I wish I could draw. Maybe if I took a course and practiced I could. Or maybe not. I can fake it though. With my camera and Photoshop, I can turn a photo into a line drawing. You can too.

I don’t do tutorials on this blog, so I recommend you put “line art from photoshop” or “using photoshop to make line art” into your favorite browser and get directions from someone who knows what they’re doing. I downloaded directions about fifteen years ago and now I just go to the file and follow the printed directions.  This little trick fits into the category, “I enjoy playing around.”

In the spirit of doing something completely different and playing around I did some studio shots a couple of summers ago and “flipped” them to line art in photoshop. I was pleased with the results, so I printed out a few and posted them on the walls of my classroom. They hung next to maps, posters, student work, and other things I placed in the room to direct teens when they became bored hearing me go on about a president or Napoleon, or something else me and the state of California thought budding citizens should know about. If you remember your high school history, I’m sure you can relate.

One day while I was reminding the students I couldn’t draw one of them spoke up and pointed to these line drawings and exclaimed that the entire class simply didn’t believe me.

I confess I was a bit incredulous. I knew I couldn’t draw, and I wasn’t pulling anyone’s leg. They knew I was a photographer as some of my work would augment the curriculum during the year. But the students didn’t know I had used this cleaver trick of turning photos into line drawings. So, I explained it to them. I’m not sure all of them believed me.,

So here are a few drawings that my pencil never drew. Even today I’d have to put these photographs on a light table to trace them, if I was so interested. Frankly, I’m happy to print them. It’s less work.

I really can’t draw.

If you try this or have done it in the past, let me know in the comments.

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