Line Drawing for Seniors

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This activity can enhance participants observation skills, and strengthen hand-eye coordination. Pablo Picasso was considered a master at this medium among others. His animal line drawings are breathtaking in their simplicity.

This is one of many free activities.
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Line art is one of the seven visual elements of art along with colour, shape, value, form, texture and space. Line drawings consist of straight and curved lines drawn on plain canvas or paper.

Before the development of photography, line art was used for illustrations like cartoons, caricatures and sketches. Many famous artists delved into line art including Picasso, Vincent VanGogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Karolina Cummings and many others.

Picasso's Line drawings

This activity can enhance participants observation skills, and strengthen hand-eye coordination.

Pablo Picasso was considered a master at this medium among others. His animal line drawings are breathtaking in their simplicity.

Print and laminate Picasso’s animal drawings, show and discuss the pictures with participants and encourage them to emulate Picasso drawings or to create their own line drawings.

Show pictures of other animals/people/flowers or any other objects to provide inspiration for participants to create their own.

Line Drawing Techniques to Try

Blind Drawing - Lines that are drawn with the eyes shut. The person looks closely at an object e.g. a rose, a cat, a face then, mimics it on paper with the eye closed. There will be a lot of giggles when the drawing has no resemblance to the original object. It is a fun, and relaxing activity.

Continuous line drawing - Lines that once started the pencil never lifts from the paper. The pencil will have to move back and forth across the paper until the choice subject is finished. Erasers are not allowed. This sort of drawing encourages brain, eyes and hands to work together.

Contour drawing - Lines that outline shapes and edges of a scene or chosen subject without fine details like eyes.