by the unique beauty of actual flowers, you’ll learn to sketch them using one, continuous line. The challenge is to remain relaxed and not too concerned with perfection, and you’ll end up with charming sketches for stationary, original art pieces or just for fun.

Who Teaches It: Toby Haseler is an urban sketch artist living in the UK. He sketches the world around him in a loose and fun style. His wide-ranging and growing set of classes leads an active community of artists and learners on multiple platforms.

Why We Love It: This class uses a technique that anyone can try, no matter how much or little experience they have. Drawing flowers with one line is almost meditative and lets you focus on the beauty of the process rather than a flawless final piece.

Take the Class: One-Line Floral Doodling

6. Draw Fictional Characters in Procreate

Digital drawing of Zelda, a smiling elven girl with flowing blonde hair, big, greenish eyes and a blue, gold and white dress against a background of trees and sky — Fictional character drawings, such as this one of Princess Zelda, encourage you to build skills of realism while leaving room for imaginative elements.

Class: Realistic Fictional Character Portraits in Procreate: Line Art for Beginners by Rodrigo Diaz

What You'll Make: You’ll go through the process of determining your inspiration, planning and sketching the portrait, creating a first draft and preparing a final character line drawing. Throughout all of it, you’ll get guidance specific to Procreate.

Who Teaches It: Rodrigo Diaz is an engineer and science teacher from Nicaragua. Alongside that very technical career, he’s always enjoyed arts and crafts and has worked for years to develop drawing skills on paper and in the digital space.

Why We Love It: This class requires no background experience, though a desire to grow your skill will be helpful. Rodrigo does a fine job of balancing instruction on drawing basics with using a digital platform.

Take the Class: Draw Fictional Characters in Procreate

7. Cultivate Calm and Creativity with One-Line Drawing

Open spiral sketchbook with artists’ hand drawing several designs and flowers in single, continuous lines. — Not only is continuous line drawing attractive and on-trend—it’s incredibly meditative and calming for your mind.

Class: One-Line Drawing: Cultivate Calm and Creativity with On-Trend Illustrations by Altea Alessandroni

What You'll Make: Using a reference photo, ideally of an object from nature, you’ll make a basic sketch of that object, all with one, continuous line. When it’s complete, you may add touches of soft color to enhance your work.

Who Teaches It: Altea Alessandroni is an artist and designer based in Italy. Nature is her primary inspiration, and she loves capturing plants and landscapes in both physical and digital environments. Altea’s approach to teaching highlights how nature and making art can promote calm and mindfulness.

Why We Love It: This class is accessible to anyone with an interest in drawing. Even better, it’s designed to promote the process and journey, not just the final product. Altea lets her love for nature and calm shine through as she leads the class.

Take the Class: Calm and Creative with One-Line Drawing

8. Draw Pet Portraits with Continuous Lines on Procreate

Tablet with screen showing a faded picture of a golden retriever, and an artist’s hand using a stylus to draw over it in black outline — You don’t have to rely entirely on your freehand drawing skills, and you’ll be amazed at the detail you remember to include when you use a photo guide.

Class: Line Art Animal Portraits: Illustrate Pets Using One-Line Art on Procreate by Attabiera German

What You'll Make: You’ll leave class with 10 one-line drawings of five different animals: dogs, cats, birds, fish, and bunnies. Each drawing will explore the particular characteristics of one of those animals. Attabiera will guide you through selecting reference photos and brushes, focusing on different features and textures.

Who Teaches It: Attabiera German is a one-line illustrator and social media strategist who turned her passion into a business. With years of teaching experience and now a book on one-line drawing, Attabiera is an ideal teacher for this unique art form.

Why We Love It: Being able to produce a realistic one-line drawing of your own pets, or perhaps those you do as commissioned projects for others, will provide you with an excellent skill for your portfolio.

Take the Class: Draw Pet Portraits with Continuous Lines on Procreate

9. Illustrate Line Art Wildflowers in Procreate

Page of a spiral-bound sketchbook with several wildflower drawings in blues, purples, yellows and greens — Inspiration from the botanical world is endless, and drawing the delicate leaves and petals is incredibly rewarding–it’s easier than you might think!

Class: Illustrate Wildflowers with Line Art in Procreate by Vinita Upadhya

What You'll Make: Using familiar flowers such as poppies, daffodils, cornflowers, daisies and tiger lilies, you’ll follow four simple steps to draw the flowers yourself in Procreate. Vinita also guides you through turning flowers into a repeating pattern and adding significant detail and color.

Who Teaches It: Vinita Upadhya is an illustrator and pattern designer specializing in detailed, delicate drawings of flowers, insects, birds, food and more. With a range of classes on Procreate illustration, she brings excellent guidance to teaching you to draw wildflowers.

Why We Love It: This class is best for someone with a basic knowledge of Proreate, although you don’t need to have advanced drawing skills. The finished product can get quite detailed, so be prepared to spend a bit more time here than you might on other projects.

Take the Class: Illustrate Line Art Wildflowers in Procreate

Start Making Line Art with Skillshare

Now that you’ve seen the variety of line art styles and exercises, it’s time to explore your own skill and style. The more you practice and experiment, the more enjoyable you’ll find the art.

Leverage these and other Skillshare classes to continue building your talent and portfolio, taking advantage of the unlimited access membership gives you to thousands of creative classes. A couple you might enjoy are:

Happy drawing!

Written By

Katie Mitchell

Katie lives in Michigan with her husband, kids and pets. She enjoys cooking, travel and live music.