"I couldn't draw a straight line if my life depended on it." You've heard that one before? Honestly, I'd be hard pressed to do the same. You don't need to know how to draw a straight line. Relatively straight is close enough most of the time and when it's not we have easy remedies called rulers.

You only need to find the lines of the image you are drawing. Nothing more, or less. Here are a few things to consider as you create a drawings with lines.

In this example, the apple and decoration on the left were drawn with a flat line of unvarying thickness. The foreground apple was drawn using thick and thin lines to accent it's form and shape.

Using expressive lines when you draw helps you anchor and accent the elements in your drawing and instills a liveliness in even the most mundane image.

Pencils wear at an angle. As the point wears down sharp side edges are constantly forming. By rolling your pencil as you draw, you can "catch an edge" and find the thickness or thinness you need to make something interesting happen in your drawing.

The sharp point of a freshly sharpened pencil offers you the greatest precision with it's fine line. As you draw the point will wear down and the stroke will thicken.

In this example the left side was drawn with a sharp #1B pencil. The right side of the drawing was done with the same pencil after it was worn down.

Notice a difference?

The left side of this sketch was drawn with a 2H lead. The right side was drawn with a #1B pencil.

The darkest tone of the 2H lead area is a light silver gray. The 1B pencil side has a more complete tonal range that includes a fuller range of medium to dark grays.

Use a soft pencil to get greater variation in tone.

OK, technically a dot is not a line. It's not a tone either, unless it congregates with others.