Draw Without Lifting Your Pen
Practice drawing continuous line pictures without lifting your pen, creating animals and shapes while learning planning, spatial reasoning, and problem solving through fun drawing puzzles.
Step-by-step guide to draw without lifting your pen
Continuous Line Drawing Tutorial for KIDS
Step 1
Gather all your materials and put them on a flat table so everything is easy to reach.
Step 2
Choose an animal or simple shape you want to draw like a cat butterfly fish or tree.
Step 3
On scrap paper lightly sketch a simple route with your pencil that would draw the animal in one continuous line.
Step 4
Decide where to begin on your main paper and make a small pencil dot to mark your starting point.
Step 5
Put your pen on the starting dot and start drawing the animal in one continuous line without lifting your pen.
Step 6
Slow down and quietly imagine the next part of the line before you move so you avoid getting stuck.
Step 7
Add features like eyes legs or wings by curving and looping the same continuous line so you never lift the pen.
Step 8
Let the ink dry for a moment so it does not smear.
Step 9
Gently erase any pencil guide marks you drew so only the continuous ink line remains.
Step 10
Colour or decorate your continuous-line picture using your colouring materials.
Step 11
Share your finished continuous-line animal on DIY.org
Final steps
You're almost there! Complete all the steps, bring your creation to life, post it, and conquer the challenge!
Help!?
What can we use instead of a pen if we don't have one?
If you don't have a pen, use a fine-tip marker or a sharpened pencil for step 5's continuous line, but if you use a permanent marker skip erasing in step 9 and be sure to let the ink dry in step 8 to avoid smears.
I keep getting stuck and accidentally lifting my pen—how can I fix that?
If you get stuck during step 6, pause and quietly imagine the next curve as the instructions say, rehearse the route on scrap paper from step 3, and if you do lift your pen connect the gap with a small loop so the final ink line still looks continuous before erasing pencil guides in step 9.
How can I change this activity for different ages?
For younger kids simplify the sketch in step 3 to very basic shapes and give them chunky colouring materials for step 10, while older kids can choose more detailed animals, use thinner pens for step 5, or add a time challenge to increase difficulty.
How can we make the finished continuous-line drawing more special or personal?
To enhance the result after step 8, add watercolor washes behind the dried ink, glue on small collage pieces around the edges during step 10, or write a short story about your continuous-line animal and then share it on DIY.org as instructed.
Watch videos on how to draw without lifting your pen
The FACE GAME: How to Draw Continuous Line, Art for Kids with Rob the Art Teacher
4 Videos
The FACE GAME: How to Draw Continuous Line, Art for Kids with Rob the Art Teacher
How to Draw a Continuous Line Drawing: One Line Art Challenge
How to Make a Continuous Line Drawing | Tate Kids
Continuous line drawing lesson
Facts about drawing and spatial reasoning
✏️ Blind contour drawing asks you to keep your eyes on the subject instead of the paper — great for training careful observation!
🧠 Drawing without lifting your pen exercises planning and spatial reasoning — it's like solving a little visual maze with your pencil.
🖼️ Line art uses only lines (no shading) — continuous line drawings are a playful style where the pen never leaves the page.
🐂 Pablo Picasso made many famous single-line animal sketches that capture lots of personality with very few strokes.
🌉 The 'draw without lifting your pen' idea links to Euler's Königsberg bridges problem, a classic puzzle that helped start graph theory.
How to do the activity
Materials needed
Suitable age groups
Benefits of the activity
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