Take any picture it does not just apply to cars and needs reading to fully understand real drawing methods of our time it would be a mistake to over look this guide.

The aim of this guide is to enable anyone wanting to know how to draw cars to do it without having to become a mathematical genus or expert draftsperson in the shortest amount of time possible, easily and accurately.

Following these guidelines will also give you the basics to progress your ability and skills faster than any other system I know.

This guide will also help you to develop your drawing skills into any area you wish not just drawing cars.

You can draw cars easy and accurately every time getting positive results without having to go through the tuff love method of learning. All drawing is about seeing and this method teaches you how to see without the struggle and snobbery imposed by the high art elitists because lets be fair it can be hard enough anyway even with these simple methods I am going to show you for your indulgence.

Drawing cars is not an easy task it can be very difficult because cars are liner, when designers do the drawings for cars they use very sophisticated design software on computers because every aspect needs to be exact.

Even before the advent of computer technology cars where drawn by people known as draftspeople who produced a type of drawing known as a technical drawing. In these types of drawings every aspect of the drawing is created though measurement and calculation. Technical drawing is as much about mathematics as it is about drawing in fact it is more about mathematics than it is about drawing that’s why I never had much of an interest in it as a budding artist. How wrong was I because later on in life I realized all drawing is technical but that is another story for another day.

In order to make the task of drawing cars accessible to anyone without having to be a draftsperson or serious mathematician I am going to do this the easy way?

The simplest easiest way to draw cars is to trace them.

The shock and horror of it, tracing is considered cheating by everyone except those who use it and the truth is all professional artists use it, if they say they don’t they are either mistaken or liars.

The benefits of tracing far out weigh the disadvantages that’s why professionals use it and also the reason why you can’t use it because lets be fair we can all trace pictures. It really doesn’t compare with wasting two or three hours of your time on constructing a drawing does it?

Surely it is better to waste a few weeks doing something the hard way than it is to only spend a day doing it by taking advantage of the tools developed to help and enable you to be more productive at a higher standard.

That is why designers do the drawings for cars using very sophisticated design software on computers because every aspect needs to be exact and they can do it in an instant by comparison because the software does it for them.

So who’s cheating?

I found some web sites where you can get some pictures of cars for tracing if you look at the links further down the page.

Take a picture of the car you want to draw from a magazine, brochure, book, photograph or off the internet and you can enlarge it on your computer to the size you want or make it smaller depending on your requirements. This can also be done with a photocopy machine as well because they will also zoom in or out to increase or decrease the size of the image you want to transform for drawing.

To increase or decrease the size of your image you can use a free software called IrfanView.

Down load IrfanView for capturing and resizing images off the Net.

For this example I am going to use a photograph of a Vauxhall Victor which is now a classic car because it is old. They don't make them anymore which is probably why it has some appeal to me plus I remember them as a child being something of awe.

I have printed the picture out onto A4 paper in gray scale so I can see the tonal values of the image better and since I am doing a drawing I do not need color to produce the end result.

These are the materials I am going to use to create my drawing.

A3 spiral bound drawing pad of fairly decent quality cartridge paper, this is twice as big as the picture I am going to draw because I always feel that I can crop a picture smaller but I can't ever make it bigger once it is completed. If I draw it onto a bigger piece of paper then I can if I want to add other images to it and form a composition because I have given myself the space around the drawing to be able to do that.

The other tools are a soft black pencil known as a 2B pencil the one I always use for drafting is a 0.5 technical drawing pencil that has very thin fine graphite sticks inserted inside it that feed out of the end when you press the button on the top. I use this pencil because it is always sharp and can produce a very fine line without scouring the paper caused by pressing too hard if you do press too hard it brakes the graphite stick because it is very soft. I also use traditional 4B and 6B pencils because you can create very dark tones almost black with them and Very light tones by softly stroking the paper with them, practice a little with these pencils and you will realize what I mean.

I also use graphite sticks that are large pieces of graphite that can be used to cover large areas of paper with little effort.

The humble pencil must be the real arts legend as much as charcoal is the god parent, it must have truly revolutionized drawing in it’s time and where would we be without it?

Hard pencils go from H, 2H and upwards to 9H the higher the number the harder they get.

Soft pencils go from B, 2B, and upwards to 9B the higher the number the softer they get.

In between these is the Hard Black or HB which is the most used pencil in the universe.

How do I trace my image?

I hold the printed image up to the light with the back of it facing me so as to be able to see it faintly through the paper. This is so I can mark out the area with a soft pencil this does not have to be completely accurate it is only a ruff guide.

