Hello,
I'm very new to drawing and just trying to get the techniques and feel for it down right now. One thing I'm having the most trouble with is hatching when the marks need to be longer (such as in the lesson F10, Serene Scenes). My scene itself looks ok, but the hatching does not look at all smooth and the lines are wavy rather than nice and straight like in the sample. Is there a technique for hatching that helps to make longer lines smooth? Or is it just practice? So far I've done the lesson three times and my lines aren't very neat in any of them.
Thank you for any advice!

It is a learned skill through time. It seems that if you try to draw slowly to ensure evenness then you lose flow. If you draw fast the lines might not follow the contour you need them to follow. Somewhere inbetween is the skill or art to do proper hatching. It is not by any means easy. I personally have little skill at it. Practice. Also notice that like the shadows hatching represents you need to have a realistic amount of fade. Shadows don't usually stop all at once but fade out. Brenda is an absolute master at hatching look at her work in detail and especialy watch how she shifts to lighter tones.

The classic advice here is to draw from the elbow, not the wrist. If you're drawing from the wrist, then your hand is pivoting around a point very close to it, and you can't draw a very long straight line without curving. But if you draw from the elbow, you have a much longer lever arm and the curvature is not apparent.

I'm not saying this is what I do, mind you; just what I've been told.

nice answers - I have the same problem with this ..... ( ) lines!
for the moment I decided to try and to practice this not in drawings but anywhere else. in drawings I am smoothing at the moment ... more my style I think ... although: I am still trying!

Maybe you could just take a piece of plane A4 paper, and try to draw lines in every direction possible (up-down, left to right)-, and in time, you'll see that you actually developed a skill.. of drawing straight lines.
I had to do that when I was preparing myself for some exams at The Faculty of Architecture, and it was just too boring, and my head wanted to implode when I tried to draw straight lines from right to left( ), but something actually came out of it.... eventually

Rainy, I am SO glad you asked this! I was actually planning to ask a similar question later this evening.

Is this hatching supposed to be slow and controlled, or with quick, short movements? Because the first way, my lines are too thick, too dark, and kind of jiggly. But with the quick ones then I don't really have any control over them. This is especially a delimma for the curved lines.

So keep the tips coming, I need all the help I can get!

hunneebee

i usually do my hatching quickly, but slower for longer lines. If you keep practising it gets easier to do the quick lines that are straight.

I agree about drawing from the elbow to give straighter lines. Also, try to draw in one direction ie. down strokes and not up and down strokes

Thanks for all the advice everyone! I have been doing some lessons two or three times. . . and without fail I notice that I do a better job on subsequent tries. But the longer hatching is something I definitely need more work on. Does anyone know offhand other lessons besides the Serene Scene and the mountains that have those. . . ?

I would say for general practise just draw random objects and use hatching only for shading. That way you get practise with the longer and shorter lines and also switching between the two