How to Draw Perfect Circles (Freehand)

This week we saw:

1. How to draw straight lines
2. How to draw perfect squares

To carry on your progress on your sketching daily routine,
let’s look at How to draw awesome circles!

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How to Draw Perfect Circles

Before starting,
feel free to download the Designer Starter Kit.
to see how to start design sketching for beginners in good conditions.

Drawing circles is easy!

Today we see an exercise
and it’s going to be about drawing circles.

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Draw circles with 1 point connection

Start drawing a circle

So I start with one,
then for the second one, I visualize a point of connection
that allows me to make another connection.

Then why not do it with two-point connections
to raise the difficulty?

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Drawing a circle with 2 points in connection

Do the same with 2 points of contact

It is all about starting the circle with light pen pressure.

As you can see,
I double or even triple the ring of the circle

So I get thicker on my line weight
when I get more confident.

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Common mistakes

1- The Elbow is resting on the table (Potato circle)

So let’s see here some common mistakes
we do when we are beginners.

The first one will be:

Trying to draw a circle like some now like
somehow a potato chip I would say.

Then it’s starting to be flat at the bottom of it.

If you are right-handed
it might be happening from the right.

If you are left-handed,
it will be on the other side of the circle.

Why because

It’s mostly because our elbow is on the table.

So make sure that your elbow is free of movement.
And that you draw with your full arm.

It will help you to draw better circles easily!

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2- Unfinished circle

The second common mistake is
when your circle is unfinished.

So once again,
it’s pretty convenient to double or triple the ring.

Then you have more chance to finish it and to make so much nicer shape.

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3- The shy circle

For the third mistake,
the circle is too shy, when it’s a bit too slow
and when we are not confident.

So the idea here is
to draw with the “GHOSTDRAWING”
to get the necessary momentum.

The ghost drawing allows us to have
very free lines for the circles.

Don’t try to be perfect,
as long as the circle looks good
you will be alright.

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Fix your drawing Posture

Here, is a small drawing of the posture
you should get
whenever you’ll draw a straight line, a square, everything.

I think I will never repeat that thing enough again

because that’s really important.

Don’t get that bad rotational axis from your arm.

Make sure to let your elbow free of movement.

If your elbow rests on the table,
it will act like the center of rotation of a compass.

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Draw circles with 3 points of connection

Let’s draw even more circles.

So you can even try to connect with three points.

To make it more challenging like here
is to fill a maximum number of circles.

And remember to try something
from small to bigger size of circles.

It’s pretty cool to be able to draw
with a good variety.

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Ghost drawing tip

Let’s look at a bigger view
of what is important here:

The ghost drawing

• Make sure to simulate well your movement
• before tracing your circle.
• When your pen tip gets in contact
  with your paper, start with low pressure.
• Don’t start with too high pressure.
  The importance is to try to get that momentum and confidence
  before even starting to draw the circle.

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Draw as many circles as you can!

Feel free to draw as many as you can.

Try to practice with that exercise
on multiple pieces of paper.

See yah!

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If you are passionate about Design Sketching,
and you wonder how to start?

Feel free to download the Designer Starter Kit!

See yah!

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See you for the next tutorial!
We’ll talk about How to sharpen your sense of proportions.