During the Corvallis Art Walk, several people commented on how they appreciated the people in my drawings and their stick legs. Many people would laugh and say how they looked like the people they would draw. This got me thinking of the many people who often look at my work and then say how all they could draw is a stick figure as if this is a failure. Yet a stick figure is often the place we start drawing as kids and the human figure (stick or otherwise) can be a great place to kick off reengaging your creativity as an adult. So today I wanted to talk about fancy stick figures and how you can start drawing them.
Stick Figures Are Art
Stick figures have been an important artistic tool for 1000s of years. The cave paintings at Lascaux from 17,000 years ago depict people as stick figures. And plenty of well-known artists have used stick figures in their work since the Lascaux cave paintings. The Impressionists became masters of stick figures to suggest distance and crowds such as in Camillo Pissarro’s painting of Boulevard Montmartre (above). More recently, Picasso’s famous drawing of Don Quixote suggests the figure of Don Quixote with a few squiggles.
Coming from an architectural background, the main way I learned to draw people was as fancy stick figures. When I was in school it was an odd transitional period where hand drawn rendering was still being taught even though computer aided drafting (CAD) and digital renderings in Photoshop and Illustrator were becoming the norm. So drawing fancy stick figures was the norm for me. Also, when drawing landscapes you usually want someone in the far distance to give a sense of scale and people at a distance look like stick figures.
How to Start Drawing Stick Figures
Stick figures are a great starting place for drawing because they are simple. There is a dot or circle for the head, a vertical part for the body. From here you can get fancy and add arms and legs if you want. A stylish squiggle is always good too. Set a time for 10 minutes and fill up a page with stick figures. A few lines can convey a surprising amount of character in a person.
A more advanced version of this exercise is to find a public place and draw stick figures of people as they walk by. For this exercise it is best to find someplace with a long view, such as a coffee shop at an intersection, so you can see people at a distance. The key with this exercise is to capture what you see in the moment and then quickly move on to the next figure. The fact that people are walking by helps since you do not have much time to draw a particular individual. As you get into the flow of drawing you may be surprised at how expressive some of your stick figures turn out despite how simple they are.
Weekly Inspiration
If you want some inspiration for fancy sticks
’s Substack is a great place to explore. Nishant Jain draws fun, playful figures in small sketch books mostly using a fountain pen. Recently he has been drawing more fleshed out human figures, but his Substack is still a great place to find some inspiration for what simple human figures can look like. I also appreciate that Nishant usually uses a Lamy, which is my go-to fountain pen brand😊Drawing Events & Groups
If you are looking for a drawing group, I am hosing a group drawing time for the Sketchy Traveler community at the beginning of May. Come post your drawings and adventures on the group chat. If you are looking for drawing groups near to you the urban sketchers are a good place to start. Universities, community centers and bulletin boards are good places to look for drawing groups and times too.
Sketchy Traveler Drawing Time, May 3-4
Sketch Fest, Edmonds, Washington, July 19-21, 2024
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