An Artist’s Guide to Seeing the World Anew

Learning to draw isn’t simply about putting pencil to paper—it’s about learning to see. For most of us, our eyes work just fine, but our minds play tricks. We often see what we think is there, rather than what’s actually before us. That’s where my framework of the Five Lenses of Drawing What You See comes in.

Each lens represents a distinct way of looking at the world—like a set of optical tools that sharpen different aspects of your perception. Mastering these lenses helps you move from flat, uncertain sketches to drawings that capture the depth, energy, and richness of real life.

In this overview, I’ll introduce you to the five lenses:

1. Gesture Drawing

2. Sighting and Measuring

3. Form and Structure (Planar Analysis + Hatching)

4. Light and Shadow

5. Color

Future articles will go deeper into each lens, but for now, let’s explore how they work together to transform the way you see and draw.

Lens 1: Gesture Drawing – Capturing Energy and the Whole

Gesture is where every drawing should begin. It’s not about the details—it’s about the essence.

A gesture drawing is a quick sketch that captures a subject’s movement, rhythm, and basic structure. Instead of drawing one part at a time, you train yourself to see the whole at once. Think of it as sketching the “soul” of what you’re observing.

Most beginners naturally want to dive into details: the eyelashes, the leaves, the buttons on a jacket. But without the gesture as a foundation, those details often float in the wrong place or feel lifeless. Gesture allows you to place everything else in context.

It’s also an antidote to overthinking. By working fast—30 seconds, one minute, or five minutes—you bypass the logical part of your brain and tap into a more intuitive way of seeing. As Betty Edwards wrote in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, this shift from analytical to intuitive perception is at the heart of learning to draw.

Gesture is your warm-up, your starting point, and your compass. Every drawing, whether of a figure, a still life, or a landscape, benefits from it.

Lens 2: Sighting and Measuring – Building Accuracy and Proportion

Once the gesture is established, the next step is accuracy: making sure objects sit in the right place and relate correctly to one another. That’s where sighting and measuring come in.

This process is all about comparing what you see to what you’ve already drawn. Artists hold out a pencil, stick, or chopstick at arm’s length to align, measure, and capture angles. With practice, this becomes second nature.

Here’s what sighting helps you do:

• Placement: Where objects sit on the picture plane (closer, farther, higher, lower).

• Alignments: Checking vertical and horizontal relationships (e.g., does the top of the vase line up with the fruit beside it?).

• Proportion and Scale: Comparing height to width, or one object’s size against another.

• Angles: Matching the tilt of a roofline or the slant of an arm.

It may feel awkward at first—standing at arm’s length from your drawing, checking angles with a stiff arm—but this discipline trains your eye. Over time, you’ll catch subtle mistakes before they throw off the whole picture.

Think of sighting as putting a map under your gesture. It doesn’t stiffen the drawing; it clarifies it.

Lens 3: Form and Structure – Planar Analysis and Hatching

Once gesture gives you flow and sighting ensures accuracy, you need to start thinking in three dimensions. This is the domain of form and structure.

The challenge of drawing is translating a 3D world onto a flat page. Two powerful techniques help with this:

Planar Analysis

Planar analysis (above left) is the practice of breaking complex forms into simpler flat surfaces, or “planes.” Imagine carving a sphere into facets like a gemstone or simplifying a head into angular planes.

This method teaches you to see beyond surface detail into the underlying structure. It’s like x-ray vision for artists. Once you can interpret forms as planes, you’ll find it easier to shade, hatch, and describe them convincingly.

Hatching to Create Form

Hatching (above right) —using repeated parallel or cross lines—is another way to reveal form. By following the contours or planes of an object, hatching turns flat shapes into dimensional ones. Instead of coloring in areas, you build them up gradually, suggesting curvature, depth, and weight.

Together, planar analysis and hatching shift your drawing from outline to volume. They help you construct rather than copy, and they give your drawings solidity.

Lens 4: Value- as it relates to Light and Shadow

Once form is established, the next lens is light and shadow, or what artists call value.

Value is the contrast between light and dark, and it’s the most powerful dimension of visual art. Strong differences in value can make objects leap forward or recede, while subtle gradations can suggest softness, atmosphere, and mood.

Key concepts in this lens include:

• The Rule of Light and Shadow: The darkest light is still lighter than the lightest shadow.

• Core Shadows and Cast Shadows: The inner curve of darkness on a form vs. the shadow it casts on another surface.

• Light Source Awareness: How direct vs. diffused light changes the sharpness of shadows.

Mastering light and shadow is like turning on the stage lights in a play—it reveals the drama, focus, and emotional weight of the scene.

Many artists create underpaintings in grayscale before adding color, precisely because value is so foundational. If your value structure is strong, the drawing will hold together even without color.

Lens 5: Color – Hue, Value, and Saturation

Finally, we arrive at the most relative, subtle, and sometimes tricky lens: color.
Color has three main dimensions:

1. Hue – Where the color sits on the spectrum (red, blue, yellow, etc.).

2. Value – How light or dark the color is.

3. Saturation – How pure or muted the color appears.
   

On top of this, color is influenced by context. A red next to green looks more intense; a yellow in shadow may not look yellow at all. Color is relational—it shifts depending on light, surrounding hues, and even our perception.

When painting or drawing in color, it’s helpful to distinguish between local color (what we “know” an object’s color to be, like “lemons are yellow”) and observed color (what we actually see under specific lighting). Impressionist painters like Monet showed us that skies aren’t always blue, shadows can be violet, and light can completely transform a scene.

Learning to work with hue, value, and saturation, while also training your eye to see relative color shifts, opens an entirely new world of expressive possibilities.

Why the Five Lenses Matter

Each lens builds on the last:

• Gesture gives you the whole.

• Sighting and Measuring ensures accuracy.

• Form and Structure create volume.

• Light and Shadow add depth and atmosphere.

• Color enriches and completes the picture.

By practicing each lens, you’re not just learning techniques—you’re rewiring the way you see. Drawing becomes less about “making a picture” and more about understanding the visual world.

Final Thoughts: Learning to See Like an Artist

The Five Lenses of Drawing What You See aren’t rules to memorize, but ways of seeing to practice. They transform drawing from a frustrating search for likeness into a journey of discovery.

Each lens is a different tool, but together they create clarity. You’ll learn to capture energy, place objects accurately, construct forms, bring them to life with light, and finally enrich them with color.

Over the next series of blog posts, we’ll dive deeper into each lens—starting with gesture drawing—so you can apply them step by step in your own practice.

Drawing is less about “talent” and more about training your eyes and hands to see in new ways. With the Five Lenses, you’ll discover that you can learn to draw—and more importantly, you’ll rediscover the joy of seeing the world with fresh eyes.