Then I place the image face down onto a surface and where I have made the marks as a ruff guide I then proceed to completely fill the area in with the graphite stick so there is no white of the paper showing. When I have completed this process my picture is ready to be traced onto the A3 drawing pad and this is how it works.

The graphite on the back of the image can be transferred onto the drawing pad when I redraw over the image, the pressure of the pencil drawing over the top produces faint lines by transferring the graphite onto the clean paper surface.

So to trace my image I then place it onto the A3 drawing pad and position it where I want it because this is not a compositional piece I place it in the center and fasten it down with blue tack in the corners so it doesn't move. If it does move when you are tracing the image it will spoil the construction drawing because the lines will not match or correspond with each other.

Then using the 0.5 technical drawing pencil I draw over the image following the lines trying to create as much detail as possible this needs to be done methodically so you don't forget where you are or what you have or haven't drawn. I always start by drawing the main outline first then the wheels and then adding the details like lights, windows, mirrors, trims, door handles, door lines and working downwards from the biggest to the smallest.

If you do lose your place and need to know where you are then it is possible to very carefully lift one side of the picture off so you can see the image underneath. Remember though you need to be careful because if it does not go back in the right spot it will ruin your drawing. When you are satisfied that you have done enough you can then remove the image to reveal what is underneath it is again best to do this by only removing one side first just in case you need to do more work on it. If you do miss things out don't worry because with having so much information already on the paper you will find it much easier to fill in any small details free hand later.

Now after doing this we have the basic construction that has been reproduced onto the pad, doing a drawing in this way makes life much easier because construction is everything. If you create a good drawing getting the construction right other mistakes will not be so apparent. How to draw cars as with any drawing if you get the construction wrong then the end result will never look right and as you progress to do your shading and tonal modeling it will look even worse.

Now I expect that you don’t just want to be tracing cars for the rest of your life and although it is a great teaching method for getting you to look and actually see it will not enable you to develop your creative skills to make your own designs.

The next method will enable you to develop your skills further and become less restrained. If you have been experimenting and developing your skills with the tracing method you should now have feeling for drawing cars which will make this next method easier. Soon you will be feeling confident enough to push the boundaries further and risk being more experimental or creative.

My advice now would be after working hard drawing cars using the tracing method to move away from it and try using the grid method of drawing. Many artists use this method all their life once it is mastered and create some great pieces of art.

Drawing cars can be done by using a viewing grid take a look at the example below where I have taken the picture of a Vauxhall Victor and divided it into a grid by using lines. This was done using computer software but you can do it by using a ruler and measuring out the lines equally like in the example below, the grid will enable you to better find and define the areas you need to draw.

Using this grid method means that in the future you will be able to scale your drawings to any size bigger or smaller depending on the size of drawing you want. Measure the size of your picture and then divide or multiply the number to make your picture bigger or smaller. Measure the length and height of your picture, so for example if it is 24cm wide and 18cm high then you can divided it by six giving you 12 squares in your grid. That’s four squares along the width and three along the height this might be easier to understand by looking at the picture below that I have started. A word of advice the more squares you have the easier it will be to construct your drawing because you will have more points of reference I would advise you to use 3cm squares not 6cm like I have making it 24 squares in total.

Now what you do is work out where lines cross your grid lines to give you reference points to be able to work out where the different lines and marks go because you are using a grid the area you are working in is lot smaller. This makes it easier because it enables you to keep things in proportion and not have to think to hard about perspective. In the above picture notice how I have started by doing the front of the car and very little of the rest so I can do the detail square by square until it is complete. Don’t worry too much if the first couple of attempts don’t work out as well as you would like they will with a little practice and you will soon get quite competent at doing this. Below you will find some pictures of my progress using this method of construction.

Master this grid method and you will soon be able to draw anything not just cars to any size you want. Some people make them selves a viewing grid out of clear plastic sheeting with lines drawn onto it so they can place it in front of them to draw anything anywhere, landscapes, people, buildings or objects just about anything.

1. I have traced the main body of the car without the wheels and top half of the roof.

2. I have drawn in the wheels from the very first picture of the corvette and made them fit the body but lowered it so it is nearer the ground and lowered the roof so it makes the car look longer. This is very much like using the grid method because the tracing has given me reference points to work from.

3. I have combined all the information gathered and made a mash up thus creating my very own unique car from the learning I have acquired whilst putting this information together.

I hope this gives you the insight, enthusiasm and knowledge to now create your own mash up and develop your drawing skills.

Thank you for your time and I wish you much success and enjoyment.