Start here: how to hold the pen
Ten minutes on grip, speed and pressure. Everything else in this section assumes you have done this once.
Draft copy. This piece was written during the site build and is waiting on an editorial pass — the facts are checked, the prose is not final.
Most people hold a pen for drawing exactly as they hold it for writing, and then wonder why their lines wobble.
Three grips, three jobs
Writing grip — fingers near the tip, hand resting on the page. Precision, small marks, detail. This is the one you already have.
Overhand grip — pen held across the fingers with the thumb on top, hand off the page, movement from the elbow. Long lines, big curves, anything over about ten centimetres.
Tripod at distance — normal grip but holding the pen about four centimetres further back. A useful middle setting, and the one most people never try.
The drill
Draw twenty horizontal lines across a page, each one in a single movement, from the elbow, with the pen held overhand. Do not go slowly. Speed is what makes a line straight — slow lines wobble because your hand has time to correct, and every correction shows.
Then draw twenty more in writing grip and compare. The difference is the lesson.
Pressure
One weight, all the way along. If your line gets thicker at the end you are pressing as you tire. Put the pen down lighter than feels right and let the ink do it.
Next lesson
Straight lines and circles without a ruler
Two drills, twenty minutes, and the reason your circles close badly.
Keep going
Other lessons
Dot grids: your first kolam
A 3×3 grid, one unbroken line, about fifteen minutes. The oldest drawing lesson there is.
Dividing a circle: the root of every mandala
Six, eight and twelve divisions with a compass. Half an hour, and after it the geometry families stop being mysterious.
Building a girih pattern from the five tiles
Draw the tile set, lay it out, then draw the strapwork across it and rub the tiles out. Forty-five minutes.