How to Draw What You See
Retrain your eye to bypass mental shortcuts, capture real shapes accurately, and turn flat outlines into convincing three-dimensional drawings.
Like Duolingo, but for How to Draw What You See. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Seeing and Structuring Shapes and Bringing Forms to Life. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in How to Draw What You See
- The brain substitutes memorized shorthand symbols for what the eyes actually see
- Looking at actual edges and unique contours breaks the habit of drawing generic symbols
- Drawing real shapes requires observing specific angles rather than drawing what you know an object is supposed to look like
- Blind contour drawing requires your pencil to move at the exact same pace your eye crawls along the edge
- Looking down at your paper breaks the tracking lock between eye movement and hand movement
- Rushing ahead lets the brain revert to drawing imagined shapes rather than the true edge
- Negative space is the shape of the empty air surrounding or framed between objects
- Drawing the empty 'air gaps' fools the brain into seeing abstract shapes without mental baggage
- Accurately tracing the boundaries of negative shapes automatically locks the positive subject into correct proportion
- Keeping your arm fully extended with a locked elbow keeps measurements consistent
- Tilting the pencil across your vision lets you compare the subject's slant against an imagined vertical or horizontal grid line
- Bringing the locked angle down to your paper lets you plot the correct slant without guessing
- Complex objects share structural qualities with basic 3D shapes
- Elongated rounded forms simplify into cylinders
- Flat-sided angular objects reduce to boxes while round objects reduce to spheres
- Drawing as if an object is made of glass keeps opposite faces aligned
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How to Draw What You See the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What is the best way to stop your brain from drawing generic symbols?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where How to Draw What You See takes you
- 1
Seeing and Structuring Shapes
- Drawing What You Actually See
- Constructing Depth with Simple Forms
- 2
Bringing Forms to Life
- Confident Lines and Mark-Making
- Shading Form with Light and Value
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
How to Draw What You See is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start How to Draw What You See today.
Download Tomo, search How to Draw What You See, and play your first lesson in under a minute.