Perception of Edges – The Five Basic Skills of Drawing – Part 1 by Dan Johnson Image courtesy of Martin Moucha This is the first in a series of posts looking at the Five Basic Skills of Drawing . If you want to improve the accuracy and realism of your artwork, be it drawing, painting, sculpture, whatever, the best thing you can do is study the basic principles of drawing. In her classic book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain , Betty Edwards defines the five basic skills of drawing as: The Perception of Edges The Perception of Spaces The Perception of relationships The Perception of lights and shadows The Perception of the Whole, or Gestalt Let’s take a look at the first of those skills – The Perception of Edges – and see how it can help improve our drawing. What is an Edge? In drawing, an edge is a boundary that separates two areas . We are all introduced to the concept of edges in drawing from an early age, when we draw lines to ...