Drawing Practice Sheets – 9 Drills: Lines, Ellipses, Shading

The 9 drills

Show the table

Five minutes of drills before drawing does what scales do for a pianist. The line drills show their first stroke, so nobody has to guess what is asked, and a new sheet moves the dots, so the hand learns the movement and not the page. The left-handed layout mirrors the line drills, so the stroke that is drawn for you is not under the drawing hand.

Drill	What it is and what it trains
Parallel lines	Pairs of dots to join with one stroke, across, down and on a slant. It trains drawing from the shoulder, without a ruler.
Curves between dots	Sets of three or four dots to join with one smooth curve. It trains a steady swing of the arm.
Ellipses	Boxes and a funnel to fill with ellipses. Round, even ellipses are what cups, wheels and cylinders are made of.
Shapes to copy	Five plain shapes to copy at the same size into the boxes under them. It trains judging lengths and angles by eye.
3D forms	A cube, a cylinder, a cone and a sphere, shaded for a light from one side, each over an empty box to copy it into.
Five-step value scale	Five boxes from white to black over five empty ones. The three steps in between should look evenly spaced.
Nine-step value scale	Nine boxes from white to black: finer control of pressure, and the scale most drawing courses use.
Hatching	Four boxes of marks (hatching, cross-hatching and two more) to repeat in the empty boxes under them at the same spacing.
Repeat the pattern	The start of a line pattern to carry on to the edge of the page at the same size and rhythm.

Every sheet has a short code, printed at the foot of each page, so loose pages can be matched again. A share link brings the same sheet back, line for line. Every drawing is made by this page from plain lines and shapes: no clip art, nothing to license.

How it works

These drawing exercises worksheets print each drill as an example with empty room beside it: lines, curves, ellipses, shapes, 3D forms, value scales, hatching and patterns. Every press moves the dots and turns the forms.

Read the full guide

Pick the drills

The sheet opens with lines, curves, ellipses and shapes. Switch on 3D forms, a value scale, hatching or a pattern and each adds a block; a long sheet runs onto a second page.

Level and drawing hand

Beginner drills are larger and fewer. Intermediate ones are smaller, with longer lines and flatter ellipses. Choose Left and the drills that start from an example are mirrored, so your hand does not cover it.

Questions and answers

Are there shading exercises?

Yes. Switch on the five-step or nine-step value scale, hatching and 3D forms. Hatching builds tone from close parallel lines; cross-hatching lays a second set at an angle across them. The forms come with an arrow for the light.

Is it good for drawing simple shapes?

Yes. Shapes to copy prints five shapes, such as a circle, a triangle and a half circle, above empty boxes of the same size. At Intermediate they become stars, hexagons and crescents.

How is this different from the warm-up exercises page?

Drawing warm-up exercises is a timed routine for blank paper. This page is the printed sheet itself, with a drawn example beside every space you fill.