#oneaday, Day 211: The Only Art Lesson You Will Ever Need

“I can’t draw!” I hear you cry, assuming you’re shouting about not being able to draw at this exact moment, which you probably aren’t. But no matter! Help is at hand. You don’t have to be an excellent artist to be able to draw things that are distinctive and interesting. I’m going to let you into the secrets of my own craft which you have doubtless seen throughout this blog. The art of the stickman.

I’ll tell you a secret: I can draw. Sort of. Not great, and I’ve never studied it or had any particularly formal training. But I can sort of draw. I just choose not to when it comes to the pictures on this blog, because ever since secondary school when my good buddy Ed “Roth Dog” Padgett and I discovered that stickmen are actually the most expressive things in the universe, we’ve often chosen to stick to stickmen, no pun intended. On a side note, Roth actually can draw, as you’ll see here.

But anyway. Let’s begin.

Step 1: Pose

When you’re drawing a stick person, the first thing you need to consider is what they’re going to be doing. Since the body is very simple and you’re going to spend most of the time on the face, this is a simple matter of making a quick decision. Most people stick to the traditional model (figure 1, but you can get stick figures doing all manner of weird and wonderful things (figure 2) even before you’ve put a face on them. Remember to add feet. Feet make poses more versatile. Adding feet to your stickmen is the difference between standing casually and tapping its foot impatiently.

Step 2a: Normal faces

The next step, which a lot of people leave out, stopping at step 1, is to add a face to your stickman. You only need three lines to put a face on a stickman. Two vertical lines for eyes, and one horizontal or curvy line for a mouth. These lines can be modified to produce a variety of expressions (figure 3).

Step 2b: Open-mouthed faces

If one of the closed-mouth expressions just isn’t expressing things expressively enough for you, then you may wish to consider opening your stickman’s mouth. What you put inside your stickman’s mouth can make a large amount of difference to what the expression means (figure 4).

Step 2c: Exaggerated faces

If none of the above faces are quite getting across what you are trying to say with your stickman, then simply throw any semblance of realism out of the window and do something ridiculous. These are stickmen, after all. They can do whatever the hell you damn well want (figure 5).

Step 3: Detail

Once you’ve come up with a pose and a face, all you need to do is add some individuality to the stickman by adding some detail. This is normally done via the medium of hair. Creating different stickman characters is a simple matter of giving them different hairstyles. No-one will ever notice that they have the same faces and poses. You can even change a stick person’s gender at the drop of a hat simply by changing the hairstyle (figure 6).

And with just those three steps, you are officially done! You have created your own unique character. Congratulations. You’re a cartoonist.